03-08-2008

Bali Scuba, Sanur, Bali.
www.baliscuba.com 

$120 for three boat dives to Nusa Penida including lunch, pick up and drop off and free nitrox (for two of the dives).

A forty five minute boat trip to Nusa Penida Island off the South East Coast of Bali.

Dive: 1 09:45 (AIR) - Max Depth: 27.9 Metres, Dive Time: 29 Minutes.

The first site of the day is Crystal bay where there is a cleaning station that Mola Mola are frequently seen at, I am well and truly excited by this prospect and am looking forwards to getting in the water, we are advised during the briefing that there may be strong currents and variable water temperatures, we have been advised to stay very close to the reef and be prepared to hold on if signalled to do so.

I’ve taken all my own kit, including my 3mm suit and a 2mm vest, luckily I had the sense to post on  Yorkshire Divers before I went and was warned about the variable water temperatures. We roll off the port side of the boat and all submerge together, my first dive in eight weeks, I feel excited and have the pre dive butterfly’s going on in my tummy.

The Surface water temp is 25 oC so its warm enough, the visibility is good and below me I can see pretty coral reefs with plenty of life, I smile, It feels good to be in the water, down we all go, ahhh heaven, warm clear blue water (25+ Metres Visibility), fish everywhere…

As we get down close to the reef and start getting deeper the currents pick up and the water temperature drops to 21oC, we fight the currents, at some points hand over hand on the trashed reefs, we get down to the cleaning station and there are no Mola Mola.

We let go and head back up to the shallows, we see a few nudi’s all the usual suspect tropical fish, box fish, parrot fish, antheas etc, Thierry launches his dsmb, we do our safety stop and the boat picks us up after a less than relaxing dive fighting currents.

Dive: 2 11:20 (EAN32) Max Depth: 24.6 Metres, Dive Time: 33Minutes.

The guides decide to try our luck again at Crystal bay hunting for Mola Mola, here are a few other dive boats around, after an hours surface interval in we go again, much the same, no Mola Mola, strong currents, variable water temperature although this time I see something I’ve not seen before, a black and white striped sea snake free swimming.

I thumb the dive after twenty five minutes as I don’t feel very well, I sit out the third dive and barely mange to eat my supplied lunch, a combination of tiredness, hunger (I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast and forgot to bring snacks) and possibly Jet lag.

04-08-2008

Again with Bali Scuba, today I went out my way to buy some snacks to keep me going and ensure I have some food before diving.

Out with  Lee & Dolly today, we enjoy the forty five minute trip across to Nusa Penida on the fast Bali Scuba Boat.

First dive today would be Tugu, a drift dive along a reef.

Dive: 3 10:20 (AIR) Max Depth: 22 Metres, Dive Time: 43 Minutes.

The current is fast and we where led by Fandy, we just go with the current and drift very quickly along the reef, lovely corals, a very pretty reef, lots of big sponges, plenty of large and small tropical fish.

The water temperature is a bit more settled here ranging between 23 oC and 25 oC.

I don’t remember ever doing a drift that was so fast, we really do just fly across the reef, its a great buzz although no chance of stopping to look at things in more detail.

Dive: 4 12:13 (EAN32) Max Depth: 25.3 Metres, Dive Time: 35 MinutesWe head back to Crystal Bay, Dolly doesn’t feel well (Sea Sickness) and decides to skip this dive, so its just Fandy leading Lee and myself.

We roll off the side of the boat, follow Fandy down and stay close to the reef, the current is not as strong today but we still have to work hard against it, we get down to the cleaning station….

..yet again no Mola Mola, we wait a few minutes and then head back up to the shallows.

The changing water temperatures are really strange, I’ve encounter thermoclines before of a change of 1-2 oC but nothing like these encountered at Nusa Penida, we had a low of 17 oC and a High of 23 oC showing on my computer on this dive.

After this dive the boat heads off to a sheltered bay for lunch and the final dive of the day at Toyapakeh.

Dive: 5 (EAN32) 14:21 Max Depth: 17.2 Metres, Dive Time: 46 Minutes.

Dolly is feeling better and she joins us for this dive, a gentle reef dive.  A very pretty reef, lots to see, a pair of small yellow spotted Moray,  loads of corals and sponges, a large puffer fish and a colourful Mantis Shrimp comes out to wander around, its fascinating and very nice to see (another first for me).

07-08-2008

Post Wedding Dives, with Bali Scuba from the larger boat Bali Scuba 1.

On our boat today, Lee, Dolly, Andie, Lauren, Danni (12 year old just finished her Junior OW over the last few days in Bali) Kevin, Jemma and Duncan (All newly qualified divers, having only done training dives previously) myself and the boat crew along with Fandy and Lena the guides for today, however Terry and Ely (the newlyweds, where also diving the same sites as us from another boat).

Dive:6 (AIR) 10:40 Max Depth: 20.4Metres, Dive Time 49 Minutes.

We had Lena as our guide today. Dive site, SD along the Northern side of Nusa Penida, another fast drift dive with great viz warmer waters (24 oC - 28 oC) long spiralling wire corals, table corals and large domes. We seen a large potato grouper, lots of the usual fish, a pair of giant trevally in the blue, very enjoyable.

Dive: 7 (EAN32) 12:53 Max Depth: 18.5 Metres, Dive Time: 42 Minutes.

Crystal Bay, Lee dresses appropriately for his 100th Dive…

Yet another ghost hunt for Mola Mola although the other boat shouts over as we surface that they seen Mola Mola five minutes before we got in the water great for them sad for us to know we just missed these creatures in the water.

We have lunch in the bay at Toyapakeh as this is to be the site for our last dive of today.

In the Bay at Toyapakeh there is a water park that is visited daily by a hydrofoil full of tourists, what the point of a water park at sea is, I have no idea.

Dive: 8 (AIR) 15:21Max Depth: 19.5 Metres, Dive Time: 42 Minutes (19 oC - 22 oC)

Toyapakeh, nice easy drift, pretty corals, lots of life, a large stone fish, a lion fish a few different types of nudibranch’s. Lena had a keen eye for the smaller stuff and was good fun on boat having a laugh with us and clearly enjoys her work.

08-08-2008

Terry orgainsed another day of diving with Bali Scuba but this time not to Nusa Penida but to Padang Bai, two shallow local dives off smaller boats ($80, no nitrox but lunch at nearby restaurant instead of the usual packed lunch.

Dive: 9 (AIR) 10:49 Max Depth: 19 Metres, Dive Time: 47 Minutes. (Water Temp 25 oC) - Penggek Penyu

Lena briefed us that we would be seeing a lot of smaller stuff on this dive and had to keep our eyes peeled, I buddied Duncan and Lee buddied Kev.

One of the first things I noticed when we settled in the shallows was a tiny box fish around 1cm cube, made me smile and relax instantly, this was Terrys 100th dive so from the other boat he was wearing the pink bikini Lee had on yesterday.

Again lots of different nudibranch, a spiny puffer fish hiding, lots of reef fish and as we came up into the shallows, something caught my eye above on the reef, there above us outlined by the sun shining through the water was the unmistakable silhouette of a shark.

Long, slender, fast and in the shallows, I look over to Lee, he looks to me, we show Duncan and Kev, I smile, I am overjoyed, its gone, wow, over two hundred and sixty dives and my first shark, its silhouette was that of a reef shark, whether it was gray, white or black tipped I have no idea, it didn’t hang around long enough for us to clearly identify it nether the less it was an awesome sight and we finish our safety stop with huge smiles, giving each other high fives and whooping and shouting through our regs!

The surface interval is full of smiles and laughter the way they all should be.

Dive: 10 (AIR) 12:04 Max Depth: 17.4 Metres, Dive Time: 43 Minutes - Blue Lagoon

In we go for a much dive, flat fish, lots of tiny boxfish, a small reef with a couple of fist size stone fish a bright yellow and black crab that I’ve no idea what type it is, a trigger fish, Lena points out what looks like a bit of weed or a leaf stuck to a rock swaying in the current, its actually a leaf stone fish. there is quite a bit of surge as we do our safety stop with us all being taken up to about 4 metres and back down to 6 metres.

10-08-2008

We have moved from Sanur are on a wee road trip of the Island via Tulamben and the last of our diving days, we check in at the recently reopened Emerald Hotel and Spa which has a dive centre affiliated with SSDC.

