Tractor Tom
Contributor
Well kids, after months of waiting for the ice to leave the lakes, and wanting to take a drysuit training class, I got most of the class out of the way last week, and on the weekend made two dives in the local mudhole.
Last Wednesday we had the 'book' portion of the drysuit training. Followed by pool time on Friday, where we learned to recover from an inverted position with "fat boots". The pool training was really good. Four of us in the class, two with our own suits and two in 'borrowed' suits belonging to the diveshop. After an hour of basic skills, it was dive to the bottom of the pool and hang onto 40 lbs of lead on a belt, head down while the instructor reached over and overinflated our suit. Then when he tapped on your shoulder, do a summersault, get your feet under you and purge air from the suit before breaking the surface. One of the fellows was having a hard time with this exercise, until we found out that he had his weight belt pulled up so tight that the air in his suit couldn't move easily from his feet to his exhaust valve on his sleeve. After we adjusted his belt, he had it down cold.
Armed with this information and some time in the pool, I set up to make a practice dive in 'beautiful Lake Fenton' South of Flint. Saturday afternoon at 2, I met my buddy Dave there, air temp was around 60, water temp at the surface was about 42. We suited up, and walked out and purged the suits, then paddled out a bit and started to the bottom. Whoops! I wasn't wearing quite enough weight to actually leave the surface. With little or no air in the suit, and none in my wing, I was about eye-ball deep in the water. So, I paddled back up and picked up another couple weights and put them in my belt. Problem solved. Now, this was as first shore dive I have made in 20 years. Up until then, all my dives have been boat dives in the Caribbean in warm water and wetsuits. So we went down and inspected a couple of the boats that have been sunk on the bottom of the lake. A pontoon boat is used as a training platform and is sitting in 25 feet or so. From there, follow the lines, down into deeper water to a couple sunken powerboats and an old minecar. Visability was around 20-25 feet except when I was stirring up the mud. On the way back to the shore, at 15 feet, inexperience caught me, and I couldn't vent quickly enough and I found myself making a quick trip to the surface. I initially started to go feet first, but remebered to do the summersault, and got my fins under me, but didn't quite manage to get stopped short of the surface. Dave came up a minute later, wondering if I had run out of air? Turns out, I hadn't vented enough from my suit as we headed back towards the shore, and at 15' physics taught me a lesson! So we paddled up to the beach and changed tanks.
After a short surface interval, we got back into the water. This time, I was down about 5' and headed down, when Dave signaled a problem and finned to the surface. He had learned the hard way that when you forget to connect your inflator hose to your suit and press the button, WATER goes in to remind you about the hose. So we went to the surface and he hooked up, and we went ahead and had a good dive. By the end of 25 minutes, my hands (in 5 mill wet gloves ) were really cold! Other than that, I was in great shape. The dry hood works! My beenie was dry and so was my hair and ears. The hood trim I had done worked well, as had trim on the neck seal and wrists (Thanks Bob3!) . I am in LOVE with drysuit diving. Considering how cold my hands were, wetsuit diving in that lake would have been a really misterable time, but other than cold hands I was fine! (Drygloves next!!!)
Thanks to all you drysuit divers for all the info you have shared all these months. I'm scheduled to actually have my Drysuit Checkout Dive with the instructor next weekend. Can't wait to do some diving in the clear water of Lake Huron in June in Tobermory....
Last Wednesday we had the 'book' portion of the drysuit training. Followed by pool time on Friday, where we learned to recover from an inverted position with "fat boots". The pool training was really good. Four of us in the class, two with our own suits and two in 'borrowed' suits belonging to the diveshop. After an hour of basic skills, it was dive to the bottom of the pool and hang onto 40 lbs of lead on a belt, head down while the instructor reached over and overinflated our suit. Then when he tapped on your shoulder, do a summersault, get your feet under you and purge air from the suit before breaking the surface. One of the fellows was having a hard time with this exercise, until we found out that he had his weight belt pulled up so tight that the air in his suit couldn't move easily from his feet to his exhaust valve on his sleeve. After we adjusted his belt, he had it down cold.
Armed with this information and some time in the pool, I set up to make a practice dive in 'beautiful Lake Fenton' South of Flint. Saturday afternoon at 2, I met my buddy Dave there, air temp was around 60, water temp at the surface was about 42. We suited up, and walked out and purged the suits, then paddled out a bit and started to the bottom. Whoops! I wasn't wearing quite enough weight to actually leave the surface. With little or no air in the suit, and none in my wing, I was about eye-ball deep in the water. So, I paddled back up and picked up another couple weights and put them in my belt. Problem solved. Now, this was as first shore dive I have made in 20 years. Up until then, all my dives have been boat dives in the Caribbean in warm water and wetsuits. So we went down and inspected a couple of the boats that have been sunk on the bottom of the lake. A pontoon boat is used as a training platform and is sitting in 25 feet or so. From there, follow the lines, down into deeper water to a couple sunken powerboats and an old minecar. Visability was around 20-25 feet except when I was stirring up the mud. On the way back to the shore, at 15 feet, inexperience caught me, and I couldn't vent quickly enough and I found myself making a quick trip to the surface. I initially started to go feet first, but remebered to do the summersault, and got my fins under me, but didn't quite manage to get stopped short of the surface. Dave came up a minute later, wondering if I had run out of air? Turns out, I hadn't vented enough from my suit as we headed back towards the shore, and at 15' physics taught me a lesson! So we paddled up to the beach and changed tanks.
After a short surface interval, we got back into the water. This time, I was down about 5' and headed down, when Dave signaled a problem and finned to the surface. He had learned the hard way that when you forget to connect your inflator hose to your suit and press the button, WATER goes in to remind you about the hose. So we went to the surface and he hooked up, and we went ahead and had a good dive. By the end of 25 minutes, my hands (in 5 mill wet gloves ) were really cold! Other than that, I was in great shape. The dry hood works! My beenie was dry and so was my hair and ears. The hood trim I had done worked well, as had trim on the neck seal and wrists (Thanks Bob3!) . I am in LOVE with drysuit diving. Considering how cold my hands were, wetsuit diving in that lake would have been a really misterable time, but other than cold hands I was fine! (Drygloves next!!!)
Thanks to all you drysuit divers for all the info you have shared all these months. I'm scheduled to actually have my Drysuit Checkout Dive with the instructor next weekend. Can't wait to do some diving in the clear water of Lake Huron in June in Tobermory....
