Sleepdr
Registered
This is a very long post, but maybe someone with dusty gear in the garage will identify with the story. It's cathartic for me, telling the tale of getting back into diving after many years away.
Facing the fact that middle age is fast approaching, I have dusted off my 20 year old c-card. It started last year, when our kids were old enough to stay with Grandma for a week while we took a first trip to Hawaii. My wife agreed to go on a discovery dive in Maui. After a pool session/skills practice, we had a great shore dive. 30' water over the reef, warm enough for a 3mil shorty, mild current, sea turtles, and lots of fun. I was internally a bit prideful that I still "had it," with tolerable buoyancy control and an RMV of 0.5.
The logbook of my very few post-cert dives is long gone, so I am effectively starting over. My new log says, "to the best of my recollection, I had x dives recorded in old missing logbook." Somehow I had forgotten my first dive at age 15 in a snowstorm in a high Idaho mountain lake wearing Levi's 501s and a beavertail jacket. So, too, had I forgotten my other OW & post-cert dives. They also were usually in snowstorms with very poor underwater visibility. Memory is kind, and I got lured back into diving with the image of clear tropical waters dancing in my head.
I studied diving theory & educational materials again, including the new-to-me use of computers. Next came a tune-up at the LDS, which surprisingly didnt require as much tuning as expected. My old NAUI instructors worked me pretty hard as a teenager back in '91, and I'm grateful that they were so serious. For Christmas, I took a nitrox class. Giving an anesthetic can involve mixing 2-3 gases in realtime, closed or semi-open circuit rebreathing, O2 & CO2 monitoring, etc. The math of partial pressures, EAD, etc. appeals to my nerdy anesthesia brain. It was a little disappointing to see that none of the other students wanted to go through tables & manual calculations.
My old gear was mostly lost and/or unserviceable, so I've started over with an Hogarthian rig. It wasn't much of an intellectual leap - my old setup from first open water dive onwards was primary donate. After crunching the ultimate lift spreadsheet, I hit the pool last Saturday to try out my new gear and test weight estimates. I have no good friends that dive, but learned that a few people get together at the LDS for occasional summer dives.
Fast-forward to this week, when I linked up with that ad hoc group. It was very much a "learning experience" dive.
Plans were to hit a local cold & moderately deep reservoir, so I packed my 7mm Henderson Goldcore John/jacket. If you dont know, the Goldcore stuff is very warm. It's like skin-inside neoprene with little water circulation, a far cry from my old JM Cousteau plush suit. My hood is also a very restrictive 7mm Goldcore that's miserable for mask replacement with thick gloves. Gloves? Why, 7mm Goldcore of course, because we were going into a cold reservoir.
Except we weren't. 10 minutes away from the shop, I got a call to say they changed plans to dive in a local 30' pond. "Most are wearing 7mm wetsuits, since the bottom temp is cold." One of the instructors leading a student was in a drysuit. It was 90 degrees ambient air temp when we arrived at the site. The other guys in my buddy trio assured me the water was cold, so they were also in 7mm Farmer Johns/hoods/gloves. I assembled my gear and crawled into half an inch of very skin-adherent neoprene.
"Sleepdr, you look a little warm," said the guy in the drysuit. "Plrglrlmph," I said, nodding weakly.
Did I mention that my wetsuit is warmer than an average 7mm? It seems to be effectively a semi-dry suit. Sweat was literally dripping out of the tight wrist cuff as I stood there roasting in the sun. Once in the water, one of the buddies had to go get more weight, so I removed my stifling hood & stowed it inside my jacket. Gloves went into my thigh pocket. Bare-headed and handed, and it was still oh-so-toasty in the desert evening.
The vis was very bad, but "gets better below the thermocline around 20 feet." Uh, huh. Problem, though - 6 other guys had already been to the bottom there ahead of us. Good practice for the lost buddy drill. My brand new mask flooded, thanks to chic but leaky facial hair. I cleared the mask just as the last glimpse of my buddy's blue fin disappeared. I looked around 60 seconds, saw no bubbles in the 3' vis, and surfaced at the same time as the other buddies. We regrouped and found a line strung along the bottom, lovingly tied around a bit of rebar jutting from the silt. The 55 degree water felt wonderful. At this point, I was overheated & tired, sucking air from my 98cf tank like a tornado, and just glad to be underwater again.
