- Messages
- 93,495
- Reaction score
- 91,887
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
Pulled into Edd's place this morning to pan-de-mon-ium ... Texas A&M had a class of about 40 kids up here for a cavern class, and they'd descended on Cave Adventurers like a horde of locusts. Not being able to physically fit inside the shop I decided to hang outside and enjoy the show. Rob showed up about 15 minutes later ... we squeezed our way through the kids, filled out some papers, grabbed Edd's Nomad and SMS100 rigs, and headed off to Jackson Blue. After a period of adjustment, Rob had managed to make Edd's rig fit me like a glove ... next time somebody tells me I'm fat I'm gonna point out that I can wear Edd's dive gear ...
Anyway, got in the water, figured out where everything was, and Rob had me drop down in the shallows and just hold still for a few minutes while he swam around looking at my trim, how the tanks were situated, tugging a few things, and finally we headed off to the cavern to lay a circuit and do some fun drills.
I gotta say this sidemount stuff agrees with me ... felt pretty comfortable right from the get-go. By now the A&M kids were filling up the cavern and it was starting to look like the inside of Edd's shop ... except with a growing number of lines cris-crossing everywhere. Kinda reminded me of a roadmap of downtown Boston. So after our second circuit, Rob figures I look fit to go a bit inside the cave, so we went for a short swim, turned around and exited. Perfect little warm-up for my first time inside a cave in a year and first time ever in sidemount. We got out, had something to eat, made a few more tweaks to the rig, and went back in. This time we headed into the cave ... Rob leading. Jackson's a beautiful cave ... gotta say, I really liked it. The rig was so comfortable it felt like I'd been diving it a while. We hit turn pressure and I led us out. Once we got back to where Rob had set up the circuit, we spent some time doing valve and OOA drills ... easy-peasy in sidemount.
I'm in love with this rig. Got back to Edd's afterward and became the proud owner of my own spankin' new Nomad XT. Edd and Rob spent the next hour or so "customizing" it for me.
Gonna be putting my doubles gear up for sale next week ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Anyway, got in the water, figured out where everything was, and Rob had me drop down in the shallows and just hold still for a few minutes while he swam around looking at my trim, how the tanks were situated, tugging a few things, and finally we headed off to the cavern to lay a circuit and do some fun drills.
I gotta say this sidemount stuff agrees with me ... felt pretty comfortable right from the get-go. By now the A&M kids were filling up the cavern and it was starting to look like the inside of Edd's shop ... except with a growing number of lines cris-crossing everywhere. Kinda reminded me of a roadmap of downtown Boston. So after our second circuit, Rob figures I look fit to go a bit inside the cave, so we went for a short swim, turned around and exited. Perfect little warm-up for my first time inside a cave in a year and first time ever in sidemount. We got out, had something to eat, made a few more tweaks to the rig, and went back in. This time we headed into the cave ... Rob leading. Jackson's a beautiful cave ... gotta say, I really liked it. The rig was so comfortable it felt like I'd been diving it a while. We hit turn pressure and I led us out. Once we got back to where Rob had set up the circuit, we spent some time doing valve and OOA drills ... easy-peasy in sidemount.
I'm in love with this rig. Got back to Edd's afterward and became the proud owner of my own spankin' new Nomad XT. Edd and Rob spent the next hour or so "customizing" it for me.
Gonna be putting my doubles gear up for sale next week ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)