large_diver
Contributor
DIR Fundamentals trip report August 9-11 Plymouth & Hyannis, MA
WARNING -- VERY LONG.......
I spent this past weekend with 9 fellow victims attending a DIR Fundamentals (DIRF) course conducted in Plymouth & Cape Cod (Hyannis), MA by Global Underwater Explorers (GUE).
Before I go any further a few definitions and a little about the course itself, since there have been so many DIR questions around here lately. DIR is short for "Doing It Right". DIR is a diving philosophy that advocates streamlined gear, strong basic skill development & ongoing maintenance, buddy awareness/skills, comprehensive pre-dive planning/preparation, and physical fitness to help make you a better diver. DIR came from the tech/cave diving world, but has started to move into the rec diving world. Most of the ideas or skills that are part of the DIR philosophy are not new or unique, but when taken together they add up to safer diving.
Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) is the agency that is teaching DIR-related courses. The entry-level course offered by GUE is DIR Fundamentals, which introduces you to the DIR philosophy and how it applies to the diving that you do, whether technical or recreational. GUE also teaches multiple levels of technical and cave diving. The GUE folks also told us this weekend that a GUE OW certification course is in the works stay tuned for more details!
The DIRF course is really a LEARNING course, not a certification course. There is no test at the end of the course and no certification card. IMHO, the course doesnt even make you a better diver. What it does do is make you aware of what your skill level is now (this can be a rather painful revelation) and how to BECOME a better diver through adoption of the DIR system and constant PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE of the skills drills and techniques demonstrated during the course. If anything it is a REGRESSIVE course in that you are going back to basics. Many of the skills in this course are not new -- they are skills that we all should know but that many of us haven't mastered or havent even tried since our BOW certification course. This is not meant to imply that people who dont dive DIR or who havent taken a GUE course are not skilled or safe divers that is obviously not true. The basic point made in the course is that we should all be practicing and refining our skills to become better divers. Sure, the gear configuration is part of the DIR philosophy, but its skill refinement and improved dive planning that is really the focus of the DIRF course.
The course consists of 2 ½ days of classroom, dry land skills work and 4 OW dives. Included in the classroom portion of the course is video review of each of our 4 dives, with significant footage of each class participant. The chance to see how I look underwater was almost worth the price of admission alone!
So why did I take this course? After 2 ½ years of reading about DIR and making a slow (and still unfinished) movement to a DIR gear configuration, it was time to see where I stood. I had decided to make a commitment to DIR diving and this was the perfect opportunity to see where I stand from a both a skills and an equipment standpoint.
More about me to help put my reactions to the course in perspective: I started diving in 2000 and have only 60 dives to my name, 10 on a backplate. My diving is 100% recreational and my future dive goals are 100% recreational.
So with that lengthy prelude behind us, lets get to the class.
DAY 1 -- Friday Night (Plymouth, MA):
We met Friday night at 7PM at Plymouth Fitness. Our instructors for the weekend were Andrew Georgitsis (GUE training director), Dan McKay & Mike Kane, plus 5 assistants who handled logistics, underwater photography, running lines underwater, etc. All great guys with down to earth attitudes. Very approachable. Very knowledgable. VERY demanding. These guys have done stuff most of the rest of us can only dream about.
Here are bios for Andrew and Dan. Mikes (aka MHK) reputation kind of speaks for itself ;-)
http://www.gue.com/info/resumes/ageorgitsis.html
http://www.gue.com/info/resumes/mckay_d.shtml
We spent a fair amount of time Friday evening introducing ourselves and discussing our diving bios. While this helped the 10 students in the course get to know each other, it also gave the instructors a chance to understand the kind of diving weve done and our future diving goals. Andrew asked each one of us a lot of questions about why weve done some of the things we have: Why are you diving doubles? Why did you take this or that training? What are your future goals? Why are you taking DIRF?
Although there were no instructors in our student group, there were a few DMs and there was certainly a wide range of experience levels from relative newbies like me to folks with several years of experience. We had 6 double tank divers (5 men, 1 woman -- all dry suit) and 4 single tankers (3 men, 1 woman 3 wet, 1 dry).
The rest of the evening we spent going over the sequence of dives/lectures for Saturday and Sunday, as well as introductory discussions of trim, buoyancy, and the various kicks we would be working on. It quickly became obvious that buoyancy and trim were the keys to everything in this class the expectation was that we would be able to maintain adequate control on both even as the task loading became more intense throughout the weekend. These were expectations that would be hard for almost all of us to meet ..
