Vortex Pics and Report 3/13/10

[Hetland]

Recharge, MrXray and myself decided to squeeze in a few dives and practice some safety drills Saturday. We practiced out-of-air drills (air share), diver w/mask guiding diver w/o mask, popping a bag for deco, popping a bag to move objects, reading gauges w/o mask, and we did some testing of full-face masks, and underwater communication systems.

We had a great time and brushed up on our skills a bit. Vortex was very busy, with craptastic viz, but it was nice to dive in some"warm" water for a change

Debriefing was at Applebee's in Crestview, where we discussed SpringFest III plans

 

[irishsquid]

Cool!

 

[nyxtom]

Nice face masks. Did you guys just get those?

 

[nyxtom]

This is just torture to me, I can't wait to move out to Florida and dive all the time... meanwhile it's snowing in Utah.

 

[jhayes75]

Nice, so how did the communication work out?

 

[Hetland]

Some video. We were hoping the comms would be understandable through the camera mike, but it's unintelligible.

[vimeo]10147912[/vimeo]​

 

[Hetland]

Nice face masks. Did you guys just get those?

Nice, so how did the communication work out?

Larry has had them since Decemberish, but we've been waiting to get some training in before using them on serious dives.

I had trouble with freeflow inside the mask, and always felt like I was hemorrhaging gas from the top of the mask. Looking at my gauge told me it was not as bad as I perceived. Recharge and Xray played with them some more, and seemed to solve that problem, which I believe was simply an adjustment issue, and fixable with more experience.

The masks had good seals, and breathed dry. Once you figured out the trick on clearing your ears, it worked pretty well. The field of view was generous. I hat a tiny bit of fogging, but Xray's mask was clear (neither of us used defog).

It was hard to hear the comms if you were exhaling. There were 40 or so divers in the basin, which is pretty noisy but we also figured out that the earpiece was mounted too far forward and not snug enough to our ears (which you can see in photos 5 and 8). Again, this is an adjustment/training issue that I'm sure can be fixed.

We're still not ready to jump into the Gulf with them for deep dives, but we are planning some more practice sessions, and I think they will work out great once we get further along the learning curve.

 

[denisegg]

Wow!!! You guys have the coolest toys!! Will they be with you at Springfest??

 

[sontek]

I have gadget envy!

 

[MRXRAY]

I think the divers from the Acokeek video must have had a headset or reciver inside the camera housing as the audio was awesome from the helmets. Something that we'll have to think about.

It was still ablast diving with ya'll.