BlueKnight
Guest
Hi everyone. Thought I would do a little write up of my very first night dive at stony cove.
Met in the car park and buddied up. The plan was to take in a couple of the sights, safety stop and exit. We did a good brief with the instructor pointing out the dangers of diving and light etiquette. So far so good with the nerves firmly under control.
Entry was rather interesting having to kinda fall/step/get thrown backwards due to the step on the slipway but no biggie. My buddy and I being the first 2 in we just floated for a while (must be a 60's hippy reference there somewhere lol).
Ok now for the dive. I had a little trouble getting under for some reason. I was diving a drysuit with 10Kg's in intergrated weight pockets. 6Kg's in front and 4 at the back. I have recently dived Capernwray with the same weight setup and it seemed to be just right but this night did seem a little underweighted. I did get down to 6m however and things seemed ok, enjoying watching a little crayfish in my torch beam untill I put some air in the dry suit. I have a sholder dump and had it about a 1/4 closed as at Caperwray I had it fully open (This is my 4th dive in a dry suit). Just as we are about to set off to the first checkpoint of the wessex helicopter I find myself drifting up slowly by my feet. My buddy comes to my rescue as I am trying to get horizontal again and between us and the instructor we get sorted. and away we go with only the smallest amount of air in the dry suit. Now we drop down over a shelf to the helicopter and the groups has a little get together no make sure we are all there.
Things are now getting a little squished in the suit so I pop some more air in to get a little more comfortable and I seem to have things trimmed out nicly. We start off for the next checkpoint whch was the bus and about 1/2 there im drifting up feet first again. This time I pretty much get myself back horizontal by somersaulting around and pressing the shoulder dump as it dosent appear to be auto dumping. Buddy is right by me and gives a steadying hand on the last little bit. Now my foot has come out of my left boot, but as there is no air left in the dry suit I can fin onto the next checkpoint as it feels fine (a bit weird though). Get to the checkpoint fine have a look around and a bit of a pause so the group is altogether once more. At this point I open up the dump valve on the suit all the way and am using my BCD for buoyancy.
Now comes the best part of the dive. I did concider calling the dive at this point but 1 am not cold, 2 I am comfortable although a little squished, 3 I can move and swim fine and my buddy seems happy and we both have plenty of air left. We now swim to one of the wrecks (I forget which one) but seeing the bows appear out of the night is a sight that is beyond description and reminds me why I do this sport (dont forget im a newb
). We go up and over (wow) and head up towards the shelf for the safety stop.
Ok we get there and I decide to try and get my boot back on so that I can get out of the water easier as we we just going to be sitting there anyway. We are on a shelf at around 5.5m and my plan was to kneel, pop a bit of air in the suit then raise my left leg and pull the boot back on. I close my shoulder dump about 1/4 of the way again and give the briefest of puffs, try to get the air in the leg but once again i am drifting slowly up by mt feet. This time I am on the surface before I get horizontal after just over 1/2 of the safety stop. I inflate and lay face down looking at my buddy who looks up and asks if I am OK. I signal back ok but remain face down keeping an eye on him untill he surfaces. I think the instructor though I was in trouble as he comes up just after my buddy, swims over and put even more air in my BCD untill it burps out the safety valves. I calmly tell him I am fine and we swim out and exit the water. At least I managed to get my foot back in the boot on the surface.
Back on dry land the boss instructor asked how I got on and we have a chat. I concluded that I realy enjoyed the dive. It was a great learning experiance and would happly do another night dive. I was realy upset at myself for blowing the safety stop as I could have waited untill I got on the surface to sort the boot issue out. As a result of this I decide not to do the 2nd dive and to give my buddy a chance to have a stress free dive. I am confident that should I find myself in the situation feet up again I can get horizontal. I also think I was under weighted and another couple of KG's was needed. I also think I need to get the shoulder dump looked at as 1 it didnt seem to dump air and 2 when I got out my left arm was soaked as it was from Capernwray. Lastly I was pleased that I didnt panic as this is the first dive I have been on where things didnt go according to plan and I was unsure how I was going to react when things did go belly up (or feet up as the case may be lol)
I would also like to thank my dive buddy as this was the first dive we had done together and he was brillant. I belive he is a DM and I have done a couple of dives with his wife who is also a DM (she did my nav skills at Capernwray for my AOW)
So any comments on what I did wrong will be greatly apprecated as this is a learning curve and you gentilbeings have more experiance than me
Happy Diving
BK
Met in the car park and buddied up. The plan was to take in a couple of the sights, safety stop and exit. We did a good brief with the instructor pointing out the dangers of diving and light etiquette. So far so good with the nerves firmly under control.