DAY 2 -- Saturday:
We arrived at Hathaways Pond in Hyannis (Cape Cod) at 8AM on Saturday and started with exposure suit discussions. The interesting point here is that Andrew dissed DUI suits due to seam placement and a few other issues. Hmmmm .I thought DUI was the suit of choice for all DIR divers (including virtually all the instructors at the course) ..even George Irvine. We then donned our backplates (just BP & harness no wing) with our exposure suits on to make sure our harnesses were fitted correctly. Pretty much everyone in the class required a tighter harness. When wearing it on dry land with your suit on, they want you to be able to reach back and touch the top of the plate with your hand. They also took the opportunity to look at D ring placement for chest rings, they wanted us to extend our arms to our sides (parallel to the ground) and then bend at the elbow, keeping your arm parallel to the ground and touching your hand to your chest. This is where the chest D rings should go any higher is hard to reach; any lower constricts arm movement if you reach across your chest. They also looked at the type of D rings each of us had anything that wasnt a basic bent D ring was frowned upon. My FredT waist billy ring (I replaced my chest rings) received a bunch of negative comments (What the hell is this thing?). Bottom line they were looking for low profile rings.
From the harness fitting it was on to dry land kick practice and trim discussion. Trim = if you lay on your belly with your head up, back arched and your knees bent at a 90 degree angle (feet parallel to the ground) this is the position they want us in underwater regardless of whats going on during descent, while swimming underwater, and during ascent. Arch that back! Word to the wise do some back and hamstring/calf stretching before the each day of class and even then, youll still be sore! Why the horizontal position? Better profile. On ascents & descents, a horizontal position provides more resistance, slowing you down. You are also in a position that allows you to kick up or down easily. While swimming underwater, you are presenting the profile with the least resistance, reducing kicking effort. Makes sense.
Then the kicks frog kick, modified frog, modified flutter, backwards kick & helicopter turn. None seems particularly hard on dry land, although I guess I looked less than graceful (Youre not much of a dancer, are you Chris?). The main exception is the dreaded backwards kick, which everyone seems to have trouble mastering. Things would be even worse underwater .. ;-)
So on to dive 1. I was buddied up with Ken, a guy Ive met before but never dove with. Our instructor for dive 1 was Mike Kane. Hathaways has a platform just off shore in 20 feet of water and an old Saab about 50 yards away. The instructors fixed lines in a triangular loop from the platform to the Saab and back. We were to be working on our trim back arched, head up looking forward, knees bent and our kicks. We descended to the platform. I tried a horizontal descent, which Ive been working on since getting my backplate in June. Not perfect but not horrendous. I do touch the platform with my hand, however. As we would find out later in the post-dive debrief, any use of hands for propulsion or to steady your self on any object was a big no no.
Off we went on the loop, alternating between the various kicks and the helicopter turns. My frog/modified frog/flutter are OK, but it quickly becomes obvious that my Mares Quattros are not the best fins for these more subtle kicks too long and sort of floppy. Same thing on the helicopter turns. My backwards kicks = a complete failure. I seem to be moving forward and not backward (due to poor form according to Mike). Helicopter turns OK. After a few laps we return to the platform and then surface, doing an immediate debrief. Bottom line we stink. Trim is generally lacking, kicks are sloppy, and buoyancy control is not where it needs to be.
After a brief surface interval including lunch, we start dive 2. For this dive we switched to Dan McKay for our instructor and add more drills valve drills (shut down and turn back on), air sharing (S drills), and the basic 4 (removing reg, switch to back-up, mask flood/clear, mask removal/clear). We do a few more laps practicing our kicks before returning to the platform, where Dan is waiting for us. First we do the basic four removing the mask is kind of fun, especially the requirement that you keep your eyes closed after handing the mask to the instructor. Then its on to valve drills ..my first time trying this and I was a little unsure that I could reach it. Everything actually went fine. I have to keep reminding myself about the trim though ..imagine being in this horizontal, head up, arched back position, and then trying to reach back and turn your valve off while maintaining this trim Im starting to feel like the human cramp.
Then its on to air sharing, where there is a specific order to follow. The first time is a little rough, but it gets better with practice and when we SLOW DOWN. After a quick debrief (you guys still need work!), we pack everything up and head back to Plymouth Fitness for our much-anticipated video review.
