first sidemount dives today ...
- Thread starter MXGratefulDiver
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OP
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Sounds like you are having the time of your life, Bob!
I am so looking forward to diving with y'all on Friday!
Carl
I am so looking forward to diving with y'all on Friday!
Carl
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Rob,
What is it about those twisty little passages???
I've only been back home for a few weeks and IT'S DRIVING ME NUTS!!!
Gawd, I miss JB.
OP
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Well, today was "tweak" day ... lots of little things that got tweaked, including my lower back. Fortunately it only hurts when I'm out of the water.
First dive we did Twin. Rob took me back into some fissures that were pretty cool ... at places making it necessary for me to turn sideways to get through. I love how easy it is to just go head down and "fall" into those fissures. Most of the tunnel was rather low and narrow ... and at one point "dusty". Coming out I was rather dismayed at the amount of silt I'd managed to kick up coming through one particular low tunnel, but Rob said in that particular passage it wasn't too bad. Longest dive so far this trip, at 80 minutes. Unfortunately, it was also the dive where my P-valve decided not to work. Oh MAN I was happy to see the cavern ... :shocked2:
Second dive we did Hole in the Wall ... downstream, I think ... the one with the E shaped rock (I think it looks like a dragon's head, personally). I love that place! Reminds me of south Utah, only underwater, with all those towering, sculpted rock formations and large domes to swim through. We went back about a thousand feet and jumped off the mainline till I hit turn pressure, and then came out.
I'm feeling some fatigue after three days of diving and not sleeping well at night. So I told Rob that tomorrow I think we should just do one dive. We're headed back to JB to set up a circuit for Thursday. Should be fun ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
First dive we did Twin. Rob took me back into some fissures that were pretty cool ... at places making it necessary for me to turn sideways to get through. I love how easy it is to just go head down and "fall" into those fissures. Most of the tunnel was rather low and narrow ... and at one point "dusty". Coming out I was rather dismayed at the amount of silt I'd managed to kick up coming through one particular low tunnel, but Rob said in that particular passage it wasn't too bad. Longest dive so far this trip, at 80 minutes. Unfortunately, it was also the dive where my P-valve decided not to work. Oh MAN I was happy to see the cavern ... :shocked2:
Second dive we did Hole in the Wall ... downstream, I think ... the one with the E shaped rock (I think it looks like a dragon's head, personally). I love that place! Reminds me of south Utah, only underwater, with all those towering, sculpted rock formations and large domes to swim through. We went back about a thousand feet and jumped off the mainline till I hit turn pressure, and then came out.
I'm feeling some fatigue after three days of diving and not sleeping well at night. So I told Rob that tomorrow I think we should just do one dive. We're headed back to JB to set up a circuit for Thursday. Should be fun ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
spatman
Contributor
glad to hear you're having a great time, bob! when are you back in town? i'm going to order the nomad as well, and would really like to check out yours.
OP
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I'm back in town on Monday, Matt. Would be happy to hook up with ya and let you check it out.
Today was just one long dive. We took one AL80 stage and our 95's for back gas, plus an O2 bottle ... so adding some tanks increased the complexity just a bit. I found myself breathing a bit harder than normal, and we ended up dropping the stages just about 50 feet short of the first T (more like a Y to my concern). We kicked to about the 1900 foot mark, then took a jump off into this narrow, but steep canyon. First time I've ever seen a pink jump line, but it was easy to notice. The canyon is very cool ... sometimes just about as wide as me and my cylinders, but dropping down through what looks almost like layers of openings ... hard to tell where the bottom was, actually. I loved the sections where we had to go head down and turn sideways to get through the opening ... it was just neat.
We dropped the cookie about 2200 feet in, and headed back out. Once back on the mainline, Rob signaled for me to head back up the mainline. I still hadn't reached turn pressure yet, so why not. We went maybe 100 feet or so and he showed me the memorial to Richard Mork. After that we turned and headed out.
