cummings66
Contributor
This weekend we went to Table Rock at Dewey Point (sp) and over Sat and Sunday we did our 4 dives.
I thought things were pretty much like they were in the pool as far as skills, some of it was a bit harder with the waves bouncing you around but not much.
What I really liked was seeing the Fish and other marine life, it was amazing that you could basically get neutral and stop moving and suddenly there would be fish around you, in your face looking at you and trying to nip your finger tips. I guess I'll have to take one of those fish ident courses to know what those little fish were, but they were pretty.
Vis. was about 15 feet and the temps to around 30 feet were around 80 F, it did get colder below the thermocline of course.
I even got to do a search for a missing buddy for real. I was watching him and noticed he seemed to be trying to equalize quite often but didn't look bad and didn't signal anything was amis. I turned to look at the instructor/dm to insure we stayed put and when I turned around he was gone, nowhere in sight. I looked around for a minute and couldn't find him so I tugged at the DM's fin to get his attention to tell him I lost my buddy, then we went up to see what we could discover.
We found him up there and he explained that his ears hurt real bad and he couldn't equalize so that's why he went for the surface. What made me feel bad was that I didn't notice his problem nor his assent/bolt. It took less than 10 seconds from when I looked away from him to when I looked back, and then all there was was black at his former spot. At that point I wish I knew how to talk underwater because sign's just can't convey what you feel. I've been thinking of what I could have done differently but haven't come up with anything concrete and I've yet to talk with the instructor about it and get his thoughts beyond the fact that I did what I was supposed to do when you lose a buddy. I've looked at it every way and all I can come up with is that I had to look at the instructor every so often to see what he was doing and wanted us to do, then I had to look at my buddy to keep in sync with him. I can't figure out an easy way to have done both at the same time, or quicker? How long do you guys look away from your buddy? How would you handle a situation like that?
I thought things were pretty much like they were in the pool as far as skills, some of it was a bit harder with the waves bouncing you around but not much.
What I really liked was seeing the Fish and other marine life, it was amazing that you could basically get neutral and stop moving and suddenly there would be fish around you, in your face looking at you and trying to nip your finger tips. I guess I'll have to take one of those fish ident courses to know what those little fish were, but they were pretty.
Vis. was about 15 feet and the temps to around 30 feet were around 80 F, it did get colder below the thermocline of course.
I even got to do a search for a missing buddy for real. I was watching him and noticed he seemed to be trying to equalize quite often but didn't look bad and didn't signal anything was amis. I turned to look at the instructor/dm to insure we stayed put and when I turned around he was gone, nowhere in sight. I looked around for a minute and couldn't find him so I tugged at the DM's fin to get his attention to tell him I lost my buddy, then we went up to see what we could discover.
We found him up there and he explained that his ears hurt real bad and he couldn't equalize so that's why he went for the surface. What made me feel bad was that I didn't notice his problem nor his assent/bolt. It took less than 10 seconds from when I looked away from him to when I looked back, and then all there was was black at his former spot. At that point I wish I knew how to talk underwater because sign's just can't convey what you feel. I've been thinking of what I could have done differently but haven't come up with anything concrete and I've yet to talk with the instructor about it and get his thoughts beyond the fact that I did what I was supposed to do when you lose a buddy. I've looked at it every way and all I can come up with is that I had to look at the instructor every so often to see what he was doing and wanted us to do, then I had to look at my buddy to keep in sync with him. I can't figure out an easy way to have done both at the same time, or quicker? How long do you guys look away from your buddy? How would you handle a situation like that?
