Kel_Gale
Registered
Awesome reading so far - A good diver is a good learner don’t beat yourself up!
To Catch the Dream: My Journey from Open Water to Dive Instructor
- Thread starter ScubaWithTurk
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JBFG
Contributor
AWESOME!
And I ran out of popcorn between both part! The suspense was killing me!
Great read
And I ran out of popcorn between both part! The suspense was killing me!
Great read
OP
Sorry all, much more to come but I have been busy diving so not much time to write. Stay tuned for an update in the very near future.
Damn you man...got me all excited thinking their was another installment hahaha...glad to hear you're diving that much though.
OP
HAHAHA I love that you were excited!!
I should have the next installment posted in the next day or two.
OP
Catch the Dream: Double Digit Dive Count Club
It was once again time to load up the “dive wagon” with hopes of making the Double Digit Dive Count Club dancing in my head as I continued my quest to Catch the Dream. Oh and before I continue, yes I just totally made up that club. It does not exist anywhere that I know of except in my head; like many things. As a new diver I have set these milestones I am excited to reach. 10 dives, 25 dives, 50 dives, etc. They may not mean much but to most they do to me and are all a part of this journey.
On Monday 11 Dec we got up to head to Fujairah in hopes of diving the Dibba Rock reef without the Coast Guard shutting down all diving due to weather as it had the previous time. Brendon decided we needed to stop at Southern Fried Chicken which is like a KFC knock off but serves breakfast. I had an egg sandwich with, oddly enough, pepperoni on it as well as cheese on what seemed like a ciabatta roll. I also got two hash browns which smelled like fish. I assume that they didn’t change the oil from the previous nights fry. I didn’t get the meal which is called the Panini Toaster Plus and comes with sandwich, hash brown and cocktail
franks. Brendon stated he was not a fan of the franks so I followed his lead. The sandwich was tasty and so were the hash browns even with the fish smell. (NOTE: This was written a day after the actual event and now thinking back I do not believe the hash browns were tasty at all. I just really wanted hash browns.)
While driving there we discussed things instructors need to take into consideration while teaching and planning dives. He mentioned the wording used as he teaches and how it can make a big difference to an already stressed new diver. The personality type of a diver can also give you clues as to how they learn best and allow you to cater your style to meet their needs, within standards of course. When planning dives we went over dive site choice, using the RAID Risk Assessment Form to determine if it was safe to dive, what the possible risks were and a plan to manage those risks along with much more.
After that I told Brendon my goals for the day’s dives which were to work on my buoyancy and my frog kick. This is where he told me it’s good to have goals but sometimes you just need to dive for fun and today were just going to be fun dives. He would use my GoPro to record us and then once back at the house we could look at the footage and use that to improve my diving without taking away from the day’s fun. “Just enjoy the fish and the coral” he said. That took some pressure off of me and I fully believed that I was going to be able to do the dives as nothing more than fun dives. Then again my biggest problem is that I am my own worst critic and I tend to beat myself up if I don’t perform as I feel like I should. (Note: This is sure to come up again as it is a problem I am trying my best to overcome)
We arrive at Freestyle Divers and go to grab the gear out of the car. This is when I realize that I had left the GoPro box back on the front porch. You see, as we were trying to load up we had some furry issues. Not furry as in the costume wearing sense but as in animals. We literally had to herd a cat back into the house which was quite the task. It was laying underneath one of the vehicles and every time I tried to get it, it would dart away under another car or the two four-wheelers outside. This was quite the task for someone who had yet to have a cup of coffee. That led to forgetting a key piece but thankfully it wasn’t something that would have prevented me from diving. Like me leaving my booties at the dive shop after our shore dive on the 6th only to find that they were nowhere to be found once we came back. This sucked because I bought my Deep 6 Eddy fins based on the boots I had purchased so when I borrowed booties from the shop, my fins were loose and made it difficult to get proper power from my frog kick. But hey, just a few fun dives right?
We start to set up our gear and this is when I asked Alan if he had seen my boots. He knew what they looked like as they are Fourth Element but said he had not seen them and would keep an eye out for them. As we start to put our kits together Jenn lets us know that Ahmed Gabr was taking his students out and we could join them on the boat. Another dive with the record holder? Yeah, I am totally down for that! It took some time for them to prep as he needed to do a pre-dive brief with them and they needed to write down what I believe were their gas management plans on wrist slates. They were doing simulated decompression dives so they would be doing gas switches in-water and needed to have a plan written down that they adhered to for safety. I am looking forward to learning about deco dives and planning as I advance and will expand on this later as I learn more.
This gave me some time to relax and focus on my breathing as I tend to get a bit nervous prior to a dive and my SAC rate (Surface Air Consumption) gets pretty high. Not to mention I was about to dive off a small boat and do my first back-roll with someone who has over 9000 dives to their name. Why this makes me nervous I am still unsure of, after all, people are people and I have never been one to get star-struck. It could be that I don't want to be embarrassed but then again, I was about to do my 9th dive so perfection is not expected.
Brendon and I get our kits on and we go over the dive briefing so I am familiar with what is about to happen, the depth at which we would be diving and where he expects to see sharks if there are any out there today. Plus he once again goes over the procedures for how to back-roll as well as what the boat captain will be doing, how to get on the boat from the shore and how to get back on the boat once the dive was over. As Ahmed and his students are getting geared up we head out to the boat to cool off and do a quick buoyancy check for Brendon as he had changed wetsuits. We wade out to the boat, he does his buoyancy check and we climb the ladder onto the boat. The boat is small and unlike what I am used to diving off of in California. Back there we board at the dock, gear up on the way to the site and do the giant stride off the back of the boat. He positions me in the right spot so that the weight is evenly distributed as the other three divers were much larger men wearing a lot of heavy technical dive gear. Once they get aboard off we head for a long 3 minute ride to Dibba Rock.