SSDC, Tulamben, Bali $55 two shore dives.
www.sunari-scuba.com

USAT Liberty - Shore Dive, Dive: 11 (AIR) 08:55 Max Depth: 23.7 Metres, Dive Time 52 Minutes. (26 oC)

We all got a mini bus for the five minute journey to the dive site from the hotel, there where very few others around and it was amazing to watch the porters carry the dive gear down to the shore entry, kitting up point, small woman carrying three full ali 80’s on their shoulders, heads or carrying a complete bcd and cylinder set-up along with a box of kit and three weight belts wrapped round them.

Singha was our guide along with Mharia and as soon as they got us all on the surface and ready we submerged right in front of a huge bait ball of jackfish.

After that the wreck started sprawling out in front of us as we worked our way down to the stern, the wreck was alive with life, blue spotted ray, a huge grouper, a large hump headed parrot fish near the engines, lots of corals, a very pretty wreck, lots of interesting ferrous oxide. A Superb dive working our way down to the bow and around the wreck. I really could dive that wreck lots of times.

Drop Off Point - Dive :12 (AIR) 11:05, Max Depth: 26.9 Metres, Dive Time 56 Minutes (26 oC)

A very pretty dive, lots of life, when I was at 26 metres I could see two twin set divers with stages a fair way below us, I believe this site is a popular one for technical training in Bali. Most of this dive was actually spent interacting with each other, halving a laugh, pretend Tango dancing, piling rocks on top of each other, making phallic symbols with rocks, chasing shoals of goat fish and in the shallows after the safety stop on the fly ( ) blowing octopus jacuzzi’s at each other.

In Summary:

An enjoyable time diving with variable water temperatures, some strong currents and plenty of fish & corals, its a pity I didn’t get to see any Mola Mola or Manta’s however with my luck at only just seeing my first shark now maybe I will see Mantas in another two hundred or so dives and Mola Mola hopefully by the time I retire from diving in twenty or thirty years! Not quite enough ferrous oxide for me as lets face it one reef is just like the next till you add a wreck

The warm clear waters and friendly fun times have rekindled my passion and I look forward to being a UK diver once more.

My membership at the dive club was suspended at my request a year ago when I went to Spain for the summer then when I got back I was working in Bristol and unable to get diving with the club or go along to use the facilities on a Wednesday night.

However now that I am home Isin’t it Ironic that the Club have used a little used protocol and sent a list of all expired members to Scotsac HQ which happens to include my name and they have stated that these members will not be allowed to rejoin the branch.

No Votes, No discussion with other members, just a committee meeting about expired members….. Convenient?

Oh yes. I am not banned, just not allowed to rejoin, Is that not the same thing?

My Crime?

I washed the clubs dirty laundry in public..

Davie

A Clubless diver….

This was a last minute trip for me after a few disastrous events.Originally I was meant to be going to Scapa Flow then due to unforeseen circumstances I had to call that off then I was meant to be going to a wedding for a good friend and again I had to call that off.

So at the eleventh hour two of the original CUSAC members pulled out the club trip and I managed to get a space.

To say I was excited was an understatement, the only diving I have done since getting back from Mallorca last August has really been training dives with a couple of warm water holiday dives thrown in. I hadn’t seen any ferrous oxide or done a decent dive in about eight months!

I was getting really fed up with Sea lochs and silly shore dives, I really needed to do a decent dive and I don’t mean an epic dive, that would be stupid because I don’t have the skills to do an epic dive, I can only dream. I just mean a normal run of the mill nice dive.

I also hadn’t managed to dive with the lads and lassies of CUSAC in a long time due to my schedules and their insistence of doing early Sunday morning starts. Why is that? Why do divers on a day off insist on starting so early in the morning? I could see the point if the tides mattered but most of the time the lads and lassies dive the sea lochs and to be honest visibility is generally the same all the time and the tides don’t affect the dives around these areas and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard any of them plan to go for high water slack to get the best of the vis….

Right so where was I….

Bob organised the trip this year, a lot of the guys had done it last year and I couldn’t join in as I was away in Mallorca.
After a shaky start the club managed to fill the spaces and then even have a reserve list.

More trips could be organised but for reasons that I believe will become obvious, the club doesn’t like opening trips up to non members…..

The trip was booked with a couple of nights in the bunk house and a days hard boat diving on the MV Rebecca Ann with Creag Ard Charters.

MV Rebecca Ann

The plan was to organise transport and head up Friday afternoon, evening meet at the bunkhouse for a few beers, get to bed and go dive one scenic dive then the wreck of the Fairwether V.

Transport duly arranged, food and snacks bought…
Stevie picked me up Friday 30th May at five pm from Hamilton. Stew travelled solo from Macduff where he was working in his latest commercial diving job. Fran, Billy & John all travelled in Bills magic van, Derek, Anne and Kirsty travelled up together, Scott & Yvonne managed to get a weekend without the kids and that left Bob, Gerry and the twa dugs (Angus & Dylan) to take the slow boat to Ullapool.

All the way up we had perfect teams comms with random txt messages and phone calls checking everybody’s progress and distance from Ullapool, Stevie and I hadn’t been on this trip before and the sat nav refused to take the postcode.

We checked, will we head to Dundonnel as per the directions, Dundonnel hotel? “No that’s no use” so we put into the sat nav the part of the postcode we could and headed off via Perth Asda for Apple Pies and skooshie cream.

I check with Fran , her report “twenty miles fae Ullapool” , Stevie and I had just left Inverness so we where not that far behind.

The Drive up was very scenic

Stevie and I arrive in Ullapool, his wee fiesta car straining at the door hinges with the gear we had with us and the food. I called Fran, “right where do we go now?” The response “where are you?”, us “we are in the harbour”, them “what harbour?” Fran passes us to Stew, Stew laughs and says we are not meant to be in Ullapool, Stevie and I look at each other blankly, “How can the Ullapool trip not be in Ullapool?” Anyway the bunk house is in Camusnagaul or as we put into the sat nav Dundonnel…. Pity cause Ullapool looks great, lots of people drinking at the harbour walls, sun shining…

Stevie turns the car around and we head back in the opposite direction ten miles the way we just came and turn off a side road fifteen miles to Camusnagaul…..

So we arrive. Its now about ten thirty pm and the Midges are out in force, I feel like I am feeding a family of twelve thousand, its still pretty light.

Richard the Skipper is here, asking who wants packed lunches, Bob and Gerry arrive last behind Stevie and myself, we all settle for pack lunches.

We all settle in grab a bunk, argue about who snores most, I head off to bed and cant wait till Saturdays diving.

<night time>

strange noises, voices, laughter, snoring………

</night time>

Richard is getting us at the slipway at 9am, I get up at eight, have a shower and make some bacon and bagels, yummy! most folk are up and getting ready.

We head to the pick-up point and Richard comes to get us complete with packed lunches, lots of water and his Quad and trailer to move our kit to the shore.He have a nice relaxing time, paddling in dry suits, moving the kit to the RHIB, walking the dogs, just chilling, a nice morning relaxing.

We chill and relax on the ride out to the dive sites.

The trip out was smooth, the morning mist didn’t lift though.

Morning Glory

I fettled and adjusted kit, fixing my bungie straps on my compass and Dtimer, Adjust torch, discussing my kit config as I hadn’t seen a lot of folk for a while they showed interest in my moves to a DIR Config. The pressure is on me to set an example. I had some healthy discussions about choices and training. It felt good to be amongst friends that I have known since I was a trainee and it felt good to be on a nice boat heading for some nice dives.

John & I where to buddy, John dives a single cylinder and I had to squeeze two dives out my twin set and a stage without a fill in between, fine for loch shore dives.

I didn’t technically need the stage as we wouldn’t be doing any deco diving but I wanted it to use in the shallower depths to get some more time in on the dives.

My doubles have EAN32 and the stage EAN50, On the boat trip out I used my analyser and checked these, I then reapplied labels. I have a decent Fill 230 Bar on the double twelves.

I haven’t been using my computer as a computer only as a timer in gauge mode, today I felt nervous and was the only diver here that has had any if only a little GUE training I thought id just go with the flow and do the club diving thing.

Kirtsie is the only one who is not going to do any dives today, she has come along for the boat ride only.

There is a small chemical toilet on board at the front of the wheelhouse, I decide to make some splashes over the side and send some golden rain into the sea.

Yvonne & Angus

I am drinking lots of fresh orange juice and plenty of water, I need to make some rain over the side again.

Dive1: Waterfall - Start time: 11:43 - Dive Time : 44 minutes Max Depth: 29.3metres

John and I followed Gerry & Stevie in with Scott and Yvonne behind us.

