SCUBA-DIVING 2010 - SCUBA DIVER CERTIFICATION TRAINING
LAST UPDATED 15/02/2010
Decided would like to try a new extreme sport! On 11/11/09 I got the go-ahead from a specialist scuba-diving doctor to commence diving - I've had a bypass operation to my leg and have a glass tube in my tear duct as it was blocked... yes, i am a medical nightmare!!!
I have just qualified as a PADI Scuba Diver - allows me dive to 12m / 40ft in open water with a divemaster.
When I come back from Everest I plan to train for the next qualification!
BELOW IS DIARY OF MY TRAINING TO DATE....
Saturday 6th February 2010
Passed my scuba diver theory exam, now qualified as a PADI Scuba Diver! Whoo!!
20th January 2010... MY FIRST TWO SEA DIVES!!!
Today I headed to the dive centre for 10.30am, assembled my gear and got into the drysuit. The drysuit was still and effort to get into and the boat on the trailer still a huge challenge to actually get into! We went off the slip into the water. I was feeling a mixture of excitment and nervousness!
Got to the diving site in the Forth, off Kirkcaldy (at Inverteil / Vuze rocks). Took a while to get the rest of the gear on - had to check my gear, put the weights into my BCD (diving jacket), put on a tight wetsuit hood, my goggles, fins and gloves, before getting a hand to put the cylinder on. I checked my air and made some final adjustments before getting the signal to roll backwards off the side of the boat! I had never done this before so was quite scared, but just thought positively, closed my eyes and rolled backwards! It was better than I thought as I didn't go as deep down as I thought I would and, infact had the trouble that I couldn't get my fins under the water I was that buoyant! :) Then swam to the front of the boat to where the instructor was and grabbed hold of the line between the boat/buoy and the anchor. It was strange being in the sea and I had to ask the instructor for a few moments to calm my breathing down before we descended. Had to stall descending for a moment to add more weights into my suit to get my buoyancy right.
Once I'd sorted my breathing we descended. It was quite cloudy under water but to be honest it didn't worry me too much as I was so busy concentrating on descending and equalising. You have to get your ears to pop or the pressure (which I quickly discovered!) can get so much that it becomes extremely painful in your ears and can cause you to panic as the thought of descending anymore and it becoming more painful is too much! I managed to signal I was having problems so got a bit of time to sort it out. You have to be careful or you could burst your ear drums!!
Got down 12m (about 40ft) and knelt on the sand on the sea bed. I tried to just think I was in the pool otherwise I could feel a bit of panic setting in! We did some drills like taking regulator out and clearing it and clearing mask. I accidentally swallowed some water and it was so salty it sent me into a bit of a coughing fit (which is scarey at the bottom of the sea!) but I sorted it :) We then went for an exploration dive. The instructor had a torch to show us the colours (when you are that deep the water gets very dark and everything looks a light green or black colour). It was incredible because I saw little snail things walking about on the sea bed, loads of starfish and sea-urchins and also some little fish! Also saw "dead-mans fingers" corals which are white and look like fingers funnily enough! We then got to a bit where the rock went into a little tunnel. I thought we had reached a dead end but then got the signal to swim through it in single file! That was amazing - I can see why people want to dive in wrecks - it was an incredible experience! I only wish I could have recorded the dive to show what i was experiencing!
Only trouble I had was a couple of times the air in my drysuit went to my feet and my legs floated above my head and I couldn't get them back down without the instructor leaning on me!!
We then surfaced - the only way you know you are about at the surface is because the water starts to turn white, it's a reassuring colour to see especially if your air is running out! lol! Then had to take the weights off and the cyclinder off in the water before clambering back into the boat (which was a MAJOR effort!!).
Took a bit of a break on the boat, before attaching a fresh cyclinder to my gear. This time I also put on a pair of ankle weights to keep my feet down! Tested it all, then donned all the kit on, before rolling backwards off the boat into the water again. I probably enjoyed it more this time as I wasn't quite so worried about not coming back up due to the weight of the gear!! I swam over to the front of the boat and then the instructor and I (plus another guy) descended. I again had MAJOR problems equalising my ears and the pain was pretty excruiating at times, but I signalled this to the instructor, we ascended slightly and I managed to sort it.
We went for another exploration dive, saw lots of star fish, sea-urchins and 'dead-man's finger' corals again. Again swam through the little cave bit. I enjoyed it more this time and seemed to do better with my buoyancy. I felt it colder round my mouth though this time. Again we went to 12m/40ft and the temperature on the bottom was 6 degrees. At times the visibility again went down to nothing and the instructor kept hold of my hand which was reassuring as it felt a bit scarey and alone when I couldn't see anything, not even the instructor! I know I don't want to drown cos that would be a scarey horrible way to die!!