We arrive back in the conference room with lots of anticipation. Andrew queues up the video. Vis at the pond that day was average by local ocean standards, but below average for the pond and less than optimal for video. Nevertheless, we could still see ourselves clearly (most of us probably wish things were a little LESS visible), and what we saw was relatively ugly. Lots of folks with their head up and feet down. Lots of hand movement. Lots of touching (the platform, the car, the bottom). Lots of stirred-up silt. The more task loading, the worse things look. We are told that our skills are about the same as most students they see in DIRF. This does not make us feel any better.
When I finally appeared on the screen, I received a not bad for my trim (euphoria!), but my kicks are somewhat sloppy. Youve got to get rid of those damn fins is the mantra that all the instructors uttered almost in unison. I had always thought that Mares fins were stiff, but when doing more subtle kicks like these, they looked like they were flopping all over theyre just too damn big. They are made for doing big wide flutter kicks. Looks like Ill be investing in some jet fins soon. I tried on Andrews turtles while at the dive site the foot pocket is just too wide for my feet.
After watching the videos for about 90 minutes, we switch back to lecture, discussing the planned dives for Sunday as well as a concept called rock bottom. Rock bottom attempts to establish the bare minimum amount of air you should have in your tank when ascending from depth. We went through an example where we attempted to come up with a rough estimate of the amount of air consumed during an ascent from a depth of 100 feet, assuming a few stops along the way. This was a tough discussion to listen to since it was at the end of a long day (too many numbers), but the point was made that we should all take a hard look at the amount of gas we take with us and whether it is adequate for the dive we are doing given the potential need for air-sharing from the deepest depth and through a slow, controlled ascent, including multiple stops. Unfortunately, I think this would result in many single tank divers having to re-think how deep and long they are diving and how close theyre cutting things on their air usage, especially in the event of an emergency. I found this to be a very helpful discussion vs. the old mantra of be back on the boat with 500PSI.
DAY 3-- Sunday:
On Sunday we started with dives first and video review/lecture later. Since one of the single tankers could not dive on Sunday (illness), the remaining 3 of us were grouped into a single team. Today we were diving with Andrew, who gave us a briefing before heading into the water same basic itinerary as dive 2, but this time we would be practicing horizontal ascents while air sharing at the end of the dive. Dive 4 would be more of the same, except we would be ascending while air sharing from a deeper depth and would have to incorporate a safety stop at 10 feet while sharing air for good measure.
We descend for dive 3 and set off on our kick circuit, stopping at the platform after a few laps. Andrew appears out of the deep green before us and has us run through our valve shut downs and air sharing. The valve drills go smoothly; its during the air sharing ascents where the fun starts. I get to play OOA diver first, starting on the opposite side of the platform from my buddy. My buddy passes me his primary and everything seems fine, although our third team member/buddy is nowhere to be seen (so much for buddy awareness more demerits). My air sharing buddy Tom and I ascend, doing a sort of ugly underwater dance number on the way up. The first 10 feet goes fine; the second 10 feet we are not as controlled. Andrew meets us on the surface, giving us demerits for rushing the air-share drill and not maintaining adequate buoyancy control at the end. And where the hell is your buddy? I drop down to tell our lost buddy to come up before we try again, this time with me as the donator. This one goes a little better on the air sharing drills, about the same on the ascent we need better control. We head to shore for our SIT.
Dive 4 is with Andrew again -- we drop at the platform and head into deeper water (35-40 feet). Andrew shoots a lift bag for us to follow on the ascent and we start the drills. I am donating again this time. The air share goes fine and up we go. The first 20 feet is controlled and slow, but as we get up around 15, we definitely start dog fighting and it looks like we will overshoot the stop. We get up to about 6-7 feet ..by this point weve caught ourselves, but we overcompensate and go too far on the way down (20 feet). Finally, with everything under control, we ease our way up to the surface. More demerits for lack of buoyancy control and for being unable to hold the stop. At first I was kicking myself for not being able to ascend slowly or hold the stop this is stuff I do on almost every dive and usually do successfully. Upon further review, I begin to realize its the task loading thats throwing us off. Youve got someone right in front of you and both of you are trying to hold a horizontal position. Having not perfected our backward kicks yet, I found my buddy and I constantly bumping into each other during the ascent, which gave us further buoyancy and trim issues. I can only imagine how things would be if we were using 40 back-up hoses. Having the extra slack of 5 foot (me) and 7 foot (buddies) hoses to work with really helped.