We roll over the side, we just surface swim to the edge of the wall and as advised keep the wall on our right hand side. Down we go. My D9 gives a low battery error and wont go into dive mode even though I checked it in on the boat. Torch on. Signal OK. I’m not fussed about the dive mode of the D9, I haven’t been using it recently, I am diving on EAN32, I can do 30 minutes at 30 metres without doing more than “minimum deco”. Johns on Tyre Gas or Air as its commonly known. So no matter what, I can have a longer bottom time if I stay shallower or at the same depth and worst case we do stops based on his bendometer (Aladin pro), not exactly setting an example but that or bin the dive, mmh nah it is OK, mmh could it be the start of the incident pit?

I’m concentrating on looking around, double checking my trim, watching others position in the water, I fee like I am all over the place, knees sagging, I see some others and think maybe I am caring too much, I settle down and do what I can to stay level, head back, bum clenched.

We spend a good thirty minutes below 20 metres averaging around 24 metres, just relaxing, looking around, almost weightless, ahhhh Bliss…..

The wall is pretty, there is not much life, the visibility is not quite the thirty plus metres everybody said it would be but it was a good 15-20 metres which was nice. we could see the divers in front of us and behind us. We gave nice clear OK’s with the torches between groups every now and again.

The dive was pleasant even though there was little fish life, a small rainbow wrasse, a nice big bright orange cuckoo wrasse, a few large starfish some squat lobsters a few empty lobster pots, some nice rock formations, a nice wee swim through, off course I had to get through it and come out the end. <grin>

Wee thumb the dive after thirty odd minutes, I Ascend with a stop at 15 metres, one at twelve, one at nine, we gradually ascent, we certainly don’t do any set ascent rates, just slowly .

At Six metres, I clip off my light to my right shoulder and get my spool and blob from my left dry suit pocket, John just sort of moves out my way and goes above and behind me into my blind spot. Gerry and Stevie swim below me as I’m taking my time to assemble my blob and orally inflate it, it takes me two goes to inflate it.

I’ve dropped back down to about eight metres too, oh joy. I slowly wind in the line with my spool. I stop at 6 metres for a minute, I then stop at three metres with John hanging about near me for two minutes and then we surface.

Not exactly perfect not exactly wrong defiantly not Doing it Right. Does nobody care about getting it perfect? Am I too anal even thinking it should be elegant and easy? I Finish the dive on 140 Bar. Johns got 50 bar left in his single.

Bob,Fran, Bill, Gerry and Dylan

We have a good two hour surface interval with the packed lunches provided, Yvonne swaps my tuna sarnie for a nice ham one I keep my biscuits, fruit and crisps for later.

Plenty of fluids drank, talk of a Scallop dive after the wreck, I’ve decided I want to go home tonight and am not wanting to be hanging about again, Stevie agrees that he is up for the journey home again too.

I’ve got the side slung seven litre with EAN50 to take along on this dive, there was no opportunity to get a fill between dives, If I come here again I will need to get myself another set of doubles.

Dive2: Fairweather V Dive Time: 36 minutes Max Depth: 26.5 metres

This is the dive that we had come on the trip for, I could not wait for it. I knew I was going to need the EAN50 in the seven litre for the shallower parts of the wreck, I decided to descend on the fifty cent and then change back to it any time I was on the deck levels near the bow above 21 metres, pushing it as EAN50 shouldn’t be used for diving when at ppO2 of 1.6. Once again John and I rolled backwards off the MV Rebecca Ann, this time I get caught in a current straight away and get dragged to the stern, I cant even fin against it, I’m going nowhere, John gets close to the hull and manages to follow the shotline to the bow.

Richard throws me a buoy and tells me just to hold on, he pulls me round the starboard side to the bow and the shot line. John warns me he wants to do a slow descent as his ears may have trouble. we give the signal , yet again down we go, following the shot to the bow of the Fairweather V, She looms out of the green in front of us, oh oh, grin, smile!

Some Ferrous Oxide, just what I’ve been looking for. I check depth and switch to back gas after giving the reg a quick purge. I then shutdown the sideslung but leave it pressurised, an excuse to practice as well as use it. Oh this wreck is lovely, we have decent viz, basically we follow the divernet wreck tour down the port side to the rudder and prop. we ascent a little and come up to the lower rear deck. I shine my torch inside, what a lovely site. So inviting, it just begs to be penetrated, I can see passage ways and doorways. We come level with the deck and over the hardware, looking down into the holds, he see some of the others, everybody looks happy!

My Halycon HID Torch dies on me, I flick the switch and restart it, it goes back on for a few minutes then off. I Clip it off and then switch to my Salvo backup torch, Actually that’s probably enough light with the decent visibility.

Divernet Wreck Tour

Its about this time I reckon a four hour burn time is roughly five - six dives and I haven’t charged the battery in a while, doh, How stupid do I feel? All the gear no Idea. <blush>

We go over the decks, past the wheelhouse, looking into the holds, shining torches, I switch to the side slung again as I am shallower. we have a good look around the derrick and the masts. We go round the bow and start heading to the stern again down the port side. I switch back to the doubles, we go back to the lower deck at the stern, I so want to go inside, I have no reel and John shows no interest in going inside, we come up to the wheel house, I am at the starboard side door on the deck, I signal to John I am going inside. He goes round the front ot the deck and I can see him through the large window frames.

Ullapool Sub Aqua Club Fairweather V

I am inside! hehe, its great, what a feeling, a nice dive, plenty of space to move around nice visibility, I turn around after a discussion with the window frame and go back out the door, I kick up a bit of silt <oops> John is outside waiting on me. The wheel house was small and had lots of light coming in through the doorways and the window frames. We go back up on the deck, I switch back to the side slung. we have a mooch around again looking in the holds then we head towards to the shot line. I Stop and slowly ascend defiantly not doing 9m per minute, much slower, I stop at 12 metres for a minutes, John heads up slowly on his bendometer, Anne and Derrick are on the line to, I stop at nine metres and six metres, I spend a couple of minutes at 3 metres than I switch back to my back gas for the surface.

John and I surface together, we wait on the shot line for Anne & Derrick to get up the ladder before we swim round the starboard side of the Rebecca Anne.

I Surface with 60 Bar in the doubles and 100 bar in the side slung. Again John has 50 Bar in his Single. I know that I was not doing it Right yet again, I needed that nice dive though, I’m not justifying it, I know I was wrong, I want to Do It Right, its so hard when it takes so much effort to get the right gasses and to do it right here I would have needed another set of doubles, I think that’s my next purchase, argh! more money! I wish I had easier access to GUE trained Buddies too, it’s also about diving with people with a similar mindset, in fact its not even diving, I’ve not been to the gym or for a run in ages, because I’m not socialising or working with others that do at this point and its so hard to motivate and push oneself without having somebody like minded to bounce off and to feed each other with inspiration. Maybe I should do it their way and just accept that If I want to dive regularly I have no choice but not to do it right?

What a stonking wee wreck, very pretty, lots to look at and nice 15- 20 metre visibility.

I would do this three and half hour drive every weekend to do dives like that.

Back on board, Richard cruises up Little Loch Broom and to a location near a muscle farm, A few of the guys decide to do a shallow Scallop Dive, I decide not to push my own stroke luck with little gas left in my doubles or the Side Slung.

Scott & Derrick go in (grand master food divers….), they surface not more than ten minutes later, one scallop, Fran and Stewart go in, Bob & Gerry drop in.

Stewart and Fran Surface fifteen minutes or so later with one Scallop. Now Gerry is pretty much the eco hippy of our group, well as big an eco Hippy as any of us. He is more likely to be putting the Scallops back in the water, Bob well Bob is Bob. We dont hold much hope, but no they are the last up and Richard spotted their bubbles and stayed close by after everybody else was out the flat calm waters.

The Surface with a Goodie back bulging to the brim, full of Scallops and a large edible crab….. They get that silent respect from the rest of us, well it may just be folk muttering under their breathes….

We all unload and get our kit back in the RHIB to be ferried back to the shore.

Billy & John decide to head back, Scott & Yvonne head home and Stevie and I head home.

Richard offers to take everybody else out in his Rhib Tomorrow. Bob Decides to make a curry for everybody staying the night, Annie is going to do the Scallops and Crab, Sounds like they are in for a good night.

I pay my money to Bob £40 for the dives and £10 for my night in the bunkhouse great value, do that again no problem.