Brendon and I back-roll at the 5 meter spot. There are two spots to start a dive at Dibba, 5 and 10 meters. (Note: I do not believe this to be correct but it is how I remembered it at the time so it will remain here) He prefers the shallower spot because if you see Black Tips this is where they typically are and he would rather hang out the entire dive and watch them and not waste gas getting to them and have much less time to watch these often skittish sharks. Once in the water we give the Captain the sign for OK and they take off to the 10 meter spot, which is about 400 yards away, so Ahmed and his students can do their drills in deeper water. We descend and both take a horizontal position in the water column as we make our way towards the bottom. I get closer to the bottom and see Sea Urchins below us. Other than my trips to Hawaii, I have never seen them before but knew I needed to be certain I didn't hit the bottom and become a human porcupine. I may have over inflated my wing (my buoyancy control device) a bit as I begin to rise and take a breath in and also dump air from my wing. I stabilize, at least to the best of my ability at this point, and he looks at me and asks if I am OK. I do a quick evaluation of my ears, my mask, and other gear, check my SPG to be sure I did not have a big air loss and give him the OK sign.
He points to the direction we are to head and lets me know to stay by his side. I typically tend to stay back just a bit so I can watch him. I do not know why but the staggered position makes me feel more comfortable. We begin to fin and right away the sandy urchin filled bottom turns into rock and coral reef with fish galore. He gives me the sign for sharks and lets me know where to keep an eye out so we can hopefully see one or ten. I know right away I am having mask issues, something I had on my last dive out here. It does not feel as if it is sealing properly and it is driving me crazy. This continued throughout the day and I still don't know what the problem is but he tends to think it is because I am breathing out of my nose. I know I am but don't know why because I never did this back in the States. This is a problem I hope to get sorted out very soon because it makes my fun dives much less fun and quite noisy with the additional sound of the bubbles coming from the mask as well.
(Continued...)
It was once again time to load up the “dive wagon” with hopes of making the Double Digit Dive Count Club dancing in my head as I continued my quest to Catch the Dream. Oh and before I continue, yes I just totally made up that club. It does not exist anywhere that I know of except in my head; like many things. As a new diver I have set these milestones I am excited to reach. 10 dives, 25 dives, 50 dives, etc. They may not mean much but to most they do to me and are all a part of this journey.
On Monday 11 Dec we got up to head to Fujairah in hopes of diving the Dibba Rock reef without the Coast Guard shutting down all diving due to weather as it had the previous time. Brendon decided we needed to stop at Southern Fried Chicken which is like a KFC knock off but serves breakfast. I had an egg sandwich with, oddly enough, pepperoni on it as well as cheese on what seemed like a ciabatta roll. I also got two hash browns which smelled like fish. I assume that they didn’t change the oil from the previous nights fry. I didn’t get the meal which is called the Panini Toaster Plus and comes with sandwich, hash brown and cocktail
franks. Brendon stated he was not a fan of the franks so I followed his lead. The sandwich was tasty and so were the hash browns even with the fish smell. (NOTE: This was written a day after the actual event and now thinking back I do not believe the hash browns were tasty at all. I just really wanted hash browns.)
While driving there we discussed things instructors need to take into consideration while teaching and planning dives. He mentioned the wording used as he teaches and how it can make a big difference to an already stressed new diver. The personality type of a diver can also give you clues as to how they learn best and allow you to cater your style to meet their needs, within standards of course. When planning dives we went over dive site choice, using the RAID Risk Assessment Form to determine if it was safe to dive, what the possible risks were and a plan to manage those risks along with much more.
After that I told Brendon my goals for the day’s dives which were to work on my buoyancy and my frog kick. This is where he told me it’s good to have goals but sometimes you just need to dive for fun and today were just going to be fun dives. He would use my GoPro to record us and then once back at the house we could look at the footage and use that to improve my diving without taking away from the day’s fun. “Just enjoy the fish and the coral” he said. That took some pressure off of me and I fully believed that I was going to be able to do the dives as nothing more than fun dives. Then again my biggest problem is that I am my own worst critic and I tend to beat myself up if I don’t perform as I feel like I should. (Note: This is sure to come up again as it is a problem I am trying my best to overcome)
We arrive at Freestyle Divers and go to grab the gear out of the car. This is when I realize that I had left the GoPro box back on the front porch. You see, as we were trying to load up we had some furry issues. Not furry as in the costume wearing sense but as in animals. We literally had to herd a cat back into the house which was quite the task. It was laying underneath one of the vehicles and every time I tried to get it, it would dart away under another car or the two four-wheelers outside. This was quite the task for someone who had yet to have a cup of coffee. That led to forgetting a key piece but thankfully it wasn’t something that would have prevented me from diving. Like me leaving my booties at the dive shop after our shore dive on the 6th only to find that they were nowhere to be found once we came back. This sucked because I bought my Deep 6 Eddy fins based on the boots I had purchased so when I borrowed booties from the shop, my fins were loose and made it difficult to get proper power from my frog kick. But hey, just a few fun dives right?
We start to set up our gear and this is when I asked Alan if he had seen my boots. He knew what they looked like as they are Fourth Element but said he had not seen them and would keep an eye out for them. As we start to put our kits together Jenn lets us know that Ahmed Gabr was taking his students out and we could join them on the boat. Another dive with the record holder? Yeah, I am totally down for that! It took some time for them to prep as he needed to do a pre-dive brief with them and they needed to write down what I believe were their gas management plans on wrist slates. They were doing simulated decompression dives so they would be doing gas switches in-water and needed to have a plan written down that they adhered to for safety. I am looking forward to learning about deco dives and planning as I advance and will expand on this later as I learn more.
