JBD and I went out to try our new drysuits today. I bought mine in the spring and had it custom made. I have lost 45 pounds since then and needless to say it now is waaaay too big, but that is another story.
This was my first dive dry. We had a nice conversation with a Tech instructor on the surface and informed him that this was our first attempt. He was very helpful and offered some advise.
We are messing around on a training platform at about 15 ft. and the instructor we had talked to swims up. He motions for me to come over so I do expecting him to make some sort of adjustment or something. What does he do? He hits my drysuit inflator. I think to myself that is odd so I raise my arm to dump. He then flips me upside down so that I am now doing a feet first accent. Needless to say I am a bit shocked but I know what to do. I right myself and dump the air. He gives me the OK and UP signals. We meet on the surface. I am still a bit shocked. He tells me that he wanted to teach me what to do in that situation but that I had handled it exactly right.
I was a bit shocked that he would do this to a relative stranger. He really didn't know how I would react or if I even knew to exhale on the way up if I started to shoot to the surface. We talked afterward and in essence I got a free drysuit class but that was a wierd feeling to have someone just swim up to you and inflate your suit even if I was only about 10ft deep. It seemed a little risky to me.
I was nice to know that if I were ever in that situation on a real dive I would be prepared.
Chad
This was my first dive dry. We had a nice conversation with a Tech instructor on the surface and informed him that this was our first attempt. He was very helpful and offered some advise.
We are messing around on a training platform at about 15 ft. and the instructor we had talked to swims up. He motions for me to come over so I do expecting him to make some sort of adjustment or something. What does he do? He hits my drysuit inflator. I think to myself that is odd so I raise my arm to dump. He then flips me upside down so that I am now doing a feet first accent. Needless to say I am a bit shocked but I know what to do. I right myself and dump the air. He gives me the OK and UP signals. We meet on the surface. I am still a bit shocked. He tells me that he wanted to teach me what to do in that situation but that I had handled it exactly right.
I was a bit shocked that he would do this to a relative stranger. He really didn't know how I would react or if I even knew to exhale on the way up if I started to shoot to the surface. We talked afterward and in essence I got a free drysuit class but that was a wierd feeling to have someone just swim up to you and inflate your suit even if I was only about 10ft deep. It seemed a little risky to me.
I was nice to know that if I were ever in that situation on a real dive I would be prepared.
Chad