Stevie and I have an easy drive home, sharing the driving, Stevie even hangs around while I have a shower and he drops me off in Glasgow for ten to eleven, I end up out with some mates having a great chilled night in some dodgy Glasgow Frankensteins theme bar…

Davie.

I managed to get my teenage daughter out her bed around nine am and drag her into the scuba bus (aka my rusty old pug 406 estate that cost about the same as my primary torch!) to go along to see if I could get a chance to get in the water with John Kendall or Iain Smith and try to remember some of the things I was meant to have learned three weeks previously at my GUE Fundamentals course.

Unfortunately due to my late arrival I managed to get there as Steve, John & Iain where already on a dive and Kat was chilling in the sunshine.

Eventually after surfacing the lads all got out the water, I fettled and tweaked a couple of bolt snaps and knots (with Johns help), set up my doubles (chuckle) and got ready to dive, Iain’s mum turned up and I struggled to not laugh too much at the banter between her and Iain, a right good comedy show with mum giving as good as she got well that is until Iain savaged her dive gear and set up a single tank GUE compliant wing for her complete with long hose, I don’t think she knew what hit her, even her ankle weights and fins where banished…

So as the mayhem was going on around us, Stevie and I agreed to go for a wee guddle…

11/05/2008 Dive: 251

Maximum Depth: 14.1Metres
Water Temp: 9-13oC
Visibility: 3-5 Metres
Dive Time: 43 Minutes

Equipment:

DUI TLS 350 Explorer (DUI Zip Gloves), Halcyon 21w/9A HID, Double (Twins ;-)) Twelve Eurocylinders, Frog Midnight Wing, Apeks XTX200 Primary and Backup Regulators, Salvo RAT Backup Torch, Scuba Pro JetFins.

Weighting: 3 x 1KG V Weights, 1 x 2.25KG P Weight, 2 KG Tail Weight 1 x 1KG on Waist Harness. Total 8.25 KG

Goal: Practice GUE Skills & Procedures, V Drill and Buoyancy Control, launch DSMB, Have fun!
Unified Team: Stevie Hick dive and myself, myself to lead dive.
Equipment: Head to toe check performed on surface prior to dive (I Forgot to do Bubble checks) Stevie had a one piece harness on, w00t!

Left Pocket (equipment planned to be used on dive): Halcyon 1 Metre Oral Inflate DSMB, Deep-sea Supply Delrin Finger Spool.

Right Pocket (backup / spare equipment): Spare Beaver Atomic Mask, Wet Notes & Shears

Exposure: Maximum Dive based on GUE minimum deco Rules (Explained quickly to Stevie as part of GUE EDGE) planned maximum Depth 12-18 Metres.
Decompression: First stop 50% of max depth, 1 minute stops, 3 metres apart Ascent Rate 9MPM
Gas: EAN28 (Air top off on a EAN32 Fill) – Stevie on Tyre Gas (AKA AIR) All Usable, Minimum Gas 50 Bar.
Environment: Cold, dark and horrible boat moorings!

It only took us two minutes to run through the GUE EDGE on the surface but I have a feeling it was because I missed stuff and Stevie just agreed with whatever old tosh I actually said.

Stevie was diving without a primary light as he has some problems with his torch on the previous dive, this caused me all sorts of mental problems as I was trying to tune into my new found GUE Spidey sense and couldn’t see a torch beam so had to keep looking behind me for Stevie, it’s weird, you just learn how important the torch is, that it’s your voice underwater and then I go diving with Mr. super eloquent and funny but silent, bit strange, hey ho!

We settle into a pattern and just meander around, I am trying some modified frog kicks, being cautious of trying to not go too slow, also I try a few back kicks but don’t quite get them right and end up going backwards and upwards like a milk cart reversing down a one way street.

Anyway we guddle around, Stevie goes for his valves when I’m not looking, I wasn’t expecting that but should expect it cause I’ve dived with the stroke many times now.

I signal to Stevie I am going to try to do my valves (remembering this is why I only got the provisional pass on Fundies and not a full pass), I oscillate my torch in my left hand, purge my backup reg and start to reach back for my right post, whay hey I get it! I manage to shut it down although my buoyancy is over the place and I have to pause to regain composure, I switch over to my backup reg (ooh damn the orders wrong, I think, heck I can’t remember now!) I give in, I try to reach back and turn on my right post but can’t reach it, I signal to the Stroke and he gets it for me, ahhh its nice to be diving with Stevie, I Know I can trust him to sort me out and I think he can trust me to sort him out (not like that!, clean your bloody minds will you!) These shut-downs are doing my head in, I so want to get them off and on.

We bimble around looking at the moorings, chasing crabs, examining up to it after the valve closing lark.

So we get up to around 6 metres and I signal for blobs, we both start off about the same time, I unfurl and assemble my spool to my blob, Stevie already has his assembled in his pocket.

We both orally inflate and play the maypole dancing game, trying not to tie each other up.

Up we go and on the surface wind in our blobs (well it’s not quite that smooth, I end up winding my blob down to me as I hadn’t inflated it enough so I give it a good blow this time, fwar fwar!)

We surface swim back to the slip and come out the water feeling triumphant, or at least I feel great that Iain and John didn’t witness any of that!

So out we get, have a gab, Eventually Iain, John and Iain’s mum surface, there is no shouting only laughter and smiles, looks like Iain’s mum enjoyed being assimilated into the collective too.

I pack my gear, Derek and Anne turn up on the Posh RHIB and we have a wee gab, I say my goodbyes, Taylor and I head off to M&S for some nice tasty food and I drop Taylor off at my ex wife’s, A nice wee day out but I tell you this, I need to get shut-downs sorted because I am so fed up of doing boring featureless dives at training sites, I crave a nice piece of ferrous oxide, all I would be doing is tempting fate and hoping nothing goes wrong, if something did I wouldn’t be able to sort it….

Tune in next time for more adventures of a GUE Newbie……

John Kendall http://www.guetraining.com/

Conger Alley Scottish Forum http://www.congeralley.com

Thanks to Iain for organising and Taylor for being a great daughter

Part One: IDC AI 

Part Two: IDC OWSI

GO PRO!

What does IE Stand for?

Instructor Exam

Friday May 2nd mid afternoon and we all we climb into the Scuba Med Van & head to Santa Ponsa where the IE is hosted.

Looby & Rina in the van

Dave drives, Clive sits up front, we have spot quizzes all the way down to Santa Ponsa with Clive asking questions from all the DM theory exams to make sure everything is in our heads.

At this point I have no idea there is room in my head for anything else, I am sure anything that is said now will just rattle around in the empty space between my ears.

Caterpillars, no capillary gauges, your gorgeous! no shut up, argh! my head hurts now.

We get to Santa Ponsa and check in to our hotel for the next two nights, the IE is planned to be Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning although there have been rumours that due to only eight to ten candidates the examiner is hoping to finish everybody on the Saturday, no extra pressure on us then to get it all right…

We all attend the IE introduction, Jordi is the examiner and he gives a presentation designed to allow us to relax, he explains all the processes and the scores required.

Jordi then hands out the assignments for the weekend and explains that as per the rumours we will be finishing everything on Saturday. Friday night exams, confined water, open water and knowledge presentations all to be done on Saturday.

Classroom I have planning multilevel dives a question from an OW diver Quiz.
Confined water I have the CESA (my nemesis)
The Short Skills circuit is kit remove and replace underwater, mask remove and replace, reg recovery, something else and guess what CESA again. so not only am I having to demo CESA I have to teach it, I start to get worried.
Open water I have AAS Doner and receive for 30 seconds while stationary & a Sheet bend from a S&R Adventure dive.
You can get some make up’s if you fail first attempt on confined water and in the knowledge presentations, also you can resit one theory exam if required. Open water there are no make ups, but scores must average out above the pass mark (3.4 I think from memory)

If you fail any one section

* Exams (theory and standards)
* Confined Water (teaching and skills circuit)
* Open Water (teaching and rescue demonstrations)
* Knowledge Presentation (prescriptive teaching)

You can come back to another IE and only have to sit the components you failed previously.

Its now about six o’clock on the Friday night, we then get handed various exam papers, Standards first, everybody is doing it at the same time, there are eight of us in total here for this section.

Two of the guys are here for exam resits (I remember a random statistic that Clive told us, 92% of people that fail their first IE fail it on the exams, we are all divers, if we can get through the exams we can all do the diving….)

We get 90 minutes to do the standards exam, its open book, everybody seems to have their books all tabbed with various sticky notes and colour sections apart from me and the two folk using laptops with PDF versions of the manuals.