This gave me some time to relax and focus on my breathing as I tend to get a bit nervous prior to a dive and my SAC rate (Surface Air Consumption) gets pretty high. Not to mention I was about to dive off a small boat and do my first back-roll with someone who has over 9000 dives to their name. Why this makes me nervous I am still unsure of, after all, people are people and I have never been one to get star-struck. It could be that I don't want to be embarrassed but then again, I was about to do my 9th dive so perfection is not expected.
Brendon and I get our kits on and we go over the dive briefing so I am familiar with what is about to happen, the depth at which we would be diving and where he expects to see sharks if there are any out there today. Plus he once again goes over the procedures for how to back-roll as well as what the boat captain will be doing, how to get on the boat from the shore and how to get back on the boat once the dive was over. As Ahmed and his students are getting geared up we head out to the boat to cool off and do a quick buoyancy check for Brendon as he had changed wetsuits. We wade out to the boat, he does his buoyancy check and we climb the ladder onto the boat. The boat is small and unlike what I am used to diving off of in California. Back there we board at the dock, gear up on the way to the site and do the giant stride off the back of the boat. He positions me in the right spot so that the weight is evenly distributed as the other three divers were much larger men wearing a lot of heavy technical dive gear. Once they get aboard off we head for a long 3 minute ride to Dibba Rock.
Brendon and I back-roll at the 5 meter spot. There are two spots to start a dive at Dibba, 5 and 10 meters. (Note: I do not believe this to be correct but it is how I remembered it at the time so it will remain here) He prefers the shallower spot because if you see Black Tips this is where they typically are and he would rather hang out the entire dive and watch them and not waste gas getting to them and have much less time to watch these often skittish sharks. Once in the water we give the Captain the sign for OK and they take off to the 10 meter spot, which is about 400 yards away, so Ahmed and his students can do their drills in deeper water. We descend and both take a horizontal position in the water column as we make our way towards the bottom. I get closer to the bottom and see Sea Urchins below us. Other than my trips to Hawaii, I have never seen them before but knew I needed to be certain I didn't hit the bottom and become a human porcupine. I may have over inflated my wing (my buoyancy control device) a bit as I begin to rise and take a breath in and also dump air from my wing. I stabilize, at least to the best of my ability at this point, and he looks at me and asks if I am OK. I do a quick evaluation of my ears, my mask, and other gear, check my SPG to be sure I did not have a big air loss and give him the OK sign.
He points to the direction we are to head and lets me know to stay by his side. I typically tend to stay back just a bit so I can watch him. I do not know why but the staggered position makes me feel more comfortable. We begin to fin and right away the sandy urchin filled bottom turns into rock and coral reef with fish galore. He gives me the sign for sharks and lets me know where to keep an eye out so we can hopefully see one or ten. I know right away I am having mask issues, something I had on my last dive out here. It does not feel as if it is sealing properly and it is driving me crazy. This continued throughout the day and I still don't know what the problem is but he tends to think it is because I am breathing out of my nose. I know I am but don't know why because I never did this back in the States. This is a problem I hope to get sorted out very soon because it makes my fun dives much less fun and quite noisy with the additional sound of the bubbles coming from the mask as well.
(Continued...)
OP
(Part 2)
silver looking fish that I do not the name of (I now know they are Cornetfish) but were incredible to see as they were about 2-3 feet in length. As we continue to turn right, the opposite of a NASCAR driver, he points towards the shallower rocks and gives me the 'look for sharks in this direction' sign. Not 30 seconds later a 1 meter black tip swims in front of us. The visibility sucked so it wasn't the clearest image and my mask issues along with the extremely salty water compounded the problem but damn it, I saw my first shark!!! It swam away quickly but I saw it and I can't wait to see more. We hit the shallower portion of the dive which is about 2-5 meters and a virtual ocean highway opens up filled full of frolicking fish. I was amazed at what I was seeing and could have hovered there for hours watching. But by this time I was getting low on air so we continued to swim after spending a few minutes there. We surface and the boat is not far from us with Ahmed and his students aboard. We both are smiling and let them know we saw a shark. We swim to the boat, hand up our fins and climb aboard and head back to the shore.
Once back we take our kits off and warm up as the air can quickly chill you when wet even if the water is much warmer than I had been diving in before. We relax, talk about the dive and wait to see if we are going to dive again. It is about a half hour into our surface interval when we find out they were taking someone out for a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving). This is a short course that consists of a pool session to get you familiar with the gear and then a 10- 30 minute dive in the ocean. We wait and then Jenn from Freestyle tells Brendon she has a lady who wants to do a refresher dive. She said she would take her but if we were going out, would he take her. Brendon of course says yes. So now I know I am going to get my tenth dive today. I know it isn't much but the Double Digit Dive Count Club was a big deal for me!!
Once they were done with the pool portion of the DSD, we gear up and Brendon buddies me with young German lady. She spoke English but it seemed to me as if it was limited. He tells me to do my pre-dive check with her. PADI does a check that uses BWRAF while RAID uses B-RAID. Buoyancy & Weights- Regulators & Releases, Air, Instruments, Diver OK to Dive. We start and notice right away she does not have weights. Alan gets us a weight belt and she dons that and we continue the checks. She was AOW (Advanced Open Water) certified with 20 dives logged but had not been diving in three years. It was at this time I began to feel what it would be like to be instructor or divemaster even though I was not acting in that capacity. It was clear she did not remember the buddy checks and it felt good to help her through this. Once complete and Brendon was satisfied, we begin to walk to boat. As we do I am explaining to her the process of getting to the boat, what to do once we get there and tell her we are going to have a great time. We get to the boat and she hands up her fins and climbs aboard as do the rest of us.