Entry was rather interesting having to kinda fall/step/get thrown backwards due to the step on the slipway but no biggie. My buddy and I being the first 2 in we just floated for a while (must be a 60's hippy reference there somewhere lol).
Ok now for the dive. I had a little trouble getting under for some reason. I was diving a drysuit with 10Kg's in intergrated weight pockets. 6Kg's in front and 4 at the back. I have recently dived Capernwray with the same weight setup and it seemed to be just right but this night did seem a little underweighted. I did get down to 6m however and things seemed ok, enjoying watching a little crayfish in my torch beam untill I put some air in the dry suit. I have a sholder dump and had it about a 1/4 closed as at Caperwray I had it fully open (This is my 4th dive in a dry suit). Just as we are about to set off to the first checkpoint of the wessex helicopter I find myself drifting up slowly by my feet. My buddy comes to my rescue as I am trying to get horizontal again and between us and the instructor we get sorted. and away we go with only the smallest amount of air in the dry suit. Now we drop down over a shelf to the helicopter and the groups has a little get together no make sure we are all there.
Things are now getting a little squished in the suit so I pop some more air in to get a little more comfortable and I seem to have things trimmed out nicly. We start off for the next checkpoint whch was the bus and about 1/2 there im drifting up feet first again. This time I pretty much get myself back horizontal by somersaulting around and pressing the shoulder dump as it dosent appear to be auto dumping. Buddy is right by me and gives a steadying hand on the last little bit. Now my foot has come out of my left boot, but as there is no air left in the dry suit I can fin onto the next checkpoint as it feels fine (a bit weird though). Get to the checkpoint fine have a look around and a bit of a pause so the group is altogether once more. At this point I open up the dump valve on the suit all the way and am using my BCD for buoyancy.
Now comes the best part of the dive. I did concider calling the dive at this point but 1 am not cold, 2 I am comfortable although a little squished, 3 I can move and swim fine and my buddy seems happy and we both have plenty of air left. We now swim to one of the wrecks (I forget which one) but seeing the bows appear out of the night is a sight that is beyond description and reminds me why I do this sport (dont forget im a newb
). We go up and over (wow) and head up towards the shelf for the safety stop.Ok we get there and I decide to try and get my boot back on so that I can get out of the water easier as we we just going to be sitting there anyway. We are on a shelf at around 5.5m and my plan was to kneel, pop a bit of air in the suit then raise my left leg and pull the boot back on. I close my shoulder dump about 1/4 of the way again and give the briefest of puffs, try to get the air in the leg but once again i am drifting slowly up by mt feet. This time I am on the surface before I get horizontal after just over 1/2 of the safety stop. I inflate and lay face down looking at my buddy who looks up and asks if I am OK. I signal back ok but remain face down keeping an eye on him untill he surfaces. I think the instructor though I was in trouble as he comes up just after my buddy, swims over and put even more air in my BCD untill it burps out the safety valves. I calmly tell him I am fine and we swim out and exit the water. At least I managed to get my foot back in the boot on the surface.
Back on dry land the boss instructor asked how I got on and we have a chat. I concluded that I realy enjoyed the dive. It was a great learning experiance and would happly do another night dive. I was realy upset at myself for blowing the safety stop as I could have waited untill I got on the surface to sort the boot issue out. As a result of this I decide not to do the 2nd dive and to give my buddy a chance to have a stress free dive. I am confident that should I find myself in the situation feet up again I can get horizontal. I also think I was under weighted and another couple of KG's was needed. I also think I need to get the shoulder dump looked at as 1 it didnt seem to dump air and 2 when I got out my left arm was soaked as it was from Capernwray. Lastly I was pleased that I didnt panic as this is the first dive I have been on where things didnt go according to plan and I was unsure how I was going to react when things did go belly up (or feet up as the case may be lol)
I would also like to thank my dive buddy as this was the first dive we had done together and he was brillant. I belive he is a DM and I have done a couple of dives with his wife who is also a DM (she did my nav skills at Capernwray for my AOW)
So any comments on what I did wrong will be greatly apprecated as this is a learning curve and you gentilbeings have more experiance than me
Happy Diving
BK