Woosh the clock starts ticking, 50 questions, 90 minutes. tick tock, tick tock…. I hardly opened my book, I am finished and I’ve only used 25 minutes, I marked a couple I wasn’t sure of, double check, 35 minutes in and I hand my paper to Jordi.

He tells me I can start preparing my teaching presentations while the others finish the standards exam, after ten minutes he comes up to me and shakes my hand, says congratulations 98% pass mark. I go outside and sit around in the sunshine, Michelle and Florian join me, then Laura and Ian and soon enough Dave & Clive are back from the pub, Dave seems to be missing fingernails at this point, I think he is worried about us all. Rod appears and talks to his two guys. Jordi Calls us all back in.

Another ninety minutes and five theory exams, which way does the current go , what pressure, what groups, what levels, this equipment, what tide, What PPO2, if an object displaces etc.

I finish this set of exams just after Michelle, we all head outside again, Jordi calls us back in one at a time, hands get shook, people smile, all six of us from the Scuba Med IDC pass the exams, lots of relieved faces all round.

One of Rod’s Guys fails (Stephen) two exams so no make up, he has do to that whole section again, he looks distraught, we can all feel his pain but are all selfishly relived its not us, the two guys doing resists seem to be happy, one has a make up exam to do the other passes and has completed his IE, he smiles and vanishes into the night.

Now we head back to the hotel, I cant even remember its name, all I know is its up a hill and has a mosaic of dolphins in the pool.

We get some food from the place next door and settle into the lounge of the Hotel, Dave and Clive can’t help us but they can support us from the bar.

Laura is not amused, she has a teaching presentation on diving aware, “don’t just dive, dive aware” Comedy, makes us all laugh anyway, especially as she is such an English rose with her posh southern accent.

I am troubled, I have CESA to teach in confined water, I write my slates up for it and my slates for open water, I prepare my knowledge presentation on selecting the next level for a multilevel dive, I try not to sound perplexed as I expand from “look at the yellow box” to try to make the presentation into an interactive fifteen minutes of teaching, I concentrate and decide to use the large teaching wheel, get some extra wheel manuals and decide to use the maps I brought along as my contact and non diving training aid.

Its about one thirty am now and we all head off to bed for a 7.30am breakfast, we have to be kitted up ready to do our briefings for confined water at 8.30 am on the Saturday morning.

I get some sleep, I wake up, I get some sleep, I wake up, I am up at 5.30am I cant get back to sleep, head is buzzing remembering ” I particularly liked”, “the value”, “In Summary” My head is playing PADI Buzzword bingo to itself, its almost like being in a meeting full of management consultants but with only my head as the active party.

Up for breakfast, we all check out the hotel, get to the van and head off to the indoor pool that is being used for the confined water section.

The stench of chlorine is strong, I cant wait to start breathing off my cylinder, the water looks rancid, Milky white, sun cream rancid, the pool is only twelve metres long but visibility is at most 5 metres.

Jordi watches us assemble our kit in silence (exam conditions), we then all head outside and give briefings to each other with Jordi sitting at a table behind us listening and marking scores, we don’t have a name but a colour and a number (Red 5 is me) that way when ever you do anything he can tell who you are and where his scores go on the slates.

I brief CESA, I explain to Jordi I have brought a measured piece of line and some weights, he says no need and shows me what he will consider to be nine metres in the pool.

We all line up in our numbered order 1-8 (Stephen is One, Ian Two, Rina Three, Mike Four, Me Five, Laura Six, Florian Seven, Michelle Eight - the random things you remember sitting at your pc weeks later…)

Jordi explains we will do the skill circuit in two groups (1-4 then 5-8) no surprise really as visibility is that bad in the pool, we all to do the Skill Circuit, I do CESA easily, I think its because the pool is so murky I don’t have to worry about getting to a point nine metres away, I just do it and realise I am about to hit the wall at the opposite side of the pool..

Michelle, Mike are asked to redo the CESA.

After the skills circuit we all surface and Jordi gives us our scores (I get a four on all five skills which is more than enough to pass) I think Florian and Laura get a couple of fives but mostly everybody gets fours and all eight of us get through to the teaching in confined water round. Some smiles and some pressure off as Jordi decides all the surface skills will be done last.

I want to laugh, Laura couldn’t find her own mask so she got a new Mares Liquid skin in bright pink, its horrendous but we all remind her it suits her dive aware, PADI girl look, she could be straight from a promotional video.

We all submerge into the manky pool again and Jordi starts pointing to each of us one at a time, giving us the signal to be instructors.

Rina is selected as a student by Stephen, he demonstrates the air depletion exercise with Ian, he then does the exercise with Rina, Rina gets her regulator back and looks worried, she gives the OOA signal to Stephen, he turns her air back on….

..One or two folk are told to surface straight after their teaching presentations …. Lots of worried looks between the remaining candidates, we all look at each other, subconsciously asking what’s going on?

When its my turn I move the whole group right around and face them on the opposite wall as I want to be on the inflator hose site of the students should they decide to inflate rather than let expanding air out of their BCD’s.

I ask somebody to be my DM (I cant even remember who at this point), I give the signals as I briefed earlier and I get my DM to watch the students while I demo the CESA. I am bricking it, the pressure is on me here.

Anyway I demo it, I then call out Mike as my student. I stay close to Mike, I have one hand round his front checking for the exhale, I have one hand close to his tank to hold him should I have too, wooooa! I have to stop him, he is going far too fast.

I use the signal for remember, I use the signals to redo the skill and I use the slow signal, we go back to the far side of the pool, I check the students air pressures, I check the DM is OK.

This time Mike slows down, we reach the far end of the pool, I remind Mike what he had done wrong then give him the very visible high five to show my appreciation of him doing the skill, Jordi points for me to surface and tells me to prepare my debrief he goes back with the remaining candidates….

I have no idea how I have done, Florian comes out too, he has to do his debrief, Stephen gets kitted back up and goes back in again, he is having a nightmare, I feel for him he is doing his make up.

Jordi surfaces and gets Florian and I to do our debrief, as soon as I have done it Jordi tells me 4.3 a pass, no make up, pack my kit and get ready for my knowledge presentation. More pressure off.

Once again all six of us from the Scuba Med IDC Family pass this section, Stephen throws the towel in, Ian joins us and we welcome him with friendly smiles.

Poor Clive and Dave (they look like two expectant fathers waiting on the news, I am sure Dave has no fingers left never mind fingernails), only Open water and knowledge presentations to go this afternoon, more than half way through the IE!

Back in the van and head off to the Santa Ponsa Marina and the ZOEA dive centre that is running the boat for the Openwater session this afternoon.

Florian, Michelle & Mike

We get to the marina, get our cylinders all handed in to be filled, Dave takes off to try to find us lunch, we all sit down and start going once again through our teaching presentations and our knowledge development sessions.

After a bite to eat Jordi turns up, Laura gets a five for flirting with a Spanish candidate here to do his open water section again.

We all kit up get on the boat and one at a time give our briefings to Jordi.

He explains we will be in two groups, one group doing rescues and being evaluated by the course directors and one group doing in the water doing teaching presentations with Jordi.

Dive 250: PADI IE Santa Ponsa Mallorca 3rd May 2008 Dive time: 39 minutes Max depth: 6.7 metres.

Laura and I are buddied up, we do a text book giant stride off the boat, everybody comes off the boat, we are all told where to descend. Looby and I do our SORTED routine to descend, ever conscious that the whole event is an exam.

We find Jordi settled on the sand, and settle into a row, Jordi gives us signals one at a time to be Instructor, Ian is first he selects me to be his student, I have to do a part mask flood and clear, Jordi points over Ian’s back and tells me to do a full flood instead.

I am so nervous I do the full flood, Ian reminds me to do a part flood, I do a part flood but clear it badly (bloody hood and mask and gloves and nerves more than anything else) this is not going well, Jordi had warned us on the boat that we must do everything perfectly apart from the fault he gives us and here I am struggling to clear my mask, first student to do skills too.

Eventually after four or five attempts Ian congratulates me on doing the skill well enough, Jordi cuts that short and gets Ian to move on to his second skill. Then its Mikes Turn, Mike gets Ian to demonstrate a hover (Ian is in a drysuit with a buddy air2 as his BCD inflater) I think eek not a good choice, but hey it simulates real life and peoples kit choices.

I watch as Mike deals with Ian fault of over inflation (as prescribed by Jordi) I also note that Ian’s right calf has bubbles streaming from it (if your reading this you may have a drysuit leak) .