Picking up my stage, I forgot to turn it on ... put the reg in my mouth and got nothing. So I switched back to my right side reg till I could sort it out, pushed the purge button, and created an interesting freeflow. Well, now I know I can shut down a post during a real freeflow without any issue. Waited a few seconds, turned it back on, and it worked fine. Hmmmm ... gotta pull the cover off that reg in the morning and see if there's sand in there or something (duckweed, perhaps?). The rest of the dive was uneventful.
I'm still struggling a bit with buoyancy, and tend to find myself boinking the ceiling every once in a while without really comprehending why it's happeninig ... but as I get more dives and familiarity I'm sure I'll get it figured out.
Our dive today was 27 seconds shy of 100 minutes ... I just couldn't bring myself to "dog" it till the clock flipped.
Tomorrow we complete the circuit ... I'm really looking forward to getting more practice with the stage.
After the dive I was telling Rob that the next time I hear somebody saying that OW folks like me are learning sidemount for the "cool factor" I'm gonna point out that diving sidemount really IS cool ... so what's their point? This whole experience has been a huge amount of fun ... and ain't having fun the whole point of diving? I'm anticipating a whole new level of "fun" once I get back home and the dryglove rings go back on my suit ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Today was just one long dive. We took one AL80 stage and our 95's for back gas, plus an O2 bottle ... so adding some tanks increased the complexity just a bit. I found myself breathing a bit harder than normal, and we ended up dropping the stages just about 50 feet short of the first T (more like a Y to my concern). We kicked to about the 1900 foot mark, then took a jump off into this narrow, but steep canyon. First time I've ever seen a pink jump line, but it was easy to notice. The canyon is very cool ... sometimes just about as wide as me and my cylinders, but dropping down through what looks almost like layers of openings ... hard to tell where the bottom was, actually. I loved the sections where we had to go head down and turn sideways to get through the opening ... it was just neat.
We dropped the cookie about 2200 feet in, and headed back out. Once back on the mainline, Rob signaled for me to head back up the mainline. I still hadn't reached turn pressure yet, so why not. We went maybe 100 feet or so and he showed me the memorial to Richard Mork. After that we turned and headed out.
Picking up my stage, I forgot to turn it on ... put the reg in my mouth and got nothing. So I switched back to my right side reg till I could sort it out, pushed the purge button, and created an interesting freeflow. Well, now I know I can shut down a post during a real freeflow without any issue. Waited a few seconds, turned it back on, and it worked fine. Hmmmm ... gotta pull the cover off that reg in the morning and see if there's sand in there or something (duckweed, perhaps?). The rest of the dive was uneventful.
I'm still struggling a bit with buoyancy, and tend to find myself boinking the ceiling every once in a while without really comprehending why it's happeninig ... but as I get more dives and familiarity I'm sure I'll get it figured out.
Our dive today was 27 seconds shy of 100 minutes ... I just couldn't bring myself to "dog" it till the clock flipped.
Tomorrow we complete the circuit ... I'm really looking forward to getting more practice with the stage.
After the dive I was telling Rob that the next time I hear somebody saying that OW folks like me are learning sidemount for the "cool factor" I'm gonna point out that diving sidemount really IS cool ... so what's their point? This whole experience has been a huge amount of fun ... and ain't having fun the whole point of diving? I'm anticipating a whole new level of "fun" once I get back home and the dryglove rings go back on my suit ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
spatman
Contributor
not only is it "cool", but it just makes more sense to me in many ways. my personal opinion is that backmounting doubles is a cumbersome config around which layers and layers of training has developed in order to compensate for the limitations of the equipment. i'm looking forward to being to able see my 1st stages and valves instead of reaching blindly behind my head in order to attempt to discern what a problem may be...
Peter made me hang out in the open water basin at Grand today for four minutes, so we could log a 100 minute dive . . .
Sounds like you got to King's Canyon today -- Rob, is that right? I've seen pictures of that area, and it looks absolutely delightful. Next trip, I'm gonna get me some 21/35 and a stage and go see it
Yep, we went to King's Canyon! Tomorrow we will hit it from the opposite direction through a passage not on the published map. While I hate to see this area in a drought, it does make swim dives in JB quite nice.
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