What to Practice in the Quarry?

[diverrobs]

My buddy and I finally got out to the quarry (Gulliver's Lake) to test his new gear and do some practice after his out of air incident and our run away ascent (See Dive Goes Bad Fast).

We spent 20 min. testing out his new reg. and then did some shared air ascents. We practiced breating with masks off and each did a shared air mask off ascent (This is hard to do, even after practicing breathing with the mask off. You are spending alot of your concentarion trying to keep water out of your nose and sharing air and ascending at the same time is not easy, this is a great drill, we are going to do it alot more). We did buddy breathing on the bottom with CESA (Not actually ascending) between breaths. Practiced going up and stopping every 10'. Did a bit of navigation. At the end we chased the fish around for 10 min. and during this time I practiced slowing my breathing down, propper finning and drysuit bouyancy control. After over an hour in the water we called it a day (we still had 1200psi in out tanks).

What else should we be practicing? I don't really need to practice tired diver tows, manually inflating the BCD or cramp removal. I really can't think of anything else we learned in OW or AOW classes to practice in the 30' deep quarry.

Next week we are going out to the Oakville, Ont. ship wrecks at 60' to 70' deep. We are going to do some longer shared air ascents on the dive. There will be instructors there and DMs but we will be diving independent of them.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Nismo]

Thats more than I practice. I can't think of doing anything else.

 

[tstormdiver]

Not knowing the temperatures you were diving in,... this may have been covered when you did it. Mask removal in cold water can be difficult. In fact our shop doesn't even start OW checkout dives until June for the safety of the students in that respect. The head instructor makes us remove our masks at 90ft where the temps are 40- 42 degrees year round. The cold water hitting the face can be such a shock that it can interfere with breathing, making it very difficult. The first time I tried it, I had a very hard time inhaling. Fortunately the instructor held on to me to prevent me from bolting. Soon enough the urge to breathe overrode the shock preventing me from inhaling. Once I got started, I was fine & since, I haven't had any troubles since. For me it was more of a mental thing rather than anything physical. Just be careful if you try it & haven't before it can be difficult at first.

 

[diverrobs]

Water in the quarry was 59F. Not super cold but not warm either.

 

[ianr33]

How about shooting a liftbag? Really useful skill to have if you miss an ascent line.

Practice frog kicking just above the bottom without stirring up the silt.

And my perennial favorite,trying to swim backwards.

Good on you for practicing skills !

 

[TSandM]

Sounds like a really good list. I'd add, perhaps, doing descents with 10' stops; I found controlling descents that way was just as hard as controlling ascents, and controlling your descents really helps to keep the team together.

Hovering just above the bottom and not moving is a great one -- If you can sit perfectly still, not fin at all, and just breathe, then you've got yourself nicely balanced, and can begin to exercise really precise control over where you are and where you go in the water. Work on your basic skills, like mask remove and replace or mask flood and clear, while maintaining your depth and your orientation in the water (trim). Do this close to the bottom at first, and then in midwater. Same with your air-sharing -- Try to maintain your depth and your position while establishing an air-share, first near the bottom, and then in midwater.

Doing this kind of stuff enlives dives in otherwise uninteresting surroundings, and at the same time, gives you skills that make your other recreational dives way more fun!

 

[b1gcountry]

I think it's a pretty good list as it is. I just like to practice everything above in midwater midway through the dive. Start doing it like it would happen in real life. After that, you could do the same thing without a mask. I like TS&M's hover idea. If you get good at that, try hovering while doing something else. See if you can stay still while you're distracted.

Tom