Just a quick course report from the rec 3 course I just finished with Rich Walker (there will be a more detailed course report in the November-ish issue of GUE-UKs Wetnotes).
Last Saturday, I flew out from the UK to Croatia and met the rest of the team for Rec 3. All we needed to do was get ourselves to Croatia (flew into Pula on the Istrian Peninsula), everything else, from transportation and accommodation to cylinders, gas and diving was handled by Krnica Dive in Krnica. Myself and my teammate Marc landed about the same time at the tiny little airport and met each other and one of the guys from the dive centre who took us to our accommodation for the week and showed us where the pizza place was. Originally we were going to meet Rich for food and drink, but he was stuck in traffic somewhere between Italy and Krnica, so we had a few pints and headed off to bed as we had theory starting at 9am the next day.
The classroom was located just underneath our apartment, which was handy. The morning was spent going through the first module of academics, which was an overview of the course. In the afternoon, we were off to dive centre. Walking into this dive centre is like a diver's wet dream. There were loads of twinsets, both 12L and 18L, stages ranging in size from ali 40s, ali 7s, and ali 80s, plus suit inflate bottles, loads of bp/ws, regs, etc. There was enough kit to keep at 15-20 GUE divers happy, plus a gas room with loads of helium and O2. We picked up some twinsets, a stage and a suit inflate bottle, set-up our kit, and labeled some kit boxes that we would use for the week to store our kit.
Once our kit was set-up, we went made our way to the boat (the beach that is normally used for shallow critical skills dives was packed) and went off to a shallow reef. Basically, the first couple of dives were a fundies review, with a 7 litre stage bottle attached. Things like valve drills, propulsion, s drills, and blob deployment were practiced. After a good 2.5 hours in the water, we headed back in, put our kit away and headed back to the classroom. We had a video debrief with some stuff to work on the next day. After everyone showered, we went to the first of many nights of pizza and beer for dinner. Because we were in Croatia and the water was quite warm, I decided to nix the 300 gram undersuit and just wear my base layer. Bad idea as even with no weight on, I was overweighted. The next day, I would need my undersuit.
Day 2 we headed back to the dive centre in the morning. We we starting off the day with field drill on stage handling and learning and practicing how to properly signal and switch to our stage bottles, as well as sharing deco gas. After we finished the field drills, we headed down to the beach. We did a bit more propulsion practice, light communication (which is hard in clear water), and switching to our stages and ascending, sharing deco gas etc., putting up dsmbs, and all sorts. On the surface interval, we had more field drills. This time we were learning about simple manifold failures and how to deal with them. The second dive of the day dealt with that, and shutting down offending posts, etc. Because it was a recreational course, there was no bubble gun and we basically told which post was bubbling (if it was a hose or the first stage), shut it down and call the team in to look at it. Rich was essentially in charge of letting us know whether it was still broken or fixed. More work with the stages were done as well. At the end of the day, we had another debrief and the second theory lesson. I was still overweighted and had to borrow an ali backplate from the dive centre as I had no weight to shed (I was seriously glad to get home and dive my fabers today. I'm not a fan of euro cylinders) From there, we had more pizza and beer.
Day three was all about ascents. Once we got our kit together, we were back on the boat to get to some deeper water. On the boat ride out, Rich gave Marc and I a task for the first dive. We had to make note of how much gas we were using throughout the dive (which we would need for the gas management module), which would be accomplished by swimming a few minutes out on a reef and coming back. The first dive was to 15 metres, we had a bit of swim about, took our SPG readings, and then it was time to work on ascents. We worked on speed (9m/min, 6m/min, 3m/min, 1m/min), gas switching, gas sharing, deploying blobs, etc. We did lots of ascents. Second dive was more of the same, but this time we were going to do it from 30m. Same thing, lots of ascents, gas sharing, gas switching, deco gas sharing, blob deployment, and a bit of reef swimming about. We were really comfortable with ascents by the end of the day. More debriefing and theory. We were then off for pizza and beer (are you sensing a theme here?).
Day 4 was the first of our experience dives. It was about a 45 minute drive to the boat, and another 30 minutes to the wreck. We were going to be diving the SS Lina (using 21/35), which starts in about 27m of water (the bow), and the stern is in about 55m. Obviously, we would not be going to the stern, but could go as far as the funnel. The plan was for a 25 minute bottom time with an average depth of around 30m. Which is exactly what we did. The diving in Croatia is amazing. The wrecks are in pristine condition, there is vis, and it's warm. Even though there is a thermocline, it's still about 19-20*C at depth. The 6m deco stop was a steamy 28*C. The dive went really well, as did our ascents and switches. Apparently, the conditions that day were a bit borderline for Croatian diving, as it was a bit choppy topside. Being used to UK conditions, we thought conditions were damn near perfect. But, because conditions weren't the best, we only did one dive. After the drive back to the dive shop, a quick shower, we were off to eat again, but this time we did not go for pizza. We went to another restaurant, and the boys had a steak and I had wienerschnitzel. Washed down with some beer of course. We also finished up the last of the theory.