My turn to be Instructor, I get to do AAS stationary and a sheet bend, nothing bad, Mike tries to donate his primary I spot it quickly and get him to go donate his octopus while he uses his primary. For the sheet bend my student tied the wrong knot, I showed them the right knot and got them to do the skill again.

Rina’s turn she has got Fin Pivot, she gets Laura to do it, Jordi Instructs Laura to over inflate her BCD, Rina is slow Laura goes up, Rina grabs her they both go to the surface. They both return with Rina holding Laura’s hand, Rina get Laura to do the skill again, she then does her second skill.

One of the Spanish guys gets picked by Florian to do the bowline and recovery of an anchor to neutral buoyancy using a lift bag, it goes well, perfectly neutral and well tied knots.

Jordi sent us away buddy pair at a time to go do the rescue evaluations.

Rod evaluates Laura and my own rescues, we get back on the boat and dekit.
Everybody gets back on board and we start heading back to the harbour.

Jordi asks us all to give him our debriefs, I do this “I particaulary liked the way……”, Florian does it “However , remember to do such and such” , Mike Does “the value is…” , Ian too, we all pass this section some relief on our faces. I score a 4.0 and a 4.0, Laura gets her debrief she scores a 5.0 (perfect!), Rina gets her debrief done so does Michelle, Rina is crying, Michelle is now crying and so is Laura.

Three woman all crying and I didnt say anything and Clive was quiet at the back of the boat, so it wasnt him, what’s going on?

We get back to the Shore, Dave is waiting on us, he sees the girls all crying, I still have no idea what is going on.

We start getting the kit off the boat, I manage to find out Rina failed this section for Student safety, Michelle passed but she had been given a talking to about the amount of time it took her to find somewhere to tie her CESA line too and Laura passed too but blamed herself for what happened with Rina..

Rina keeps herself to herself, Dave gives her a hug and tells her to keep herself together so she can do the knowledge development and that means she will only have to sit the Open water section again at another IE.

We all stick together and are called into the classroom for the final component of the IE…

Everything runs smoothly in the classroom, we all teach and interact, I hear the phrases from everybody “key points, take notes, highlight, ask questions, in summary”, everybody manages a non diving contact, Ian used his crocs (bad man!)

Mike manages to use a mobile phone and a digital camera as his contacts(he uses my mobile) so we even manage to get a photograph of us during the Knowledge Development section.

Front Row: Michelle & Laura
Middle Row: Myself & Florian
Back Row: Jordi Attenza (PADI Instructor Examiner)

Jordi gives us our scores as we each finish, its agonising waiting on all the others finishing as Florian can hardly hold himself in his seat, he just wants to bounce around and go get a cigarette.

We all pass this section (4.6 I think I score).

That’s it all over, the IE is done and dusted, Jordi writes up the paperwork for everybody we have a nice presentation of the certificates by Clive, Dave & Rod.

From the Six candidates from the IDC hosted by Scuba Med, five of us are now qualified as OWSI’s and Rina has to go back and do one section. (I believe she has been in open water over the last few days practising and is flying to Alicante on the 16th of May for her remake IE.)

Good luck Rina!

I can’t thank Dave, Jan and Clive enough for all the effort and genuine care they put into running the IDC and supporting us at the IE.

Now onwards to the world..

..Oh I got pretty drunk on Sunday night at the BBQ and Dave had a nice skirt and blouse on.

On the Monday I Chilled and on the Tuesday we did our EFRI Courses with Rod.

Just again…

What does IE Stand for?

IT’S EASY!

Left to Right: Dave, Me, Florian, Michelle,Laura, Mike & Clive.

If you are thinking of doing an IDC & IE then remember to contact Dave at Scuba Med for his all inclusive prices.

The OWSI Section of an IDC is delivered by a Course Director, in our case Clive Albon (CD#59733).

Clive, Florian & Michelle

Laura and Pika have a flat warming party this is where we all meet Clive as Dave had picked him up straight from the airport, I have another early night and had only lemonade at the party.

Clive took over where Dave left off, going through the presentations from the Candidate workbook, drilling us continually for knowledge reviews and taking the micro teaching further with the sessions on prescriptive teaching.

We where each given two prescriptive teaching topics to do in class, two open water subjects to teach and two confined water teaching subjects.

Clive took us to the lovely heated pool again and went through the complete skill circuit again, Clive made me redo CESA a good few times as usual it was my weakest skill to demonstrate, I really do not like CESA (after a few attempts at CESA I eventually scored 90 overall, which was a relief).

We then done our first confined water teaching presentations, I cant remember which one I had but it was one of the timed ones for sixty seconds, I had Florian and Mike (Mike put the AAS in upside down and I didn’t even spot it at first) both do it but I failed to time it correctly and scored a overall one due to not meeting standards (one of the breathing from an Alternative Air Source skills - stationary for 30 seconds), a harsh blow for my confidence however I would rather score a one on the IDC than at the IE. Must remember as an Instructor demonstrating the skill you don’t need to do it for the time but the students must do it.

Clive then went through alternative ways to demo the unresponsive diver on the bottom and the unresponsive diver on the surface, we all had a few attempts at these with varying degrees of success, even more off putting when people are counting in Swiss and Austrian as I try to concentrate on my own counts.

Back to the classroom to do our prescriptive teaching using each other as students (we eat all of Dave’s precious Yorkie chocolate now).

I write this from memory so may have missed bits out…

Prescriptive Teaching: Laura, Rina, Michelle, Me & Florian

Introduction (Tell them what your going to tell them): Contact (something non diving), Topic, Value, relevance to student, relate to local diving, relate to actual diving. “Turn to page…. highlight, take notes ask questions”

Body (tell them it): Key points, Teach subject matter from manuals, slides or official material, use training aids (more points scored for non diving training aid, use maps to illustrate planning i.e dive tables - interact with the students) Sell a related continuing education programme (remember to tell them availability, how many dives and how long it will take) and some dive gear (i.e a computer).

“In Summary” (the magic words, tell them what you told them) : Key points, value, check they got it, relate to actual dive they will do so give value to what they are learning, sell the con ed and the kit.

Dave told me to chill a bit, Clive said I was manic, they both said they have never had to tell somebody to slow down and try not to sell so much stuff before…….

Anyway I scored well enough 4.4, good enough to get to and pass the IE.

Another couple of days of Presentations, knowledge reviews & evening study, knot tying sessions and with Clive going over everything making sure we all learned, learned and learned.

At a few points there where some clashes of personalities between Clive and us, it was obvious he wanted us to pass and wanted us performing well but sometimes he just rubbed us up a bit the wrong way.

If I didn’t know better I would have thought that during the ethical standards presentations he even took joy in showing us that there is no mention of an instructor being polite and courteous …..

Back to the lovley warm pool for more rescue practice and more confined water teaching presentations, this time everything goes smoothly for me and I score a five (maximum points)

We do another Prescriptive teaching session and this time I score a 4.8 (Roving diver survey technique), so I start feeling good about this IE thing coming up soon.

Out to open water for a couple of dives, the Open water teaching presentations and an adventure dive workshop.

Dive 248: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 35 Minutes.

I gave my briefings on the mask partial flood and the Search and Recovery, two two half hitches knot exercise I had.

In we all go, taking turns at being DM, Instructor or students, (why did I write DM first? maybe its still the most important role to me…) helping each other out by not making things hard for each other is about all we can do.

Typically Clive gave the students errors to put into the skills and you have to spot them, stop them, make sure the student is no no danger especially from buoyancy and air skills, are they blowing bubbles, are they putting too much air in, have they spat the regulator out. Watch for this one at strange times, hover with no reg in anybody? Mask remove and replace with reg spat out, oh boy but these things will all happen in real life, is the alternate air source the right way up?

Florian seems to have forget he is meant to be getting one of us to rig the lifting bag and make the anchor neutrally buoyant, no he is just having fun…. comedy.

It gets cold in 17oC water sitting about watching people do skills…

After a short surface interval we head under again for our Adventure dive workshop dive.

Dive 249: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 20 Minutes.

Utilising the roving diver survey technique and with fish slates and blank slates for marking up the rough numbers we had split into buddy teams, Rina and I see some fish, mark them up, continue round the small rocks and reef marking down what we see. The Buddy teams all meet up at the bottom of the buoy line after twenty minutes and Florian unties the buoy, we all swim back to shore.

