short story - minor task loading kicked my butt

[mistressmotorsports]

Saturday I did UW Nav and PPB as part of my AOW class. We did nav first, and I learned that task loading underwater is more difficult than I thought it would be. Managed to count kick cycles and then time the 100 feet line. When it came to navigating a 100 foot square, it was almost too much to handle. Between counting kick cycles, staying on a compass bearing, and controlling my bouyancy while traversing a sandy bottom between 15 and 30 feet, I got pretty darn confused. Leg one was easy since I followed the line. Leg two I lost count of kick cycles and had to estimate. Leg three I turned my compass ring the wrong way, but figured it out immediately and then corrected. Leg 4 went shallower, and I was so busy trying to do everything else, I wound up drifting up because I really needed to dump a little air and didn't. Caught the bouyancy problem after drifting about 7 feet (half way) up and corrected, but of course I lost track of kick cycles again. The funny thing is I wound up "only" about 15 feet from the original marker with all that and a slight current/surge. Also, breathing went to crap since I wasn't concentrating on it. 1100 psi on a 17 minute dive with an average depth of 23 feet. Not just a Hoover, more like a mega Hoover. I did manage to navigate back to shore with no problem. So, I think I got the concepts of nav, but I clearly am not the king of multi-tasking.

Second dive was PPB, and I did much better. Didn't miss any hula hoops, although I did occasionally catch one on my power inflator hose or my console, even though the console was on a retractor and tight to my side. My instructor thought I did really well during this dive, said I was better than most at my number of dives (12). This time I used about the same amount of air, but over a 32 minute dive, mostly because pretty much all I was doing was working on breathing. Also learned that I was within 1 pound of neutral when we did the surface bouyancy check at the end of the dive (with 600 psi in the tank).

So, I learned that even something as theoretically simple like following a compass and counting kicks can take all your concentration and then some. I also learned that, even when I had the bouyancy problem, I didn't panic, just stopped and solved the problem. Hopefully I can stay that composed if/when a more serious issue occurs. Props to my instructor, who is extremely patient and a great teacher.

Next dive = night, looking forward to it.

Mike

 

[ItsBruce]

The nav exercise really gives you an appreciation for those DMs who can lead you all over the place on a dive and then right back to the anchor line.

 

[mobster75]

I did really well w/ my AOW: Nav dive, but had some challenges with task loading during my UW Nav specialty class this past weekend. The course plotter is a great tool for keeping track of yourself underwater and relative location to various points along the dive. But my buddy and I kept zig-zagging through a couple lobster traps as part of our pattern navigation and several times one of us (or both) would get our float lines tangled in the trap rope and we had to take 2-3 minutes to help each other get untangled... While not forgetting how many kick cycles we had gone towards our heading.. (Local town is now requiring *all* divers carry a float individually.. so.. we were trying to comply, but it REALLY fouled things up as the floats kept tending to tangle...). I never had any kind of panic issue, just noticed that when I was task loading, I completely ignored my breathing and I wasn't breathing as calmly as I'd like.

 

[fairybasslet]

Sounds like me and my navigational skills. I don't know how I managed to pass that square turn either. I messed up at the same place you did. In fact, I had to do it twice because I was so confused the first time. During our free swim later, my instructor asked me where the boat was. He told me to always dive with my son, or someone else who knew where they were going.