Confined Water Dive 3
My third confined water dive was dramatically better than my second. After the usual knowledge review section we all went out to the pool to practice skills. This week we geared up while outside the pool with the help of a buddy. The 7/5mm wetsuit makes this exceptionally hot work and once you’re all geared up you can’t wait to get into the water. It’s difficult to imagine doing this in 90 degree weather outside. Tom mentioned that when he’s gearing up he tries to pace himself to the slowest person who’s getting ready so that he’s not all geared up and waiting on people. Now that I’ve stood around wearing a heavy scuba unit I completely understand why that’s important. It may be comfortable underwater but on the surface it’s just heavy and awkward.
We entered the water by crouching down and falling in backwards which struck me as a spectacularly simple way of getting the water. Once everyone was in we started in on some skills. First, we all removed our masks completely while underwater and then put them back on. It wasn’t all that difficult except for the fact that you have a tendency to get some water up your nose. It’s also a bit disorienting with your mask "off and bubbles from your regulator getting in your face. I can definitely see why losing your mask would be problematic during a dive. All but one person in the class did fine with the mask removal. The person that had trouble had a “water up the nose” problem and ascended to the surface.
To work on our buoyancy we practiced the fin pivot on the bottom of the pool. We put just enough air in our BC to make us neutrally buoyant on the bottom and then used air in our lungs to pivot ourselves up and down. There’s about a three second delay from the time you fill your lungs to the time that you actually start moving up and a similar delay from emptying them to moving downwards. This makes the fin pivot more of a timing maneuver than anything else. Once I got the hang of it the procedure wasn’t that difficult. I’m quite certain my overall buoyancy control would still be classified as abysmal; however, I felt pretty good about it given it was my second time underwater with scuba.
This week was also the first time that I had a back inflate type BCD instead of the jacket style that I had used the week before. Based on my extremely limited experience I believe I’m a fan of the back inflate BCD. It seems to be more stable, there’s less complexity at the front of the harness, it’s more comfortable, and I had an easier time maintaining a streamlined prone configuration underwater. About the only negative was that when floating at the surface I needed to lean back a bit to avoid pitching forward.
All in all, this dive was quite a bit more fun due, in large part, to my greatly increased comfort level underwater. Hanging weightless underwater is a ton of fun and I’m looking forward to sights underwater that include more than pool walls, filters, and the occasional swimmer.
We entered the water by crouching down and falling in backwards which struck me as a spectacularly simple way of getting the water. Once everyone was in we started in on some skills. First, we all removed our masks completely while underwater and then put them back on. It wasn’t all that difficult except for the fact that you have a tendency to get some water up your nose. It’s also a bit disorienting with your mask "off and bubbles from your regulator getting in your face. I can definitely see why losing your mask would be problematic during a dive. All but one person in the class did fine with the mask removal. The person that had trouble had a “water up the nose” problem and ascended to the surface.
To work on our buoyancy we practiced the fin pivot on the bottom of the pool. We put just enough air in our BC to make us neutrally buoyant on the bottom and then used air in our lungs to pivot ourselves up and down. There’s about a three second delay from the time you fill your lungs to the time that you actually start moving up and a similar delay from emptying them to moving downwards. This makes the fin pivot more of a timing maneuver than anything else. Once I got the hang of it the procedure wasn’t that difficult. I’m quite certain my overall buoyancy control would still be classified as abysmal; however, I felt pretty good about it given it was my second time underwater with scuba.
This week was also the first time that I had a back inflate type BCD instead of the jacket style that I had used the week before. Based on my extremely limited experience I believe I’m a fan of the back inflate BCD. It seems to be more stable, there’s less complexity at the front of the harness, it’s more comfortable, and I had an easier time maintaining a streamlined prone configuration underwater. About the only negative was that when floating at the surface I needed to lean back a bit to avoid pitching forward.
All in all, this dive was quite a bit more fun due, in large part, to my greatly increased comfort level underwater. Hanging weightless underwater is a ton of fun and I’m looking forward to sights underwater that include more than pool walls, filters, and the occasional swimmer.
posted by KzooJason at 8:47 PM
1 Comments:
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it! It's just so much fun to be underwater (even in a pool) but wait until you see aquatic life - up close and personal, even blue gill and bass look cool. We still need to work out when you're coming down for a (dive) visit. Nice job posting on the blog. And thanks for commenting on mine!
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