Andrew asks us to drop down once more to do a final air share before finishing the dive. Cool I like practicing descents in slightly deeper water like this. My 2 buddies drop fairly quickly to the bottom. I tend to be a slow poke when descending, so they lose me in the limited vis. As I pass the thermocline, all I see is silt and there is no sight of the bottom guess there was a crash landing. I cant see anything and I end up coming to rest on the bottom myself. At this point I visualize Andrew hovering above us shaking his head (I certainly can't see him given the now zero vis) and I start chuckling to myself. I thought we were supposed to be getting better at this by dive 4.....
I gently lift off the bottom and start doing a slow circle, looking for the rest of my team. I finally locate them (thank god for Toms yellow fins), and we prepare for our final air share/ascent. This time I get to be the third buddy while the other 2 air share. They start up and I follow. Their ascent starts to speed up and I get left slightly below ..catching up with them a few seconds later. The ensuing ascent is kind of comical, with them bumping together and me bumping them as well. No matter how hard I try, I cant get my backward kick to work. Im trying to avoid using my hands, but I either do tight helicopter turns to move away (at least Im doing something right!) or we gently push off each other to maintain a little breathing room this adds further challenges to our buoyancy control. We ascend the last 15 feet at a slow rate, but again no stop and the trim is rather ugly. Andrew is not happy with us at the surface lost buddy on descent, buoyancy control, etc. While a three person team makes this a more difficult exercise, we still didnt come close to executing as well as we should have.
We pack up and head to a local Olive Garden for a late lunch & video review. More of the same constructive comments, but we are falling woefully short on the skills. After four dives, we have not executed perfectly far from it. The good news is that we now KNOW that these are skills we should be practicing and perfecting (well maybe not perfecting, but at least improving).
So after 2 ½ days of this course, am I a better diver? Absolutely not. But more importantly, I feel like I now have some tools that I can start actively using on every dive to make myself a more skilled and safer diver and buddy which is what DIR is all about. I'm just glad I took this course at 60 dives vs. 600 -- the realization that my skills need more work is much easier to swallow when you're a newbie.
For more information about DIR and GUE courses, check out the following links:
http://www.gue.com
http://www.dirquest.com/about_dir.shtml
WARNING -- VERY LONG.......
I spent this past weekend with 9 fellow victims attending a DIR Fundamentals (DIRF) course conducted in Plymouth & Cape Cod (Hyannis), MA by Global Underwater Explorers (GUE).
Before I go any further a few definitions and a little about the course itself, since there have been so many DIR questions around here lately. DIR is short for "Doing It Right". DIR is a diving philosophy that advocates streamlined gear, strong basic skill development & ongoing maintenance, buddy awareness/skills, comprehensive pre-dive planning/preparation, and physical fitness to help make you a better diver. DIR came from the tech/cave diving world, but has started to move into the rec diving world. Most of the ideas or skills that are part of the DIR philosophy are not new or unique, but when taken together they add up to safer diving.
Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) is the agency that is teaching DIR-related courses. The entry-level course offered by GUE is DIR Fundamentals, which introduces you to the DIR philosophy and how it applies to the diving that you do, whether technical or recreational. GUE also teaches multiple levels of technical and cave diving. The GUE folks also told us this weekend that a GUE OW certification course is in the works stay tuned for more details!
The DIRF course is really a LEARNING course, not a certification course. There is no test at the end of the course and no certification card. IMHO, the course doesnt even make you a better diver. What it does do is make you aware of what your skill level is now (this can be a rather painful revelation) and how to BECOME a better diver through adoption of the DIR system and constant PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE of the skills drills and techniques demonstrated during the course. If anything it is a REGRESSIVE course in that you are going back to basics. Many of the skills in this course are not new -- they are skills that we all should know but that many of us haven't mastered or havent even tried since our BOW certification course. This is not meant to imply that people who dont dive DIR or who havent taken a GUE course are not skilled or safe divers that is obviously not true. The basic point made in the course is that we should all be practicing and refining our skills to become better divers. Sure, the gear configuration is part of the DIR philosophy, but its skill refinement and improved dive planning that is really the focus of the DIRF course.
The course consists of 2 ½ days of classroom, dry land skills work and 4 OW dives. Included in the classroom portion of the course is video review of each of our 4 dives, with significant footage of each class participant. The chance to see how I look underwater was almost worth the price of admission alone!