Day 5 was back to the same place we dived out of the previous day, and both dives were going to be on 21/35. The first dive of the day was going to be on the wooden wreck. That's it's name. It's a very broken up wreck that is scattered between 30-36m of water along a reef. Another 30m average with a 25 minute bottom time, and a nice easy deco over the reef. The second dive of the day was the Lina again, with a 20 minute bottom time and an average depth of around 29m. This dive though, we decided to swim out towards the reef and take a look at the wreck from there, with our deco over the reef. The deco was a bit more eventful as my deco reg decided to freeflow as I was putting my dsmb up. No big worry though, stopped the dsmb deployment, sorted my reg out (no major gas loss), and continued the deployment and ascent. After we finished our 6m stop, it was time for the rescue skills on a sandy patch. Once we finished that, back on the boat where Rich congratulated Marc and I for passing the course (so long as we passed our exam). We were officially the first 2 Rec 3 divers in the UK. We finished the evening with celebratory pizza and beer.
We had one day of fun diving after the course where we dived the Baron Gautsche. We once again decided on 21/35 as the wreck was a max depth of 39m. In hindsight, it would have been better to use either 30/30 or 32% as the good bits of the wreck were at a max of 32m, and we would have benefited from a 40 minute bottom time as opposed to 25. But hey ho, you live, you learn and if we ever go back that's what we would do. We also fed this information to Rich as it would make a good experience dive for Rec 3. Our only issues were the sheer number of people on the wreck (3 boats). While it is a good sized wreck, you must go up and down the shot. Marc and I carried out a free ascent just next to the shot as there was a trapeze connected to the shot hung at 6m (which is where we did our 6m stop). We counted 15 divers on the shotline at one time. Had we been on the shot as other divers were clambering up it, it may have made things very interesting. Rich went off for a fun tech 2 dive of his own that day, and we met him at the pizza place for one last meal as we were leaving the next day (Rich had a Tech 1 about to start). We were a bit disappointed though as the pizza place ran out of pizza! So I had chicken, the boys had steak, and we all had beer. I was a bit beer-ed out by the end of the night though.
All in all, it was an amazing week. I'm very happy to have taken the course, and extremely happy with my progress and growth throughout the week. I learned a lot, I was challenged quite a bit, but it was good. I definitely felt more solid in the water today while "rinsing the salt" off of my kit.
Rec 3 is definitely a course I would recommend someone to take if they either don't have a tech pass or feel they aren't quite ready to make the jump to tech 1.
Last Saturday, I flew out from the UK to Croatia and met the rest of the team for Rec 3. All we needed to do was get ourselves to Croatia (flew into Pula on the Istrian Peninsula), everything else, from transportation and accommodation to cylinders, gas and diving was handled by Krnica Dive in Krnica. Myself and my teammate Marc landed about the same time at the tiny little airport and met each other and one of the guys from the dive centre who took us to our accommodation for the week and showed us where the pizza place was. Originally we were going to meet Rich for food and drink, but he was stuck in traffic somewhere between Italy and Krnica, so we had a few pints and headed off to bed as we had theory starting at 9am the next day.
The classroom was located just underneath our apartment, which was handy. The morning was spent going through the first module of academics, which was an overview of the course. In the afternoon, we were off to dive centre. Walking into this dive centre is like a diver's wet dream. There were loads of twinsets, both 12L and 18L, stages ranging in size from ali 40s, ali 7s, and ali 80s, plus suit inflate bottles, loads of bp/ws, regs, etc. There was enough kit to keep at 15-20 GUE divers happy, plus a gas room with loads of helium and O2. We picked up some twinsets, a stage and a suit inflate bottle, set-up our kit, and labeled some kit boxes that we would use for the week to store our kit.
Once our kit was set-up, we went made our way to the boat (the beach that is normally used for shallow critical skills dives was packed) and went off to a shallow reef. Basically, the first couple of dives were a fundies review, with a 7 litre stage bottle attached. Things like valve drills, propulsion, s drills, and blob deployment were practiced. After a good 2.5 hours in the water, we headed back in, put our kit away and headed back to the classroom. We had a video debrief with some stuff to work on the next day. After everyone showered, we went to the first of many nights of pizza and beer for dinner. Because we were in Croatia and the water was quite warm, I decided to nix the 300 gram undersuit and just wear my base layer. Bad idea as even with no weight on, I was overweighted. The next day, I would need my undersuit.