We head out to the 5 meter spot again hoping to catch a glimpse of that shark. We get there and Brendon briefs her on the back-roll. He went in first and I believe she went next. Once they were clear I went back and made the OK sign to our Captain. We get together and Brendon goes over a few things prior to us descending. We are all ready and off we go. Right away I notice a problem as she is having issues getting more than a meter down. Brendon goes up a little as I hold my position and watch how he interacts with her. She gets the air dumped from the BCD but needed to exhale fully and wasn't. She finally begins the descent with us and once again I begin to feel pretty good about my skills which I had not prior to this. She was doing a vertical descent while Brendon and I were doing horizontal descents. Little things like this make me see the progress I am making. I know I can't and should not compare myself to other divers but I tend to look at them as a gauge. If I always dive with people who have hundreds or thousands of dives more than me, it is tough to see if I am making progress. Once we get near the bottom she begins to pop up a bit and was having issues staying down. I noticed,as Brendon helped her, that she was riding her LPI (Low Pressure Inflator). This is something I often did but thanks to Scubaboard and my pool sessions with Brendon I have eliminated that issue. We continued along the same path as our previous dive and as went she became more comfortable and was holding her position in the water column. We went over a rock and lo and behold, hiding there was my first lion fish sighting. We also saw a few more puffer fish and much more of which I can't identify at this time.
One thing I noticed and that Brendon and I talked about later was how he was monitoring her buoyancy while making her comfortable without being "aggressive". As she swam with her arms out, he put one hand on top of her arm but not grabbing it, just laying it across to give her direct feedback on her buoyancy. This lets her know he is there and able to help but also doesn't make her think she is doing anything wrong which is what grabbing her arm could suggest. While he did this I was in the staggered position ready to use her rear dump valve in case she began to ascend without warning or reason. This was me positioning myself to assist in case of an extreme emergency. In hindsight, I know I was not experienced enough to take control of a diver having an uncontrolled ascent. Could I pull her dump valve, of course I could. This was in water that was never deeper than 12 meters and Brendon was right on the other side of her. Had this been in blue water, where the bottom can't be seen, I could have been sending her to her death by "trying to help" by pulling the dump valve without having proper skills to keep her from sinking in case I had dumped too much air.
We did the dive, which was about 51 minutes and then we surfaced. All were happy, smiles all around as we all got back aboard the boat and headed for shore.
Dive number 10 complete, I had become a member of the Double Digit Dive Count Club and the day was over. I learned some valuable lessons and am sure to learn more on each and every dive that comes next. Such a great time!! I am looking forward to more fun dives in the future hopefully before the training dives start so I can pass the RAID Advanced 35 class as I continue to catch the dream.
We make our way around the rock, keeping it to our right and it isn't long before we see all kinds of wondrous sea life. Coral, puffer fish, crabs, long
Once back we take our kits off and warm up as the air can quickly chill you when wet even if the water is much warmer than I had been diving in before. We relax, talk about the dive and wait to see if we are going to dive again. It is about a half hour into our surface interval when we find out they were taking someone out for a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving). This is a short course that consists of a pool session to get you familiar with the gear and then a 10- 30 minute dive in the ocean. We wait and then Jenn from Freestyle tells Brendon she has a lady who wants to do a refresher dive. She said she would take her but if we were going out, would he take her. Brendon of course says yes. So now I know I am going to get my tenth dive today. I know it isn't much but the Double Digit Dive Count Club was a big deal for me!!
Once they were done with the pool portion of the DSD, we gear up and Brendon buddies me with young German lady. She spoke English but it seemed to me as if it was limited. He tells me to do my pre-dive check with her. PADI does a check that uses BWRAF while RAID uses B-RAID. Buoyancy & Weights- Regulators & Releases, Air, Instruments, Diver OK to Dive. We start and notice right away she does not have weights. Alan gets us a weight belt and she dons that and we continue the checks. She was AOW (Advanced Open Water) certified with 20 dives logged but had not been diving in three years. It was at this time I began to feel what it would be like to be instructor or divemaster even though I was not acting in that capacity. It was clear she did not remember the buddy checks and it felt good to help her through this. Once complete and Brendon was satisfied, we begin to walk to boat. As we do I am explaining to her the process of getting to the boat, what to do once we get there and tell her we are going to have a great time. We get to the boat and she hands up her fins and climbs aboard as do the rest of us.
We head out to the 5 meter spot again hoping to catch a glimpse of that shark. We get there and Brendon briefs her on the back-roll. He went in first and I believe she went next. Once they were clear I went back and made the OK sign to our Captain. We get together and Brendon goes over a few things prior to us descending. We are all ready and off we go. Right away I notice a problem as she is having issues getting more than a meter down. Brendon goes up a little as I hold my position and watch how he interacts with her. She gets the air dumped from the BCD but needed to exhale fully and wasn't. She finally begins the descent with us and once again I begin to feel pretty good about my skills which I had not prior to this. She was doing a vertical descent while Brendon and I were doing horizontal descents. Little things like this make me see the progress I am making. I know I can't and should not compare myself to other divers but I tend to look at them as a gauge. If I always dive with people who have hundreds or thousands of dives more than me, it is tough to see if I am making progress. Once we get near the bottom she begins to pop up a bit and was having issues staying down. I noticed,as Brendon helped her, that she was riding her LPI (Low Pressure Inflator). This is something I often did but thanks to Scubaboard and my pool sessions with Brendon I have eliminated that issue. We continued along the same path as our previous dive and as went she became more comfortable and was holding her position in the water column. We went over a rock and lo and behold, hiding there was my first lion fish sighting. We also saw a few more puffer fish and much more of which I can't identify at this time.