So why did I take this course? After 2 ½ years of reading about DIR and making a slow (and still unfinished) movement to a DIR gear configuration, it was time to see where I stood. I had decided to make a commitment to DIR diving and this was the perfect opportunity to see where I stand from a both a skills and an equipment standpoint.
More about me to help put my reactions to the course in perspective: I started diving in 2000 and have only 60 dives to my name, 10 on a backplate. My diving is 100% recreational and my future dive goals are 100% recreational.
So with that lengthy prelude behind us, lets get to the class.
DAY 1 -- Friday Night (Plymouth, MA):
We met Friday night at 7PM at Plymouth Fitness. Our instructors for the weekend were Andrew Georgitsis (GUE training director), Dan McKay & Mike Kane, plus 5 assistants who handled logistics, underwater photography, running lines underwater, etc. All great guys with down to earth attitudes. Very approachable. Very knowledgable. VERY demanding. These guys have done stuff most of the rest of us can only dream about.
Here are bios for Andrew and Dan. Mikes (aka MHK) reputation kind of speaks for itself ;-)
http://www.gue.com/info/resumes/ageorgitsis.html
http://www.gue.com/info/resumes/mckay_d.shtml
We spent a fair amount of time Friday evening introducing ourselves and discussing our diving bios. While this helped the 10 students in the course get to know each other, it also gave the instructors a chance to understand the kind of diving weve done and our future diving goals. Andrew asked each one of us a lot of questions about why weve done some of the things we have: Why are you diving doubles? Why did you take this or that training? What are your future goals? Why are you taking DIRF?
Although there were no instructors in our student group, there were a few DMs and there was certainly a wide range of experience levels from relative newbies like me to folks with several years of experience. We had 6 double tank divers (5 men, 1 woman -- all dry suit) and 4 single tankers (3 men, 1 woman 3 wet, 1 dry).
The rest of the evening we spent going over the sequence of dives/lectures for Saturday and Sunday, as well as introductory discussions of trim, buoyancy, and the various kicks we would be working on. It quickly became obvious that buoyancy and trim were the keys to everything in this class the expectation was that we would be able to maintain adequate control on both even as the task loading became more intense throughout the weekend. These were expectations that would be hard for almost all of us to meet ..
DAY 2 -- Saturday:
We arrived at Hathaways Pond in Hyannis (Cape Cod) at 8AM on Saturday and started with exposure suit discussions. The interesting point here is that Andrew dissed DUI suits due to seam placement and a few other issues. Hmmmm .I thought DUI was the suit of choice for all DIR divers (including virtually all the instructors at the course) ..even George Irvine. We then donned our backplates (just BP & harness no wing) with our exposure suits on to make sure our harnesses were fitted correctly. Pretty much everyone in the class required a tighter harness. When wearing it on dry land with your suit on, they want you to be able to reach back and touch the top of the plate with your hand. They also took the opportunity to look at D ring placement for chest rings, they wanted us to extend our arms to our sides (parallel to the ground) and then bend at the elbow, keeping your arm parallel to the ground and touching your hand to your chest. This is where the chest D rings should go any higher is hard to reach; any lower constricts arm movement if you reach across your chest. They also looked at the type of D rings each of us had anything that wasnt a basic bent D ring was frowned upon. My FredT waist billy ring (I replaced my chest rings) received a bunch of negative comments (What the hell is this thing?). Bottom line they were looking for low profile rings.
From the harness fitting it was on to dry land kick practice and trim discussion. Trim = if you lay on your belly with your head up, back arched and your knees bent at a 90 degree angle (feet parallel to the ground) this is the position they want us in underwater regardless of whats going on during descent, while swimming underwater, and during ascent. Arch that back! Word to the wise do some back and hamstring/calf stretching before the each day of class and even then, youll still be sore! Why the horizontal position? Better profile. On ascents & descents, a horizontal position provides more resistance, slowing you down. You are also in a position that allows you to kick up or down easily. While swimming underwater, you are presenting the profile with the least resistance, reducing kicking effort. Makes sense.
