Never say Never... my first dive in Doubles

[SparticleBrane]

You have too many doubles--I should take some off your hands. Those LP95s would be great...

 

[TSandM]

Well, I just spoke for a pair of already manifolded HP 100's being sold locally . . . We'll see if that comes though. Yikes!

I need to coax Kirk into coming up and joining me in our pool, so we can get the worst of the humiliation over with in private.

 

[Azza]

I started diving doubles back in 2002 in ali 80's and always found I was feet heavy. (I have solid legs)
Then when I switched to steel 12L's I found I was the opposite and was face down feet up everytime I looked down. Thats when I went back to wearing a weight belt and found it trimmed me out nice, but body position is more the key here.

My wife tried my 12L's and they werre way to heavy for her. She would have had to put a huge whack of weight on her belt to counter the top heavyness. I think she is going to try a set of 10L in the future


Good luck with the new challenge guys.

 

[scubak]

Lynne,
...I used to worry about the jewelry thing as well...no more...
I have a set of HP Steel Hp80s that I truly love...
let me know if you would like to try them out with my wing..
Kirsten

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Ken's buddy...... She's ALLLIIIIIIVVVE!

Wearing parts from more sources than even Dr. Frankenstein used, I did my second dive with doubles in the ocean on Thursday night: A walking, lurching, finning, neutrally-buoyant testament to the generosity of wonderful friends:

Borrowed drysuit from sweet friend, as mine is vacationing at the Superior Drysuit Repair Spa in Brainerd, Minnesota. Borrowed wing and doubles from expert local wizards who go extra miles all the time to support divers learning new stuff. Borrowed regs from dive buddy who pitied me 'cause my regs haven't arrived yet and my eagerness was exploding. Borrowed TinyDoubles (AL50s!!! MaxCuteness!) from local cave expert who used them to save body-wear&tear when he was learning doubles at Vets. Borrowed BIG HID, from constantly generous dive buddy who knows 21s are better than 10s.

Only the brain, fins, and gauges were mine.
And the brain was in happy overload.

First note: I love learning new stuff.
Corollary to 1st note: I hate being bad at new stuff, even for a while.

So, with both sides of this see-saw equally weighted, Here I go again!!!

Second night in dubs? Better than the first!

1. Weighting: Not having had the "luck" of getting my buddy to figure out the weighting and trim in the pool (... I never knew I was being heartlessly used... oh, the agony...) I had to start from scatch, trimming my Baby Al50s on our first dive the night before. I opted for too heavy so I could at least know I'd get to dive.
   I was too heavy. Tonight, I took 4 lbs off, and it was better, with less air in the wing throughout.
   Weight check at 500psi told me that more will come off next time.
2. Buoyancy. Must learn to Vent the wing in tiny increments!!! When ascending slowly from 20fsw to 10, I released the usual amount of air that had always slowed me (and my SINGLE tank) down to a standstill for stops. AND I had to giggle as I dropped down out of the water column about 4 feet!!! Hey!!! Stop that!! This might get better as I get down to the right amount of weight. I know I'll get better eventually.
3. Trim: Much better with 4 less pounds. Probably be even better next time. I squirreled around for the first 15 minutes, trying to get stable. The 42# wing is wider than my 30# single wing, and it takes getting used to. I wobbled some, but then I leveled out. The hours in the pool were VERY valuable. At one point, Ken and I did helicopter turns in opposite directions to come around and watch a beautiful white octopus next to it's bottle/cave home.
   We were turning 180 degrees each, about 14 inches over the talcum-fine mud of the Redondo canyon at 60 fsw.... And not a speck of silt was raised. The scintillation of the thermocline remained crystal clear as we hooded our HIDs to watch this gorgeous animal. Doubles are manageable. I'm liking this!!!
4. Valve Drills: Finally!! Real valve drills after all the months of single-tank drills. The valves are so much easier to reach it's funny! Laugh Out Loud funny!!
   But now... it's real.
   #1) Purging that back-up before starting to shut down post #1 makes perfect sense... Holy cow!! I'm gonna be breathing off it!!! It's not an academic exercise... it's life!
   #2) I can mentally "feel" the closing isolator valve turning my 100 cu.ft. of tanks into two separate 50 cu.ft tanks.... and then returning them to one unit when re-opened.
   #3) NO WAY I'm turning off the precious post #3 I'm breathing off of until I KNOW there is bubbly goodness available in that primary reg clipped to my right-chest D-ring.
   I really love that tiny-tiny "sneeze" sound when I open the post and the reg re-pressurizes. I like hearing Ken's reg do that, too, while I'm acting as safety spotter for his drills. We are watching each other like hawks as we practice these new skills. As long as there are no pipefish around, things seem to go smoothly .
5. Surf. While I'll eventually be diving doubles mostly off boats, (I think,) I do need to get used to beach entries/exits while learning.
   Bigger surface area of the tanks and wing means I get pushed more by the waves unless I make sure I'm turned to the side.
   More mass means I can punch through waves more effectively.
   Ken showed me that inflating the bigger, longer wing can help you get lifted out of the Deep Trench of Agony and smoothly up onto the beach. Nice!
   As long as the surf is small, I can do this. Gym workouts are essential. The dub-72s are heavy on land... wow! And I'm looking at bigger tanks eventually.