One thing I noticed and that Brendon and I talked about later was how he was monitoring her buoyancy while making her comfortable without being "aggressive". As she swam with her arms out, he put one hand on top of her arm but not grabbing it, just laying it across to give her direct feedback on her buoyancy. This lets her know he is there and able to help but also doesn't make her think she is doing anything wrong which is what grabbing her arm could suggest. While he did this I was in the staggered position ready to use her rear dump valve in case she began to ascend without warning or reason. This was me positioning myself to assist in case of an extreme emergency. In hindsight, I know I was not experienced enough to take control of a diver having an uncontrolled ascent. Could I pull her dump valve, of course I could. This was in water that was never deeper than 12 meters and Brendon was right on the other side of her. Had this been in blue water, where the bottom can't be seen, I could have been sending her to her death by "trying to help" by pulling the dump valve without having proper skills to keep her from sinking in case I had dumped too much air.
We did the dive, which was about 51 minutes and then we surfaced. All were happy, smiles all around as we all got back aboard the boat and headed for shore.
Dive number 10 complete, I had become a member of the Double Digit Dive Count Club and the day was over. I learned some valuable lessons and am sure to learn more on each and every dive that comes next. Such a great time!! I am looking forward to more fun dives in the future hopefully before the training dives start so I can pass the RAID Advanced 35 class as I continue to catch the dream.
OP
Catch The Dream: A New Tradition Was Born
The date is 26 December 2017 and it has been 15 days since my last splash. As I write that line I feel how closely related it is to the start of any of the anonymous type meetings such as AA. I guess it is appropriate since I would be the first to admit I am a scuba addict. Some may remember from the brief synopsis of my story that it was exactly one year ago that I became Open Water (OW) certified. One year and 10 dives is not what I had in mind but all that was changing and today was going to be a great day as we were once again going to pack up the dive wagon and head to the East coast to do some diving. I realized the significance of this date the night prior as Brendon and I were discussing going diving. It was then and there that a new tradition was born. Granted until I splashed there would be no tradition but the post-Christmas dive would be my thing from now on as a celebration of receiving my OW certification,being in remission and beginning on this journey to catch the dream of becoming a scuba dive instructor.
The plan to dive all started when a member of a WhatsApp group chat asked if anyone was diving the day after Christmas. Gordon (@Searcaigh ) was trying to gauge interest and even stated he would bring gingerbread cookies. Brendon (@RainPilot) knew he was available and did not have the fly so the plan was hatched for us to head out.
There is nothing like gearing up the night before leaving. The anticipation builds as you go through your dive bag, running over the checklist in your head of all the items you need to dive the next day. My brain leaps from the checklist to thoughts of the next day’s dive. Wetsuit, dive computer, fins; I wonder if I will see an octopus or maybe a turtle! Mask, buoyancy device; How many parrotfish will I see this time; compass, slate, SMB and reel; I hope the visibility (vis) is good; weights, save-a-dive kit, camera, check!
All geared up I go to bed feeling like a child on Christmas eve. I am nervous, giddy and full of excitement. Morning comes, we load up the gear and head out; first stop is the ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) for gas and of course coffee. There are some things that must happen prior to diving and coffee is one of those. Once we hit the road to Fujairah Brendon and I settle into what is becoming our routine dive talks. During the ride we discussed diving with a photographer. Gordon is an avid underwater photographer and a quite good one I might add. I have read about how they dive and the challenges that exist for their dive buddies who are not photographers. With my limited skills at this point, I wanted to get some idea from Brendon on what to expect and tips as to how I can best positions myself without getting in the way.
I constantly worry about the people I dive with and how I may mess up their good time underwater. This began in California where I worried about my fast gas consumption rate. If I only last 30 minutes on a single Aluminum 80 cubic foot tank, I very well could be cutting a more experienced diver’s time underwater in half. I even had some say they don’t dive with new divers due to that and some other reasons such as safety. Of course going into these dives with a great photographer had me on edge a bit.
Brendon relaxes me and tells me to have fun, keep my eye on where Gordon is positioned and just make sure to not be in front of him. I can line up next to them or behind them and work on a few skills. This is perfect as I now know I can stay far enough away to not be a bother but close enough to get or give gas in case of an emergency. When he finds a subject worth shooting, I will work on my hover, helicopter turns and maybe even try a back kick or two.
For those not familiar with those terms let me shed some light on them. A hover is just that, sitting still in the water, not moving backwards or forwards while also maintaining your position in the water column as it relates to depth. No big swings in my depth!! Now that we have loosely defined a hover, a helicopter turn is just as it sounds. Imagine I am a helicopter rather than a diver and am hovering in place and now want to turn 180 degrees. A helicopter does not lean left or right, move up or down. It simply rotates on one axis 180 degrees. This is what I want to try to accomplish in the water. There are very specific fin movements needed to make this happen. That along with proper body position (trim) are necessary to accomplish this without propelling yourself up, down or forward.
What proper trim looks like in the water
The back kick does just what it says, moves you backwards. It should be easy considering moving forward comes natural to all of us in the water and going the opposite way is just reversing those movements. However, let me tell you, for something that sounds so easy, it is not!
We talked again about my goals in the dive industry and things that I can do to help set me apart from other instructors who are much younger. My goals are a long list really but the short of it is I want to work towards teaching technical wreck penetration using the side mount configuration. I have some other long-term goals but I think we will leave it at that for now so I don’t give up too much information and ruin the journey for you.