It was my first OW dive with a Hogarthian rig, which I am growing to like. My trim & weighting need work - probably pretty close on the weight, but still tail heavy. Tail heavy in silty conditions - not good. I'm not highly experienced, but try to be very aware of my trim, so was very surprised to see some of the more experienced guys swimming so head-high/fins-low.
It took conscious effort to keep knees bent and arms out in Superman pose against poor weight distribution - glad I brought lots of air. I have never been taught the frog kick, but decided to try that in addition to the modified flutter to avoid worse silting. Note to self - get instruction on frog kicking, because doing it like a barefoot breast stroke whip-kick will utterly destroy my knee in those stiff F1 fins. The nearest GUE or UTD instructor is in Utah, and hopefully one of them would be willing to do some semblance of a Primer/Essentials or paid mentoring for a couple days. I'm still limping & on Motrin from bad technique, and just had a little chat with an orthopedic surgeon about it.
We saw more rebar and a fish, then turned the dive to follow the line back. I led. The vis dropped to 0 & surprisingly black. I could not see my hand in front of my face - even though it was open water, you could have convinced me we went into an overhead environment. We stayed on the line to its origin, then surfaced. Buddy #3 at the rear said he tried turning on a light, but couldn't see anything.
I staggered back up the stairs after my shin cramp improved, waddled back to the truck, and gulped some water. It was still volcanically hot on the surface in that infernal wetsuit. No current, 55 degree water temp, 0 vis, borderline heat exhaustion and suboptimal trim. Under what I felt to be high workload in suboptimal conditions, my RMV was a staggering 1.4cuft/min. I'm going to put a sticker on my tank saying "Powered by Pratt & Whitney," because I use air like a turbofan engine. I was thoroughly wrung-out from diving in the cold mud pond, and the log book got a several paragraphs of detailed notes. That unremarkable little local dive gave me tons of useful info on equipment & technique. My wife thinks I'm nuts to want to go back out in those conditions. She's probably correct.
I can't wait to go again & learn more.
Facing the fact that middle age is fast approaching, I have dusted off my 20 year old c-card. It started last year, when our kids were old enough to stay with Grandma for a week while we took a first trip to Hawaii. My wife agreed to go on a discovery dive in Maui. After a pool session/skills practice, we had a great shore dive. 30' water over the reef, warm enough for a 3mil shorty, mild current, sea turtles, and lots of fun. I was internally a bit prideful that I still "had it," with tolerable buoyancy control and an RMV of 0.5.
The logbook of my very few post-cert dives is long gone, so I am effectively starting over. My new log says, "to the best of my recollection, I had x dives recorded in old missing logbook." Somehow I had forgotten my first dive at age 15 in a snowstorm in a high Idaho mountain lake wearing Levi's 501s and a beavertail jacket. So, too, had I forgotten my other OW & post-cert dives. They also were usually in snowstorms with very poor underwater visibility. Memory is kind, and I got lured back into diving with the image of clear tropical waters dancing in my head.
I studied diving theory & educational materials again, including the new-to-me use of computers. Next came a tune-up at the LDS, which surprisingly didnt require as much tuning as expected. My old NAUI instructors worked me pretty hard as a teenager back in '91, and I'm grateful that they were so serious. For Christmas, I took a nitrox class. Giving an anesthetic can involve mixing 2-3 gases in realtime, closed or semi-open circuit rebreathing, O2 & CO2 monitoring, etc. The math of partial pressures, EAD, etc. appeals to my nerdy anesthesia brain. It was a little disappointing to see that none of the other students wanted to go through tables & manual calculations.
My old gear was mostly lost and/or unserviceable, so I've started over with an Hogarthian rig. It wasn't much of an intellectual leap - my old setup from first open water dive onwards was primary donate. After crunching the ultimate lift spreadsheet, I hit the pool last Saturday to try out my new gear and test weight estimates. I have no good friends that dive, but learned that a few people get together at the LDS for occasional summer dives.