We then came to ascend. I looked at my guage which showed I had about 50 bars of air left in my tank. For some reason I couldn't get myself the right way round for ascending and ended up lying on my back on the seabed and couldn't sort it which caused me to have a little panic. I was holding onto the hands of the instructor but at one point they floated upwards and left me behind and that worried me as I thought something was wrong. I was given time to calm down and the instructor encouraged me to breathe deeply, before they helped with my buoyancy and helped me surface which relaxed me somewhat. when we got to the surface I thanked them!
We had been down for another 30 minutes, though again it didn't feel like that! We waited for the boat to come and get us as we had gone a fair distance from where we had started. Next thing the lifeboat came cos someone on the land had phoned them thinking we were in distress - it had infact been a diver jumping about on the boat to try and keep warm! We had to give our names and addresses to the lifeboat crew as it was recorded as an incident! My first sea dives and I've already made it into the coastguard history books! lol!
Next up is to do my theory test - hopefully this weekend - just need to get all my notes read!!
19th December 2009
Despite it being pretty cold and there being snow on the ground I phoned the dive centre and I was told to meet at lunchtime for my first sea dive! I was surprised how tiring it is even getting ready for going diving in the sea - the drysuit is hard going getting on as it has boots attached and is quite tight on the legs. It has latex seals on the neck and wrists that are also very tight so we went outside and poured talcom powder onto the seals and got someone to help us put it on - it was like being reborn as someone put it!
Next up was assembling our own gear. I have put the tank and regulator etc together myself before but I found myself checking it more this time - it would be a bit disastorous if the tank fell off or something when I was in the sea! Then got my wetsuit hood, fins, mask and weights sorted out and loaded up the boat.
First challenge was just getting into the boat! It was on the trailer in the yard and it has big inflatable sides with nothing to hold onto! There is also no ladder and with the big suit on it was hard-going getting in even with people hauling me in! Goodness knows how you are supposed to get back in after a dive when you are tired and cold! lol!
We were all sat in the boat when it got driven down to the slip at the sea, where we launched. There was a bit of delay as someone had to go and change their suit as it had a wee hole in it. While they were away a blizzard came and it got really windy. We were all sitting in the boat in our drysuits looking like snowmen - and we had CHOSEN to do this??! It certainly was an extreme sport!
We zoomed off to the dive site. I was surpised how fast the boat went, it was really bouncy and there was a lot of spray. I quite enjoyed it! The reassuring thing was that there wasn't much of a drop from the boat to the sea so I wasn't quite as worried as I had been about the prospect of rolling backwards off the side of the boat! Out at the dive site it was really choppy - too choppy for beginners and the visibility was only 1 metre so we didn't dive there. We zoomed back towards the dive centre and had a look around the back of the harbour there but that was also too choppy. By then we were all frozen so we gave up!
Hoping to get out on 21st December for my first sea dive now!
12th December 2009
Went along for my last pool session today. Mainly concentrated on clearing my mask - I struggle with that for some reason, so instructor told me to take my regulator out and he held my mouth shut so I would breath out through my nose!! It worked! I eventually got it so that I could take my mask completely off underwater, put it back on and clear it by taking my regulator out and breathing out through my nose.
Then practised finning and ascending / descending. Felt good to finish the session on a positive by doing a good mask clearance.
At the end I got asked to go out to the sea next weekend - that's really exciting but also a bit scarey at the same time! Can't wait!
21st November 2009
Had another pool training session. For the first little while I was allowed to just swim about myself. I took the dreaded step into the deep-end (though was probably more confident this time) and then swam about. I practised taking my regulator out and putting it back in and clearing it, and also practised ascending and descending.
Instructor then came over and the drill I had to do was to flood my mask and then take my mask off, then put the mask back on and clear it. Apparently most people freak out when they take their mask off. Well strangely I found it no bother taking my mask off and infact the instructor joked that i could have kept it off all night and still been quite happy! However when I put the mask back on it was obviously full of water and for some annoying reason I just wasn't able to clear it. To clear it you have to hold mask at the top and then breath out through your nose. I found that simple enough to do on the surface and if I had my regulator out, but with the regulator in it was just too easy to exhale through my mouth and not through my nose. I tried and tried but just could not clear the mask which was so frustrating!!
We then practised what to do if one of the hoses that connects to the air supply for the BCD (jacket) was to come off. Finally we practised the 5-point ascent and descent.
Felt frustrated at the end of the training session about not being able to clear my mask. Hopefully it will come next time.
Was SO tired after this session that I just went straight to my bed when I got home!!!
Won't be diving for another couple of weeks as I'm working the next couple of weekends.
14th November 2009
Started my Scuba Diver qualification this evening! Learnt how to assemble my own gear, then headed over to the pool where I stuck it all on along with my lovely pink flippers! I still seemed to find it a bit scarey stepping off into the deep end but I was fine once I was in the water.