Day 2 we headed back to the dive centre in the morning. We we starting off the day with field drill on stage handling and learning and practicing how to properly signal and switch to our stage bottles, as well as sharing deco gas. After we finished the field drills, we headed down to the beach. We did a bit more propulsion practice, light communication (which is hard in clear water), and switching to our stages and ascending, sharing deco gas etc., putting up dsmbs, and all sorts. On the surface interval, we had more field drills. This time we were learning about simple manifold failures and how to deal with them. The second dive of the day dealt with that, and shutting down offending posts, etc. Because it was a recreational course, there was no bubble gun and we basically told which post was bubbling (if it was a hose or the first stage), shut it down and call the team in to look at it. Rich was essentially in charge of letting us know whether it was still broken or fixed. More work with the stages were done as well. At the end of the day, we had another debrief and the second theory lesson. I was still overweighted and had to borrow an ali backplate from the dive centre as I had no weight to shed (I was seriously glad to get home and dive my fabers today. I'm not a fan of euro cylinders) From there, we had more pizza and beer.
Day three was all about ascents. Once we got our kit together, we were back on the boat to get to some deeper water. On the boat ride out, Rich gave Marc and I a task for the first dive. We had to make note of how much gas we were using throughout the dive (which we would need for the gas management module), which would be accomplished by swimming a few minutes out on a reef and coming back. The first dive was to 15 metres, we had a bit of swim about, took our SPG readings, and then it was time to work on ascents. We worked on speed (9m/min, 6m/min, 3m/min, 1m/min), gas switching, gas sharing, deploying blobs, etc. We did lots of ascents. Second dive was more of the same, but this time we were going to do it from 30m. Same thing, lots of ascents, gas sharing, gas switching, deco gas sharing, blob deployment, and a bit of reef swimming about. We were really comfortable with ascents by the end of the day. More debriefing and theory. We were then off for pizza and beer (are you sensing a theme here?).
Day 4 was the first of our experience dives. It was about a 45 minute drive to the boat, and another 30 minutes to the wreck. We were going to be diving the SS Lina (using 21/35), which starts in about 27m of water (the bow), and the stern is in about 55m. Obviously, we would not be going to the stern, but could go as far as the funnel. The plan was for a 25 minute bottom time with an average depth of around 30m. Which is exactly what we did. The diving in Croatia is amazing. The wrecks are in pristine condition, there is vis, and it's warm. Even though there is a thermocline, it's still about 19-20*C at depth. The 6m deco stop was a steamy 28*C. The dive went really well, as did our ascents and switches. Apparently, the conditions that day were a bit borderline for Croatian diving, as it was a bit choppy topside. Being used to UK conditions, we thought conditions were damn near perfect. But, because conditions weren't the best, we only did one dive. After the drive back to the dive shop, a quick shower, we were off to eat again, but this time we did not go for pizza. We went to another restaurant, and the boys had a steak and I had wienerschnitzel. Washed down with some beer of course. We also finished up the last of the theory.
Day 5 was back to the same place we dived out of the previous day, and both dives were going to be on 21/35. The first dive of the day was going to be on the wooden wreck. That's it's name. It's a very broken up wreck that is scattered between 30-36m of water along a reef. Another 30m average with a 25 minute bottom time, and a nice easy deco over the reef. The second dive of the day was the Lina again, with a 20 minute bottom time and an average depth of around 29m. This dive though, we decided to swim out towards the reef and take a look at the wreck from there, with our deco over the reef. The deco was a bit more eventful as my deco reg decided to freeflow as I was putting my dsmb up. No big worry though, stopped the dsmb deployment, sorted my reg out (no major gas loss), and continued the deployment and ascent. After we finished our 6m stop, it was time for the rescue skills on a sandy patch. Once we finished that, back on the boat where Rich congratulated Marc and I for passing the course (so long as we passed our exam). We were officially the first 2 Rec 3 divers in the UK. We finished the evening with celebratory pizza and beer.
We had one day of fun diving after the course where we dived the Baron Gautsche. We once again decided on 21/35 as the wreck was a max depth of 39m. In hindsight, it would have been better to use either 30/30 or 32% as the good bits of the wreck were at a max of 32m, and we would have benefited from a 40 minute bottom time as opposed to 25. But hey ho, you live, you learn and if we ever go back that's what we would do. We also fed this information to Rich as it would make a good experience dive for Rec 3. Our only issues were the sheer number of people on the wreck (3 boats). While it is a good sized wreck, you must go up and down the shot. Marc and I carried out a free ascent just next to the shot as there was a trapeze connected to the shot hung at 6m (which is where we did our 6m stop). We counted 15 divers on the shotline at one time. Had we been on the shot as other divers were clambering up it, it may have made things very interesting. Rich went off for a fun tech 2 dive of his own that day, and we met him at the pizza place for one last meal as we were leaving the next day (Rich had a Tech 1 about to start). We were a bit disappointed though as the pizza place ran out of pizza! So I had chicken, the boys had steak, and we all had beer. I was a bit beer-ed out by the end of the night though.
All in all, it was an amazing week. I'm very happy to have taken the course, and extremely happy with my progress and growth throughout the week. I learned a lot, I was challenged quite a bit, but it was good. I definitely felt more solid in the water today while "rinsing the salt" off of my kit.
Rec 3 is definitely a course I would recommend someone to take if they either don't have a tech pass or feel they aren't quite ready to make the jump to tech 1.