Then the kicks frog kick, modified frog, modified flutter, backwards kick & helicopter turn. None seems particularly hard on dry land, although I guess I looked less than graceful (Youre not much of a dancer, are you Chris?). The main exception is the dreaded backwards kick, which everyone seems to have trouble mastering. Things would be even worse underwater .. ;-)
So on to dive 1. I was buddied up with Ken, a guy Ive met before but never dove with. Our instructor for dive 1 was Mike Kane. Hathaways has a platform just off shore in 20 feet of water and an old Saab about 50 yards away. The instructors fixed lines in a triangular loop from the platform to the Saab and back. We were to be working on our trim back arched, head up looking forward, knees bent and our kicks. We descended to the platform. I tried a horizontal descent, which Ive been working on since getting my backplate in June. Not perfect but not horrendous. I do touch the platform with my hand, however. As we would find out later in the post-dive debrief, any use of hands for propulsion or to steady your self on any object was a big no no.
Off we went on the loop, alternating between the various kicks and the helicopter turns. My frog/modified frog/flutter are OK, but it quickly becomes obvious that my Mares Quattros are not the best fins for these more subtle kicks too long and sort of floppy. Same thing on the helicopter turns. My backwards kicks = a complete failure. I seem to be moving forward and not backward (due to poor form according to Mike). Helicopter turns OK. After a few laps we return to the platform and then surface, doing an immediate debrief. Bottom line we stink. Trim is generally lacking, kicks are sloppy, and buoyancy control is not where it needs to be.
After a brief surface interval including lunch, we start dive 2. For this dive we switched to Dan McKay for our instructor and add more drills valve drills (shut down and turn back on), air sharing (S drills), and the basic 4 (removing reg, switch to back-up, mask flood/clear, mask removal/clear). We do a few more laps practicing our kicks before returning to the platform, where Dan is waiting for us. First we do the basic four removing the mask is kind of fun, especially the requirement that you keep your eyes closed after handing the mask to the instructor. Then its on to valve drills ..my first time trying this and I was a little unsure that I could reach it. Everything actually went fine. I have to keep reminding myself about the trim though ..imagine being in this horizontal, head up, arched back position, and then trying to reach back and turn your valve off while maintaining this trim Im starting to feel like the human cramp.
Then its on to air sharing, where there is a specific order to follow. The first time is a little rough, but it gets better with practice and when we SLOW DOWN. After a quick debrief (you guys still need work!), we pack everything up and head back to Plymouth Fitness for our much-anticipated video review.
We arrive back in the conference room with lots of anticipation. Andrew queues up the video. Vis at the pond that day was average by local ocean standards, but below average for the pond and less than optimal for video. Nevertheless, we could still see ourselves clearly (most of us probably wish things were a little LESS visible), and what we saw was relatively ugly. Lots of folks with their head up and feet down. Lots of hand movement. Lots of touching (the platform, the car, the bottom). Lots of stirred-up silt. The more task loading, the worse things look. We are told that our skills are about the same as most students they see in DIRF. This does not make us feel any better.
When I finally appeared on the screen, I received a not bad for my trim (euphoria!), but my kicks are somewhat sloppy. Youve got to get rid of those damn fins is the mantra that all the instructors uttered almost in unison. I had always thought that Mares fins were stiff, but when doing more subtle kicks like these, they looked like they were flopping all over theyre just too damn big. They are made for doing big wide flutter kicks. Looks like Ill be investing in some jet fins soon. I tried on Andrews turtles while at the dive site the foot pocket is just too wide for my feet.
After watching the videos for about 90 minutes, we switch back to lecture, discussing the planned dives for Sunday as well as a concept called rock bottom. Rock bottom attempts to establish the bare minimum amount of air you should have in your tank when ascending from depth. We went through an example where we attempted to come up with a rough estimate of the amount of air consumed during an ascent from a depth of 100 feet, assuming a few stops along the way. This was a tough discussion to listen to since it was at the end of a long day (too many numbers), but the point was made that we should all take a hard look at the amount of gas we take with us and whether it is adequate for the dive we are doing given the potential need for air-sharing from the deepest depth and through a slow, controlled ascent, including multiple stops. Unfortunately, I think this would result in many single tank divers having to re-think how deep and long they are diving and how close theyre cutting things on their air usage, especially in the event of an emergency. I found this to be a very helpful discussion vs. the old mantra of be back on the boat with 500PSI.
DAY 3-- Sunday:
On Sunday we started with dives first and video review/lecture later. Since one of the single tankers could not dive on Sunday (illness), the remaining 3 of us were grouped into a single team. Today we were diving with Andrew, who gave us a briefing before heading into the water same basic itinerary as dive 2, but this time we would be practicing horizontal ascents while air sharing at the end of the dive. Dive 4 would be more of the same, except we would be ascending while air sharing from a deeper depth and would have to incorporate a safety stop at 10 feet while sharing air for good measure.
