A Long Scuba Filled Day!

San Luis Beach

At 0600 this morning, I awoke from my bed and began my long and arduous day scuba diving. I had a good breakfast, unlike our hurried granola breakfast yesterday. We prepared for the day by getting our rash guards and trunks on, applying sunscreen, then getting our fins, masks and snorkels.  At 0745, we departed the Thomas House to go to our second open water lesson at San Luis.  First a shallow skills check, which included the neutral buoyancy/ fin pivot, where I deflated all the air in the BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) and I controlled my buoyancy using exhale/inhale breathing.  Then mask flooding/clearing using air suction, inhaling through my nose. Then we did hovering, were you are essentially free floating underneath water and not up or down, which took some serious buoyancy control.

In the ascent!

Then we did the CESA (Controlled Emergency Surface Ascent), where you are out of air, but your dive buddy is not near/ or too far away, and you then take a deep breath, and exhale continuously until you reach the surface with your left hand deflating the air in your BCD so you don't ascend too rapidly, and your right handin the air to guide and protect your head, this works from 30 feet or so. We practiced it horizontally, which took me 2-3 tries to get it right, but I kept trying until I got it right. My patience was rewarded, When Ashley, our instructor gave the thumbs up, we then went on a dive.

Not the way to make an Emergency Surface Ascent!

We explored the area, descending to about 40 feet. And this time I made sure unlike my first open water dive when I went down to 45 feet, I kept periodically checking my SPG (Scuba Pressure Guage) and my dive computer for air/depth and deth respectively. 

Scuba Pressure Gauge

For communication hand water, we had to learn in our first class the 25 main hand signals (for checking air level, low on air, out of air, share air and ok for examples) for communication, as without fantastic electronics, talking underwater is impossible to understand. We went at 40 ft for abut 15 minutes, until everbody had 1800 psi, I had about 1600 or so, as I started with 3000-3200 roughly.

After San Luis, we headed to Gab Gab Beach, where we first started compass navigation lessons on land, before we took it to snorkeling and then eventually under water. After we suited up, we learned how to do the enlarged step dive, from Chris our instructor. You step until our toes are over the edge of the pool, you keep a hand on your loose objects (SPG) and regulator and mask and step forward with an enlarged stride and enter the water.

Gab Gab Beach for Nav Training

We then navigated the Gab Gab pool in pairs with our compasses, one of us would navigate, the other would make sure we didn't hit other people/divers. Then on the way back, we would switch roles with our partners. After we had mastered navigation in the pool, it was time to hit the harbor! We went under the buoys and snorkeled to our dive float, then waited for Chris to secure it. We used the five point descent system (SORTED, Signal, Orentation, Regulator, Time, and Equalize Ears and Equalize Often and finally Desecnt by deflation of your BCD holding the inflator/deflator straight up as you descend, rembering to equalize. If your ears will not equalize, ascend a few feet and wait until they equalize, using either popping your ears, wiggling your jaw, blowing through your blocked nose, or a combo of the latter two.

We first descended to about 15-20 feet, to work on fin pivoting, orally inflating your BCD, by removing your regulator, exhaling, then putting the inflator/regulator hole in your mouth and pressing the button while blowing into your piece, then taking it out and putting your regulator in. Before this, you would deflate your BCD with your deflate button.

Clearing the mask

Then we worked on the mask clearing and while the others were working on fin pivoting/mask clearing, we would work on hovering. We got a bit of navigation, then we checked our air tanks, and I was done to about 1100 from 3300 psi at the start of the dive and we had been down for about 45 minutes. We ascended about 1706 having gotten in about 1620 This was improved air usage for me compared to other dives. We practiced the CSEA but this time ascending from about 15-20 feet and I got the maneuver on the first time. We then snorkeled in, removing our fins, and ascended the stairs and began removing our gear, starting with unstrapping our chest straps and putting the BCD down, then turning off the air on the tank, letting air out of the regulator and then disconnecting the first, second stage regulator, alternate air and SPG unit and putting it down. Then I disconnected the Tank from the BCD and laid it down and rinsed the fins, mask and snorkel, and the BCD and the other units off and then putting it away.

We did not get certified today, I just have a boat nav dive for certification left and a pleasure dive on the same boat on Tue and Monday and Wed are free days.

Jack

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