Did a few exercises tonight of what to do if things went wrong. We knelt on bottom of deep end - my ears were popping and I was finding it hard to clear them which was a bit annoying. First exercise we did was running out of air. The instructor came over and actually switched our air tanks off and we had to signal when we were finding it hard to breathe and then signal when out of air. It was a bit panicky when the air actually stopped altogether but I tried to keep calm and then took the air supply from the instructor's reserve tank. We then swam round pool with instructor before she put our air back on and we had to return to using our own regulator. This week I was much better at clearing the water out the regulator and clearing my mask, which was good.
We then did finding neutral buoyancy and using your breath to control your depth. e.g. if you came across a rock in the sea you should be able to just breath in to float up and over it, then breath out to go back down. That's the theory anyway! I found this quite hard to do as I couldn't seem to get myself off the bottom of the pool!!
Then did what to do if regulator broke and it didn't stop giving air. You can't have regulator in your mouth if it did this as it would burst your lungs. Instead had to take regulator out and suck air out of it like drinking water out a fountain. Had to keep really calm doing these exercises as there's a lot to think of when you've not got the regulator in your mouth! Managaged though.
Finally we learnt how to tow another diver if they got tired (on surface!) and how to help someone if they get cramp. Had good laugh doing those drills!
To end with just swam about pool which was good fun as I was definatley more relaxed and confident about things this week.
I stayed behind for a bit at the end as the instructors were telling me about all the wrecks off the local cost and about a bell that was retreived off one. I found it all really interesting. Now have my dive manual and dvd's to study - hopefully things will start making a bit more sense to me once I've looked at these!
31st October 2009 - Try Dive
Met at pool. Got given a mask, the gear and flippers then headed down to deep end of pool. Me was scared being at the deep end and with that weight of gear on (it's heavy!). I chickened out of stepping into deep end initially but then got reminded I'd done parachuting so then went beyond the fear and stepped in. Is strange just before hit water, as was scared, but was okay once went down and came back up.
The scuba-jackets that we wear can be inflated and deflated by pressing some buttons on a plastic tube thing. When trying to swim under the water it takes a bit of 'hit and miss' to be able to get the buoyancy quite right to avoid being on surface or hitting off bottom of pool.
For the lessons we stood in circle and what we were going to do was demonstrated whilst we bobbed on the surface, then we gave hand symbol that we were going down, deflated our jackets and then knelt on bottom of pool in circle. Going down can be a bit odd as I kind of lost my balance until I got the jacket thing right. Once on the bottom I tried to concentrate on breathing through the regulator - meant to be long deep breaths - 5 seconds inhaling, 7 seconds exhaling. I could inhale but then I found myself panicking exhaling, feeling I couldn't breathe. We then did various exercises such as taking regulator out and then putting it back in. To clear the water in the regulator you can either exhale (not my strong point!) or press button on front of regulator though have to remember to move tongue up so water doesn't go in your mouth (quite a lot to think of when panicking for breath as I found out!). Easiest for me (if there is such a word as "easy" in this sport, was pressing button). Then did exercises such as thowing regulator behind shoulder then retrieving it and putting back in mouth without panicking. Before taking regulator out mouth have to inhale then when take regulator out have to exhale (so bubbles come out your mouth). If you just hold your breath that can apparently be dangerous, even in a pool, as you could burst your lungs. I need more confidence to exhale with and without the regulator on. They were good though as they took me aside and I had one-to-one tuition just practising breathing with the regulator.
We then did mask-clearing. The masks are just plastic and can fog up. If this happens then have to pinch top of mask to allow a bit of water in. Then have to shake head to allow this water to clear goggle area then come the hard bit. Then have to exhale through nose whilst pressing top of mask to get rid of water. As you guessed, me couldn't do this! Got given more one-to-one tuition and was given good tip, to stick tongue in regulator after inhaling then only way to exhale is through nose. This worked for me after a bit of practise! Told to get a mask and practice in shower!! lol!
Then practised how to signal out of air and how to get air off buddy's tank - did this okay and managed to switch regulators okay without panicking... to my amazement...
Finally just swam about pool under the water. I found it hard to get the bouyancy quite right, was either hitting off pool or floating to surface. Amazing though. Don't know how instructor did it but he then lay on his back on bottom of pool, took out regulator and started blowing bubbles, only they weren't bubbles they were perfect ring shaped bubbbles. He then threw toy torpedo up through these bubbles. I don't understand how he did that but it was good to watch!
Slept like a log that night cos was so relaxed and tired... :)
Check back soon to see how my next training session goes!
READ ABOUT MY EVEREST TRIP - 27th FEB to 24th MARCH 2010
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