We make it to the dive site, park and unload the gear. This is the time for me that I feel excited and am full of eager anticipation. The dive prep area is a few wooden slat tables with benches under a thatched roof style hut at the edge of the beach.
Dive Staging Area at Freestyle Divers.
Brendon introduces me to Gordon and we begin to unpack our gear from our bags. As I begin to attach my kit to the tank of gas I am using, I am fully focused on the task at hand. I have an internal checklist I go through, I do the same motions and steps each time, in the exact same order. Then once my gear is together and I have gone through the safety checks to ensure I have gas, I can breathe from my regulators, my buoyancy device work and my tail weight is attached, I do them all again.
The non-diver may think this sounds a bit anal retentive or OCD but you have to take into account what it is I am about to do with this gear. Jim Lapenta has my favorite quote on SCUBA in his book Scuba: A Practical Guide for the New Diver; in it he states “What we are doing is entering an alien environment that is normally hostile to human life. We cannot breathe in water without some kind of mechanical assistance.” Now can you see how important these gear checks are to a diver?
(continued)
The date is 26 December 2017 and it has been 15 days since my last splash. As I write that line I feel how closely related it is to the start of any of the anonymous type meetings such as AA. I guess it is appropriate since I would be the first to admit I am a scuba addict. Some may remember from the brief synopsis of my story that it was exactly one year ago that I became Open Water (OW) certified. One year and 10 dives is not what I had in mind but all that was changing and today was going to be a great day as we were once again going to pack up the dive wagon and head to the East coast to do some diving. I realized the significance of this date the night prior as Brendon and I were discussing going diving. It was then and there that a new tradition was born. Granted until I splashed there would be no tradition but the post-Christmas dive would be my thing from now on as a celebration of receiving my OW certification,being in remission and beginning on this journey to catch the dream of becoming a scuba dive instructor.
The plan to dive all started when a member of a WhatsApp group chat asked if anyone was diving the day after Christmas. Gordon (@Searcaigh ) was trying to gauge interest and even stated he would bring gingerbread cookies. Brendon (@RainPilot) knew he was available and did not have the fly so the plan was hatched for us to head out.
There is nothing like gearing up the night before leaving. The anticipation builds as you go through your dive bag, running over the checklist in your head of all the items you need to dive the next day. My brain leaps from the checklist to thoughts of the next day’s dive. Wetsuit, dive computer, fins; I wonder if I will see an octopus or maybe a turtle! Mask, buoyancy device; How many parrotfish will I see this time; compass, slate, SMB and reel; I hope the visibility (vis) is good; weights, save-a-dive kit, camera, check!
All geared up I go to bed feeling like a child on Christmas eve. I am nervous, giddy and full of excitement. Morning comes, we load up the gear and head out; first stop is the ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) for gas and of course coffee. There are some things that must happen prior to diving and coffee is one of those. Once we hit the road to Fujairah Brendon and I settle into what is becoming our routine dive talks. During the ride we discussed diving with a photographer. Gordon is an avid underwater photographer and a quite good one I might add. I have read about how they dive and the challenges that exist for their dive buddies who are not photographers. With my limited skills at this point, I wanted to get some idea from Brendon on what to expect and tips as to how I can best positions myself without getting in the way.
I constantly worry about the people I dive with and how I may mess up their good time underwater. This began in California where I worried about my fast gas consumption rate. If I only last 30 minutes on a single Aluminum 80 cubic foot tank, I very well could be cutting a more experienced diver’s time underwater in half. I even had some say they don’t dive with new divers due to that and some other reasons such as safety. Of course going into these dives with a great photographer had me on edge a bit.
Brendon relaxes me and tells me to have fun, keep my eye on where Gordon is positioned and just make sure to not be in front of him. I can line up next to them or behind them and work on a few skills. This is perfect as I now know I can stay far enough away to not be a bother but close enough to get or give gas in case of an emergency. When he finds a subject worth shooting, I will work on my hover, helicopter turns and maybe even try a back kick or two.
For those not familiar with those terms let me shed some light on them. A hover is just that, sitting still in the water, not moving backwards or forwards while also maintaining your position in the water column as it relates to depth. No big swings in my depth!! Now that we have loosely defined a hover, a helicopter turn is just as it sounds. Imagine I am a helicopter rather than a diver and am hovering in place and now want to turn 180 degrees. A helicopter does not lean left or right, move up or down. It simply rotates on one axis 180 degrees. This is what I want to try to accomplish in the water. There are very specific fin movements needed to make this happen. That along with proper body position (trim) are necessary to accomplish this without propelling yourself up, down or forward.
What proper trim looks like in the water
The back kick does just what it says, moves you backwards. It should be easy considering moving forward comes natural to all of us in the water and going the opposite way is just reversing those movements. However, let me tell you, for something that sounds so easy, it is not!
We talked again about my goals in the dive industry and things that I can do to help set me apart from other instructors who are much younger. My goals are a long list really but the short of it is I want to work towards teaching technical wreck penetration using the side mount configuration. I have some other long-term goals but I think we will leave it at that for now so I don’t give up too much information and ruin the journey for you.
We make it to the dive site, park and unload the gear. This is the time for me that I feel excited and am full of eager anticipation. The dive prep area is a few wooden slat tables with benches under a thatched roof style hut at the edge of the beach.
Dive Staging Area at Freestyle Divers.
Brendon introduces me to Gordon and we begin to unpack our gear from our bags. As I begin to attach my kit to the tank of gas I am using, I am fully focused on the task at hand. I have an internal checklist I go through, I do the same motions and steps each time, in the exact same order. Then once my gear is together and I have gone through the safety checks to ensure I have gas, I can breathe from my regulators, my buoyancy device work and my tail weight is attached, I do them all again.