Back to the Esperanza and the Scuba Med Dive Centre , we do our debriefs and Clive tells me I scored well in my open water teaching presentations, I think a 4.5 and a 4.3 but cant in truth remember.

The Pricing workshop is interesting and makes me worried that I dont think I would ever be able to afford to do this on my own, I do need to find some friendly dive centres back home to work with otherwise the overheads would be far too much.

We go over more Presentations and knowledge reviews, sit the theory exams, I pass them all but once again scrape the Physics and Physiology ones with 75% and a 82%, the others are all 92%+, technically they should all be 100% but I blame the warm weather, long hours and lack of alcohol, Ive been here nearly ten days and havent been out on a session once, hey I must be taking this seriously……

….Its Thursday the IE starts tomorrow (Friday May 3rd) and the IDC is finished, time to rectify that non drinking situation…

We all head out via the donner king for a kebab (poor Mike, he hasn’t had a kebab in his life now ten days with us lot and he has had three…. I hate to think what his poor partner will think when he gets home with a kebab addiction, watch out for a kebab van at 8 acre lake!) A few beers at Cafe Pris, the Red Lion to watch the Kareoke and then off to Charly’s for some games of pool and a giggle downstairs at the dance floor, I stumble from Charly’s around 3am heading for the Flamenco..

It was good to see the Alexei (The RSM), Luchi, Patric, Stuchy, KitKat and a few more of last years faces out and about, I do like Can Picafort, its a fun wee place.

Friday Morning the IDC is over but we take the opportunity to do the new PADI Emergency Oxygen Provider Speciality Instructor course.

Lots of fun, we finally, I think, all bond with Clive and realise that he does actually care very much that we do well, we call each other ambulances, all do the skills for the O2, we go through the instructor course for it including the marketing and pricing workshops and its actually a nice course, the books for it have got great illustrations and nice snippets of information.

Friday evening we all pack the van full of everything we can find (I mean everything! plastic fish, staples, giant wheels, drysuits, bottles full of sand, dive gear, cylinders etc etc, the kitchen sink…. to go to Santa Ponsa for the IE.

I flew to Palma from Bristol on the 24th of April. Dave picked me up at the airport and we headed straight to the Esperanza Hotel , where the IDC was being held.

The Esperanza Beach

I hadn’t even unpacked or been to my accommodation and I was in a classroom going through a few of the presentations from the AI components of the IDC.

The classroom at the Esperanza dive centre is large enough for the six students and has a whiteboard, laptop with large external LCD screen and tea, coffee making facilities along with a fridge to keep some cold drinks and fruit of the chocolate kind in.

This wasn’t going to be a holiday and I wasn’t going to get any rest, that much was clear from the start. I was introduced to Mike, Florian and Rina, I said hi to my friends from last season Laura and Michelle.

After a couple of presentations and a course orientation it was off to the pool to practice Skill circuits.

I get a cylinder, some weights a bcd and some regs from the kit room, the kit room is small but well organised.

Its good to see Alix again too as she takes Rina and I off to the central pool.

The Esperanza is a great location, its got a nice heated pool, a good supermarket and good value for money restaurants should you decide to buy a cooked meal.

I assemble my kit, a silent demo quality kit assembly while Alix watches and I remember to clip a snorkel onto my mask strap! (something I will need to get used to when doing teaching dives when I pass the IE)

Bloody hell, this is where I start to remember how rusty I am with demonstration quality skills, Alix runs through the demos with Rina and I, I start remembering and the only one I really struggle with is CESA.

CESA is not something I was ever taught, I only really picked it up last year doing my DM Internship, so it was never ingrained into me from the start.

We finish the skill circuit and head back to the classroom, Alix gives Dave the OK and I am pleasantly surprised I wasn’t as rusty as I thought I was.

Another presentation from the AI section and then off to the Hostel.

I along with a few of the others are staying at the Flamenco Hostel in Can Picafort, near the marina, its very basic but clean enough and friendly enough (Accommodation in a tourist class room to myself with breakfast supplied worked out at 270 Euros for the twelve nights) .

During my stay I actually ended up moving between three different rooms at the Flamenco each with a decent seaside view over the beach and the marina, one room had a separate bathroom down the hallway but apart from that all reasonably sized and similar.

The next few days where all a blur, basically lots of pool skill circuits (me always struggling to demo CESA), classroom presentations then being shown how to micro teach PADI style and how to do the confined water and open water teaching presentations.

Dave worked me hard to bring me up to speed with everybody else who had started the IDC a couple of days before me.

I was being scored quite well and I even managed 100% on the AI Standards exam and only used 30 minutes to do it.

This was feeling good especially after the hard time I had on Fundies the previous weekend.

Dave asked if I fancied having some extra practice at the other exams so I gave them a go and managed to pass them all aswell (just with regards to physics and physiology, I needed to get some more studying in prior to the OWSI section of the IDC and the IE should I be signed off to go to it).

The only open water dives that are part of the IDC AI Component are the open water teaching presentations we all had to do.

Before the dives we all gave our briefings to each other role playing students, Divemasters and instructors.

Dive 247: 26/04/2008 The Bridge, Bonaire, Mallorca - Water Temp: 17oC Max Depth: 7.9 Metres Dive Time: 54 Minutes.

MI: Dave Campling

AI Candidates: Rina Houston, Michelle Sigron, Florian Aufhammer, Mike Mudryk (Mike recently acquired 8 Acre lake an inland dive site near Huddersfield) & Myself.

5mm Suit, hood & gloves and believe me for doing these teaching presentations that was just about warm enough, you do tend to sit around a lot negatively buoyant on the bottom when being involved or not in everybodys presentations.

I was given full mask flood and hover to do in open water and essentially I had to make sure the candidate doing the skill was safe and they completed the skill to meet performance requirements.

There was loads of jellyfish and they upset Michelle a bit, a demon she would have to deal with herself.

Somebody took the mask off and somebody did a fin pivot instead of a hover but overall not to shabby, mistakes spotted and corrected.

After the Skills presentations we had a wee ten minute fin around looking at the scenery then back to the shore and debrief time.

The next day Clive the Course Director would arrive and we would all start the OWSI section of the IDC together….

Fundies is well documented and its easy to see what it consists of over at GUE.com

What are the biggest differences between GUE and other diver training agencies?

Well most of you will know about these but some of my friends may not even have heard of GUE, so here are the headlines…

• Dive in teams of three not Buddy teams of two.
• Air is not a GUE Diving gas.
• Smokers may not hold GUE Certification.
• Mandated equipment configuration.

So here we go….this is my own abridged blog from my experience.

April 18-21st GUE Fundamentals Location: Somerset (Vobster Quay) Instructor: Clare Gledhill

This is not a Macho course, its a fun training course which has high standards to gain accreditation.

You are shown new ways of doing skills that you can learn via other agencies or via other methods, sometimes I think Tech courses are written up as if they are all macho i.e “I was given an out of gas and a primary light failure, life depends on blah blah” well in my opinion Fundies is nothing like that, here is just one small example..

During other training I have had my gas turned off and my mask taken off me unexpectedly when doing dives.

During GUE Fundamentals the instructor or support diver didn’t touch any of my life support kit ever, they pointed at me and gave me they signal to donate gas or to turn my torch off and even when having to do the no mask swim, I took my mask off myself, my buddy led me by holding onto to me (real technical divers call this touch contact) and the instructor stayed close by us in case anything should go wrong, so you see the emphasis is on fundamentals and safety.

Is that what I thought before I went along, no way, I was scared senseless of being beasted by these underwater dive God’s.

I learned lots that weekend thanks to Alistair and Clare and the one thing above all else I learned was that
The most important piece of kit a GUE diver takes in the water is his buddies or in GUE speak, “the team”.

So what did we do….

• Pool session incorporating a swim test and back kick, helicopter turn instruction
• Four training dives
• Approx ten hours of lectures
• Approx five hours of academic exercises
• Approx 3 hours of video review & feedback
• Experience Dive
• Debrief

Skill Demonstrations

• Valve Drill
• Back Kick
• SMB Deployment

I met Jim, Mack, Dave, Alistair and Clare thanks to everybody for making this a brilliant course, well ran and good friendly people even the Vobster Underwater Wraith*…..

We learned that rule six may be to look good at all times but rule seven is never to look structured in a council swimming pool.

Post dive video assessments are brilliant, they really do show you when you got it right and when you got it oh ever so badly wrong.

I found it hard to maintain the high standard of buoyancy control and I found it impossible to perform the valve drill, it probably wasn’t a good a idea in retrospect turning up to a training course wearing a drysuit with drygloves that I had only used for two little fun dives, however at least the suit and me got a good work out.