Fast-forward to this week, when I linked up with that ad hoc group. It was very much a "learning experience" dive.
Plans were to hit a local cold & moderately deep reservoir, so I packed my 7mm Henderson Goldcore John/jacket. If you dont know, the Goldcore stuff is very warm. It's like skin-inside neoprene with little water circulation, a far cry from my old JM Cousteau plush suit. My hood is also a very restrictive 7mm Goldcore that's miserable for mask replacement with thick gloves. Gloves? Why, 7mm Goldcore of course, because we were going into a cold reservoir.
Except we weren't. 10 minutes away from the shop, I got a call to say they changed plans to dive in a local 30' pond. "Most are wearing 7mm wetsuits, since the bottom temp is cold." One of the instructors leading a student was in a drysuit. It was 90 degrees ambient air temp when we arrived at the site. The other guys in my buddy trio assured me the water was cold, so they were also in 7mm Farmer Johns/hoods/gloves. I assembled my gear and crawled into half an inch of very skin-adherent neoprene.
"Sleepdr, you look a little warm," said the guy in the drysuit. "Plrglrlmph," I said, nodding weakly.
Did I mention that my wetsuit is warmer than an average 7mm? It seems to be effectively a semi-dry suit. Sweat was literally dripping out of the tight wrist cuff as I stood there roasting in the sun. Once in the water, one of the buddies had to go get more weight, so I removed my stifling hood & stowed it inside my jacket. Gloves went into my thigh pocket. Bare-headed and handed, and it was still oh-so-toasty in the desert evening.
The vis was very bad, but "gets better below the thermocline around 20 feet." Uh, huh. Problem, though - 6 other guys had already been to the bottom there ahead of us. Good practice for the lost buddy drill. My brand new mask flooded, thanks to chic but leaky facial hair. I cleared the mask just as the last glimpse of my buddy's blue fin disappeared. I looked around 60 seconds, saw no bubbles in the 3' vis, and surfaced at the same time as the other buddies. We regrouped and found a line strung along the bottom, lovingly tied around a bit of rebar jutting from the silt. The 55 degree water felt wonderful. At this point, I was overheated & tired, sucking air from my 98cf tank like a tornado, and just glad to be underwater again.
It was my first OW dive with a Hogarthian rig, which I am growing to like. My trim & weighting need work - probably pretty close on the weight, but still tail heavy. Tail heavy in silty conditions - not good. I'm not highly experienced, but try to be very aware of my trim, so was very surprised to see some of the more experienced guys swimming so head-high/fins-low.
It took conscious effort to keep knees bent and arms out in Superman pose against poor weight distribution - glad I brought lots of air. I have never been taught the frog kick, but decided to try that in addition to the modified flutter to avoid worse silting. Note to self - get instruction on frog kicking, because doing it like a barefoot breast stroke whip-kick will utterly destroy my knee in those stiff F1 fins. The nearest GUE or UTD instructor is in Utah, and hopefully one of them would be willing to do some semblance of a Primer/Essentials or paid mentoring for a couple days. I'm still limping & on Motrin from bad technique, and just had a little chat with an orthopedic surgeon about it.
We saw more rebar and a fish, then turned the dive to follow the line back. I led. The vis dropped to 0 & surprisingly black. I could not see my hand in front of my face - even though it was open water, you could have convinced me we went into an overhead environment. We stayed on the line to its origin, then surfaced. Buddy #3 at the rear said he tried turning on a light, but couldn't see anything.
I staggered back up the stairs after my shin cramp improved, waddled back to the truck, and gulped some water. It was still volcanically hot on the surface in that infernal wetsuit. No current, 55 degree water temp, 0 vis, borderline heat exhaustion and suboptimal trim. Under what I felt to be high workload in suboptimal conditions, my RMV was a staggering 1.4cuft/min. I'm going to put a sticker on my tank saying "Powered by Pratt & Whitney," because I use air like a turbofan engine. I was thoroughly wrung-out from diving in the cold mud pond, and the log book got a several paragraphs of detailed notes. That unremarkable little local dive gave me tons of useful info on equipment & technique. My wife thinks I'm nuts to want to go back out in those conditions. She's probably correct.
I can't wait to go again & learn more.
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