The non-diver may think this sounds a bit anal retentive or OCD but you have to take into account what it is I am about to do with this gear. Jim Lapenta has my favorite quote on SCUBA in his book Scuba: A Practical Guide for the New Diver; in it he states “What we are doing is entering an alien environment that is normally hostile to human life. We cannot breathe in water without some kind of mechanical assistance.” Now can you see how important these gear checks are to a diver?
(continued)
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OP
Now that my gear is all set, all I need to is to squeeze into my wetsuit. Once it is donned my mood and mindset changes. This is where the excitement and eagerness turns to nervousness. Some of that excitement still remains because if it didn’t, I would not being doing this. However I am still very green in the dive world and my skills are…well they are developing. I dive with people who have a ton of experience and if you were to total their dive, that number would be in the tens of thousands of dives and here I sit about to splash with 10 dives in my logbook.
View as I Meditate and Mentally Prep for the Dive
I always try to take a few minutes while the others are finishing getting ready to sit and stare out at the ocean. I use this time to do a short meditation as I try to calm my nerves and then focus on the surface. Reminding myself why I am here and what it is I love so much about breaking the surface and spending time breathing underwater. I have done this from the start of my Open Water course and continue to do it as of writing this with over 30 dives now in my log. It is part of my dive routine and anyone who knows me well, knows how much I love a good routine.
Brendon and Gordon were ready so we went over our buddy checks and discussed the plan. Gordon was to be my buddy as Brendon acted as a “hunter” looking for macro things like Nudibranch for Gordon to photograph. We head out to the boat and it isn’t long before we backroll off the boat and all the nerves fade away. We begin our descent and notice the visibility isn’t all that great today. We kick out towards the reef system of Dibba rock and start looking for critters.
Nudibranch (Image by Gordon Smith)
Nudibranch (Image by Gordon Smith)
We find a Nudibranch and Gordon gets into position and begins to set up his shots. This is where things go awry for me. I am trying to stick with Gordon, not get in his way and at the same time, not touch the reef to hold my position. Looking back this was a lot to do for someone with so little dives. I had no back kick to speak of so my hover is less of a hover and more of a yo-yo who also has to turn around and reposition myself quite often. I was doing my best and realized it would be better if I moved around behind him and kept my distance. As I did thus I remember thinking I needed to stay close enough for gas sharing and so I don’t lose sight of him in this bad visibility. He finished up and we move on to the next subject. As he begins to take shots, I move around, basically swimming in small circles looking at the fish and glancing at Gordon and Brendon.
This is where I make my very first buddy mistake! I see Brendon begin to get far enough away that he becomes hazy in the cloudy vis. I kick over to him to keep up and it isn’t very long before I look back and can’t see Gordon. “I have just lost my buddy” was the first thing that popped into my head. I look at Brendon and I am sure I had a bit of panic showing, moving about quickly and turning in circles looking for him. We do not see him and I signal to surface. Brendon says no and we end up continuing the dive. My heart is racing as I know I just broke a huge rule in losing track of my dive buddy. Add to that the issue of my mask leaking water and me having to clear it every minute or two and I am quite stressed.
If I am not having fun I know I can thumb any dive, at any time for any reason. I did not thumb this as I was still looking at cool fish, like my favorite goofy buddies the parrotfish. I did not recognize this at the time but now looking back, Brendon’s calm and cool demeanor was probably why I kept going with this dive. He seemed to feel as if it wasn’t a big deal and I find out post-dive just why that he felt that way. I also know why I left Gordon and lost track of him. Brendon is my instructor as well as a friend and dive buddy. As his student I fell into that mindset of “DO NOT lose your instructor”. I am comfortable diving with him and know if I need help he has my back. Even though this was just a fun dive, I still had that student/instructor mindset and that allowed me to leave my buddy.
Moving on we keep checking out the reef and come to the end of the dive. Brendon does has we had briefed on land and has me deploy the SMB (Surface Marker Buoy) from depth; a skill I need to learn for my Advanced class and one I need to master as an instructor. Looking back I would say it went ok as I did not have a bunch of line everywhere and did not get tangled in it. There are things I need to work on such as slowing down every individual motion and keeping myself positioned so that i am facing my buddy as we ascend. I can’t quite tell you why but having done a backroll and now deploying a SMB, I finally felt like a real diver, a real diver who lost his buddy a real one nonetheless.
I can’t recall if it was at the surface, on the boat or back at shore but Brendon talked to me about losing Gordon. I asked why we didn’t surface and he went over again (maybe something I didn’t pick up at the pre-dive brief) that Gordon has his own redundancy with a slung pony bottle. Also Gordon was a solo diver and apparently they have discussed lost buddy procedures in the past. This made me feel a hell of a lot better knowing I didn’t leave my buddy to die and also explains why Brendon was so calm. I say I felt better and I did but I realized my situational awareness needed to improve greatly. Yet another thing to work on as I keep diving. This learning thing just never stops in diving now does it?
The second dive was a lot of the same with my working on my helicopter turns over and over again. I even tried a back kick or three only to have them make me move forwards. Put that in the list of things to work on. I got to see my very first pipe fish which looked like a dragon without wings to me and I am very much looking forward to seeing more of them.
All in all we did two dives which put me at 12 total, had some of those delicious ginger bread cookies that were promised and man, they did not disappoint. They were the best I had ever eaten! I was able to dive with a macro photographer for the first time and work on a few skills. The lessons I learned were all very important to my career and I am glad the mistakes I made were here, with these experienced divers. I can’t thank Brendon and Gordon enough for allowing me to splash with them as a new tradition was born; The post-Christmas Day dive that celebrates my first ever scuba diving certification.