After Dave and I completed our experience dive we even had a chance to have one extra chill out dive with no fear of the VUW coming near us.

So in all I managed a Total of six FUNDIvES and well to be honest, I managed to scrape a Provisional pass (Not needing any further instruction just lots of practice & a re-evaluation dive).

I basically failed to maintain the correct levels of buoyancy and I also failed miserable to do my Valve Shutdown drills, lets face it in all honesty who else is mad enough to go on a training course wearing a suit they have only just got and only managed to dive twice prior to the course…….

The Backick is interesting and will be a nice skill to master and I have started putting it into practice although I have found I tend to go upwards and backwards causing a silt cloud.

*Vobster Underwater Wraith - is some sort of ghost like diver that has a red overlay on a DUI suit and sweeps in unseen and unfelt to switch off primary lights.

I’ve got my dive gear in the car and well I got an invite to do a wee night dive at Stoney Cove.

Stoney Cove I hear you say! euch why bother…..

Well didn’t see a reason not to do it, Id either be in the rented flat in Bristol buying and selling folk on facebook, doing a internet diver speciality or watching some crap TV.

I left Bristol at 5.30pm for the 118 mile trip to Leicester.
About half an hour away from Stoney I got a txt off my buddy to say he had arrived and was going in for a quick dive with his real mates not me.

I think cheeky barsteward.

Anyway, I get to Stoney and well its my first visit, its bloody busy.
I get stung £15 for a guest diving session and I have to be out the water for nine pm. (its 7.15 pm when I arrive so only chance of one dive).

I set up the twinset (its got a mix of EAN26 - basically it had EAN33 (usual local lds super accurate mixing ) that I used and then got topped off with a hydrocarbon free air fill)), tie some random knots in my guage housings with thicker bungie and fettle some stuff (that’s techy talk, don’t worry about it if you don’t understand it )

Get the new Sub Xero undersuit on and work out how to attach the crotch straps. Its more like a gimp suit (allegedly)

Now what the hell do I do for weighting?

Its been suggested that a sub xero adds about 3-4kg to your sea water weight requirements (over arctics).

Well its the first I have diver fresh water so thats -2kg from my weight requirements.

My cylinders are full and I have no chance of emptying them, so thats me heavy anyway……

Argh right so I shove on my normal 4.5 kgs (3 x 1kg v weights, 1.5 kg in a tail pouch) weights (Im probably about 1.5kg over anyway) thinking 3+4-2=5 So its a starting point.

I also put on the fin retainers straps I managed to find locally as I had a bit of a floaty feet feeling with the turbo soles last dive at conger. (you should have seen the looks on dive-tech, aquatron and splahsports faces when I asked for them)

As im diving the cove for the first time, its night and I have no primary torch, I have no idea of my weighting and my feet where floaty last time oh and my buddy has already done a dive, I convince him to stay in the shallows and let me play with my buoyancy.

So thats it twin 12’s for a 6 metre guddle, woot! I could suck on my long hose like a Russian hooker and still get a decent, mmhh not decent, er I mean long…… dive in

So Martin’s mate Steve and his buddy are going to lead while Martin and I follow in the silt trail behind them.

We are in the car park, its mobbed, ive never seen so many divers at a shore dive and im reliably informed that we are in the very empty bottom car park that is normally trple parked, while there are two overspill carparks up the road, bloody hell, this place must rake it in. I reckon there was easy around eighty divers on site last night, maybe more.

So Im parked near the entrance and the shop, with a long walk kitted up to the area we are going in at, bloody hell twin 12’s are not good for this, humph!!

http://www.stoneycove.com/beneath.htm

I show Martin round my kit as he hasn’t seen a twinset close up before, I explain about donating from my mouth and we do a cursary buddy check, We put our fins and masks on, do a giant stride entrance at (B) we agree some basic torch signals in the group of four.

DIVE 240: 16/04/2008 20:26 EAN28 Max depth 7(don’t forget the .2) Metres.
GAS IN 230 bar, GAS OUT 190 bar.
Dive Time 27 minutes

My descent is not smooth, I manage to get a wee kick in the direction of Martin (oops), equalise and descend to 5 metres.

There are already some signs of life, the underwater landscape reminds me of furnace, its very rocky here some perch, some fresh water cray fish.

We bimble around with Martin hovering above me in my blind spot most of the time and the other two guys in front of us.

I have a reach for my valves, mmmh cant quite get them with one hand, maybe I don’t have enough air in the suit, my drygloves are pretty shriveld up…

Some nice big easy torch signals given, I don’t think Ive ever seen a torch so orange that Steve is using, ( its got some suunto neoprene cover thing on it, weird) it must have an amber lense on it, it cant be that orange naturally.

I try reaching for my vales again and am slitghly distracted when…

Bloody hell! I nearly cack my pants! A blood great huge four or five foot long pike is right at my face, f**king hell! That was funny, I can hear myself laughing like a clown now, god that’s one ugly fish. I take a breath in and rise above the pike, lets just say he wasn’t for moving.

Plenty more other fishes, some smaller pike some more cray fish, actually this aint that bad a dive for a shallow bimble.

We come across a big concrete structure a metal “attraction” shaped like a science fiction submarine. We bimble around near a drop off and head back in, nice and shallow.

I only just went to seven and a tiny bit metres. It was a nice relaxing dive.

I would do that again although next time I go I want to make sure I get two dives in cause at £15 plus a 240 mile round trip you need to make the most of it.

Off we head to nemos dinner and get some refreshments before I do the return trip to Bristol.

It was good to catch up with Martin who the last time I dived with he was doing his open water course in Spain and I was his DM, its good see he has kept up the diving and last night logged his 31st dive in less than a year of which 26 of have been in UK Quarries, I need to get the lad up Scotland and get him in the sea.

I met up with Scott and Yvonne from Cumbernauld Sub Aqua Club at the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar.

We decided on Drishaig reef as it was close to the Oyster bar and that let Yvonne have somewhere nice to be with the kids till we had finished the first dive. The plan was typical fish prodder, relaxed Sunday diving, go in see reef, prod fish, get food if any around and come out with plenty of air.

Yvonne was going to stay at the Oyster bar with the kids and her mum while Scott and I went for the first dive, I’d never dived this reef before so Scott was going to lead and I hadn’t dived with Scott in nearly two years. The weather was pretty changeable going from lovely bright sunshine to heavy rain within minutes of each other.

After being so cold the last time I was out, id decided to put on the Base layer and the Arctic’s to keep me warm.

We kitted up , had a good gab and done our buddy check, Scott was diving a single fifteen and a pony while I dive the double twelve’s. We went over the differences in kit and Scott double checked I could isolate myself. This is the first I had been asked this by a single cylinder buddy and it was a little weird thinking why would he ask that.

Has he dived with twinset divers who cannot isolate?

Anyway I explained I could isolate but not very quickly or gracefully and that Id like to practice reaching my valves when we get in.

On the surface, Scott lay down in the shallows and put his fins on while I walked in a bit, inflated my wing then floated on the surface and put on my fins, we checked our position in relation to the surface rock to use as a guide and gave the signal to descend.

Onwards and downwards, we mostly followed the horseshoe shape reef, which had plenty of life, lots of Squat Lobsters, large edible crabs, hermit crabs, lots of Blennies, a couple of small scallops and one pretty large dogfish.
We reached around 23 metres and started to head back up, the visibility was clear but dark down below 15 metres.
From above 15 metres it was easy enough to see 5-8 metres in front without the torch, however the torch was as ever handy for looking under rocks and signalling OK to each other.
The water reached around 7oC in the top 6 metres and 8oC below that. I was glad I had both under suits on but after 30 minutes my hands even in 5mm gloves where cold, I really need dry gloves, I cant take this cold on my hands.

After the dive we sat about chatting for a bit, Scott tried on my twinset and felt it wasn’t as heavy as he was expecting.
We got a call from Yvonne to say it was too miserable and cold to dive so she would just stay at the Oyster bar. I agreed with Scott we should just go get some warm soup as the dive wasn’t that interesting to warrant a second one on the same reef.

Back to the Loch Fyne Oyster bar for a great bowl of Soup and a pot of tea, overall a nice wee relaxing dive and a chilled Sunday.

Dive 238 EAN32 Max depth 23.1 Dive Time 35 minutes

Thanks to Conger Alley the Scottish Diving Forum for the Dive Site guide.