We descend for dive 3 and set off on our kick circuit, stopping at the platform after a few laps. Andrew appears out of the deep green before us and has us run through our valve shut downs and air sharing. The valve drills go smoothly; its during the air sharing ascents where the fun starts. I get to play OOA diver first, starting on the opposite side of the platform from my buddy. My buddy passes me his primary and everything seems fine, although our third team member/buddy is nowhere to be seen (so much for buddy awareness more demerits). My air sharing buddy Tom and I ascend, doing a sort of ugly underwater dance number on the way up. The first 10 feet goes fine; the second 10 feet we are not as controlled. Andrew meets us on the surface, giving us demerits for rushing the air-share drill and not maintaining adequate buoyancy control at the end. And where the hell is your buddy? I drop down to tell our lost buddy to come up before we try again, this time with me as the donator. This one goes a little better on the air sharing drills, about the same on the ascent we need better control. We head to shore for our SIT.
Dive 4 is with Andrew again -- we drop at the platform and head into deeper water (35-40 feet). Andrew shoots a lift bag for us to follow on the ascent and we start the drills. I am donating again this time. The air share goes fine and up we go. The first 20 feet is controlled and slow, but as we get up around 15, we definitely start dog fighting and it looks like we will overshoot the stop. We get up to about 6-7 feet ..by this point weve caught ourselves, but we overcompensate and go too far on the way down (20 feet). Finally, with everything under control, we ease our way up to the surface. More demerits for lack of buoyancy control and for being unable to hold the stop. At first I was kicking myself for not being able to ascend slowly or hold the stop this is stuff I do on almost every dive and usually do successfully. Upon further review, I begin to realize its the task loading thats throwing us off. Youve got someone right in front of you and both of you are trying to hold a horizontal position. Having not perfected our backward kicks yet, I found my buddy and I constantly bumping into each other during the ascent, which gave us further buoyancy and trim issues. I can only imagine how things would be if we were using 40 back-up hoses. Having the extra slack of 5 foot (me) and 7 foot (buddies) hoses to work with really helped.
Andrew asks us to drop down once more to do a final air share before finishing the dive. Cool I like practicing descents in slightly deeper water like this. My 2 buddies drop fairly quickly to the bottom. I tend to be a slow poke when descending, so they lose me in the limited vis. As I pass the thermocline, all I see is silt and there is no sight of the bottom guess there was a crash landing. I cant see anything and I end up coming to rest on the bottom myself. At this point I visualize Andrew hovering above us shaking his head (I certainly can't see him given the now zero vis) and I start chuckling to myself. I thought we were supposed to be getting better at this by dive 4.....
I gently lift off the bottom and start doing a slow circle, looking for the rest of my team. I finally locate them (thank god for Toms yellow fins), and we prepare for our final air share/ascent. This time I get to be the third buddy while the other 2 air share. They start up and I follow. Their ascent starts to speed up and I get left slightly below ..catching up with them a few seconds later. The ensuing ascent is kind of comical, with them bumping together and me bumping them as well. No matter how hard I try, I cant get my backward kick to work. Im trying to avoid using my hands, but I either do tight helicopter turns to move away (at least Im doing something right!) or we gently push off each other to maintain a little breathing room this adds further challenges to our buoyancy control. We ascend the last 15 feet at a slow rate, but again no stop and the trim is rather ugly. Andrew is not happy with us at the surface lost buddy on descent, buoyancy control, etc. While a three person team makes this a more difficult exercise, we still didnt come close to executing as well as we should have.
We pack up and head to a local Olive Garden for a late lunch & video review. More of the same constructive comments, but we are falling woefully short on the skills. After four dives, we have not executed perfectly far from it. The good news is that we now KNOW that these are skills we should be practicing and perfecting (well maybe not perfecting, but at least improving).
So after 2 ½ days of this course, am I a better diver? Absolutely not. But more importantly, I feel like I now have some tools that I can start actively using on every dive to make myself a more skilled and safer diver and buddy which is what DIR is all about. I'm just glad I took this course at 60 dives vs. 600 -- the realization that my skills need more work is much easier to swallow when you're a newbie.
For more information about DIR and GUE courses, check out the following links:
http://www.gue.com
http://www.dirquest.com/about_dir.shtml