I have stepped out of the single tank simulator. Cool! I didn't think I could be more grateful for Ken's excellent dive and team skills than I've been this past year... but OMG, I am now! Doubles are different. More to figure out and solve. More new safety skills.

More fun as we go forward.
(Mostly more work right now.)
Fun new adventure!!

Two dives down... many more to go.
And much more gear heading my way. Yikes. You all were right: This is VERY gear intensive :scared:

hbDoublesFranken'Chica

 

[TSandM]

Oooh, reading this makes me incandescently furious that my schedule is going to keep me from taking the doubles plunge for another week . . . And my dive buddy is going to get there before me, too

 

[Mo2vation]

And my dive buddy is going to get there before me, too

She gets everywhere before me, lately.

I should add: There are moments you experience underwater, some are so transcendent that they burn in your mind and are as clear years later as they were the momont they were happening.

Moments where you KNEW the second they were happening that you had to reach inside your hood, jam a finger in your ear and start the "record" feature, so you can re-live them forever and ever.

I've been fortunate to have many of these in the short 7 years I've been diving. And even more fortunate to have several in the last 12 months 'dette and I have partnered up.

The latest was the Octo, she mentioned above. We were both uneasy with the doubles, as it was the first time we'd had them below 35. We're down around 56 with them, and we're holding it together. I look over and see a white octo (a very infrequent Two Spot, not one of the hundreds of reds we see here each week) and its huddled next to a beer bottle in a little hole its made for its self.

Its right at the thermocline... so there is this layer of shimmer water between our eyes and Octo. We're coming down the canyon - its facing down canyon, so we need to go past it and make a 180 to be facing up canyon and into Octo's pure white grille.

We pass it, 21 watts of glory filtering 'tween our fingers - casting out 4 semi-diffused white laser beams. We make the turn and look through the shower door at this little guy kinda going about his nightly business - there isn't a single grain of powder in the column. At Vets, I do a back kick and I snow out my photographic subject.. so I'm shocked. We both pulled off the helecopter turns of a lifetime, and BOOM - just stuck it, in perfect formation we held a motionless hover over the guy.

We sat there for probably 3 or 4 minutes - just watching him - shimmering white skin under the thermocline about 4 feet below us, lights casting surreal glowing fingers all around him and his home.

It was one of those moments I'll never forget.

---
Ken

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Use the Force, Luke!

Allow yourself to be seduced by the Dark Side...

It only gets better!



(By the way,...I'm your father, Luke... )

v/r,

Darth

 

[Mo2vation]

Use the Force, Luke!

Allow yourself to be seduced by the Dark Side...

It only gets better!



(By the way,...I'm your father, Luke... )

v/r,

Darth

Trust me - a 2 hour pool session, two 75 minute dives in the ocean and I am so, SO there.

As I was yucking with 'Chica the other night. I was saying, "I can't ever see a reason for diving singles again. Especially with these lil 72's... I mean they're quite managable in any condition. Jogging up and down the stairs isn't an issue, they get in and out of surf as well as my 130... I mean, I'm totally smitten...."

As I was saying all of this to Claudette (who's diving the AL50 loaners) she looked at me and said, "I can see a reason for staying with a single tank..."

I'm flummuxed. Hmmm. I go through my mental check list of the last 2 weeks - we're doing very well, learning curve pretty high and to the right so far, managable, stable, gear coming together. I look at her puzzled.

She adds, "I get more gas with my single...."

She dives a 130.



We are both so there, my friend.

---
Ken

 

[TSandM]

The smilies go on for freaking ever, but I couldn't find one for "green with envy", or I would have plastered this post with it.