View as I Meditate and Mentally Prep for the Dive
I always try to take a few minutes while the others are finishing getting ready to sit and stare out at the ocean. I use this time to do a short meditation as I try to calm my nerves and then focus on the surface. Reminding myself why I am here and what it is I love so much about breaking the surface and spending time breathing underwater. I have done this from the start of my Open Water course and continue to do it as of writing this with over 30 dives now in my log. It is part of my dive routine and anyone who knows me well, knows how much I love a good routine.
Brendon and Gordon were ready so we went over our buddy checks and discussed the plan. Gordon was to be my buddy as Brendon acted as a “hunter” looking for macro things like Nudibranch for Gordon to photograph. We head out to the boat and it isn’t long before we backroll off the boat and all the nerves fade away. We begin our descent and notice the visibility isn’t all that great today. We kick out towards the reef system of Dibba rock and start looking for critters.
Nudibranch (Image by Gordon Smith)
Nudibranch (Image by Gordon Smith)
We find a Nudibranch and Gordon gets into position and begins to set up his shots. This is where things go awry for me. I am trying to stick with Gordon, not get in his way and at the same time, not touch the reef to hold my position. Looking back this was a lot to do for someone with so little dives. I had no back kick to speak of so my hover is less of a hover and more of a yo-yo who also has to turn around and reposition myself quite often. I was doing my best and realized it would be better if I moved around behind him and kept my distance. As I did thus I remember thinking I needed to stay close enough for gas sharing and so I don’t lose sight of him in this bad visibility. He finished up and we move on to the next subject. As he begins to take shots, I move around, basically swimming in small circles looking at the fish and glancing at Gordon and Brendon.
This is where I make my very first buddy mistake! I see Brendon begin to get far enough away that he becomes hazy in the cloudy vis. I kick over to him to keep up and it isn’t very long before I look back and can’t see Gordon. “I have just lost my buddy” was the first thing that popped into my head. I look at Brendon and I am sure I had a bit of panic showing, moving about quickly and turning in circles looking for him. We do not see him and I signal to surface. Brendon says no and we end up continuing the dive. My heart is racing as I know I just broke a huge rule in losing track of my dive buddy. Add to that the issue of my mask leaking water and me having to clear it every minute or two and I am quite stressed.
If I am not having fun I know I can thumb any dive, at any time for any reason. I did not thumb this as I was still looking at cool fish, like my favorite goofy buddies the parrotfish. I did not recognize this at the time but now looking back, Brendon’s calm and cool demeanor was probably why I kept going with this dive. He seemed to feel as if it wasn’t a big deal and I find out post-dive just why that he felt that way. I also know why I left Gordon and lost track of him. Brendon is my instructor as well as a friend and dive buddy. As his student I fell into that mindset of “DO NOT lose your instructor”. I am comfortable diving with him and know if I need help he has my back. Even though this was just a fun dive, I still had that student/instructor mindset and that allowed me to leave my buddy.
Moving on we keep checking out the reef and come to the end of the dive. Brendon does has we had briefed on land and has me deploy the SMB (Surface Marker Buoy) from depth; a skill I need to learn for my Advanced class and one I need to master as an instructor. Looking back I would say it went ok as I did not have a bunch of line everywhere and did not get tangled in it. There are things I need to work on such as slowing down every individual motion and keeping myself positioned so that i am facing my buddy as we ascend. I can’t quite tell you why but having done a backroll and now deploying a SMB, I finally felt like a real diver, a real diver who lost his buddy a real one nonetheless.
I can’t recall if it was at the surface, on the boat or back at shore but Brendon talked to me about losing Gordon. I asked why we didn’t surface and he went over again (maybe something I didn’t pick up at the pre-dive brief) that Gordon has his own redundancy with a slung pony bottle. Also Gordon was a solo diver and apparently they have discussed lost buddy procedures in the past. This made me feel a hell of a lot better knowing I didn’t leave my buddy to die and also explains why Brendon was so calm. I say I felt better and I did but I realized my situational awareness needed to improve greatly. Yet another thing to work on as I keep diving. This learning thing just never stops in diving now does it?
The second dive was a lot of the same with my working on my helicopter turns over and over again. I even tried a back kick or three only to have them make me move forwards. Put that in the list of things to work on. I got to see my very first pipe fish which looked like a dragon without wings to me and I am very much looking forward to seeing more of them.
All in all we did two dives which put me at 12 total, had some of those delicious ginger bread cookies that were promised and man, they did not disappoint. They were the best I had ever eaten! I was able to dive with a macro photographer for the first time and work on a few skills. The lessons I learned were all very important to my career and I am glad the mistakes I made were here, with these experienced divers. I can’t thank Brendon and Gordon enough for allowing me to splash with them as a new tradition was born; The post-Christmas Day dive that celebrates my first ever scuba diving certification.
It sounds like you are learning and improving your skills. Keep up the hard work and dedication because it will pay off. I like reading your updates and I am glad that they are frequent. You are not the only one to have lost a buddy while diving. I am guilty of this also. We rectified this by establishing that I would always be on his right side, ten feet away and if we were to separate we would shine our flashlights at each other and surface after a one minute search. We also made the rule that pictures are taken together by having one hover close by watching the other. You learn from your mistakes and good divers try hard to learn and not repeat them. I am far from perfect and like you, eager to learn and correct all that I can. Keep up the great attitude and I look forward to your next episode. Keep blowing bubbles young Jedi. ( reference to the continuing saga of your adventure ).
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