Turns out I'm a chicken; anybody else?

[Mo2vation]

A little off topic, but how do you play cards underwater?

My housing has Pong built into it, does that count?



I agree with Lamont - that's how our team got to the diving we're doing now. Progressive. Each quarter we'd push a bit more, stay a little longer, find out if we're itchy or if we're OK, then go do it again and again.

All good? Lets push it again.

Not so good? OK - what'd we learn? Lets try this. Lets try that.

OK - is that small patch on my belly from the hot pocket I ate on the boat on the way back in, or did I push it a bit today? My ankle is sore tonight - did I hit it on the cleat on the way off the boat or should I not have stayed so long on dive two? Man - I'm tired. Is this normal fatigue from a 4 dive day, is this from laying off the gym last week or is this from taking dive 4 deep on that shortened SI?

These are the things we go over after every dive. Buddies are honest with each other.

We don't dive aggressively, but we do dive very assertively - as a direct result of progressing until all was not well, then backing off a bit and finding the boundaries. We know our team's limits, we know how to bend the curve and we know how to plan AND how to improvise while in the water on the dive to squeeze every possible moment out of every possible foot of depth out of every possible molecule of gas out of every single dive - and still emerge clean enough to walk away.


By the way: There is a difference between practice and rehearsal.

Practice is wood-shedding. You, at home, metronome, rudiments, scales, repetition, weight room, intervals, eating well, crunchs, etc. The diving equivalent is clipping and un-clipping, doing bottle work as you watch Fox news, profiling dives in VPlanner, Gasturbation (reviewing gas planning until your friends are sick of you), scenario profiling, seeking learned counsel from experienced divers in the forums, in classes, in phone calls, tagging along, being shore support, keeping your head in the game and all that.

Practice is the stuff you do alone (better: you motivate yourself to do) so you don't suck when the team or the band gets together. Its "weak link" aversion gone all mid-evil. Its showing up and showing off. Its tossing the mantle of butt boy onto your buddy, and they the next time trying to throw it back on you. So you go home, do more squats and deadlifts, pour over the data, and show up more prepared the next time.

You don't practice on game day. You show up ready to play.

Rehearsal is when you execute as a team. Its the culmination of years of focused practice. Sure, you can get together in the shallows and walk through stuff - but you usually do all that in the parking lot or on the deck on the way out to the site.

Chica and I never "practice" on real dives. Laura nailed it. If we're gonna "practice" we'll go play in a pool or hover at 30 feet and mess around for a few minutes after a real dive.

Dives are too important for practice and drilling. I'm here to dive.


---
Ken

[LCF]

Well, I think what happens is that we go down to depth, and it turns out what's down there is the same as what's a few feet shallower, and a few feet shallower than that, and the next thing I know, it's 25 minutes into the dive and I'm at 95 feet again.

I need to go somewhere where there's something exciting to see deep that isn't there shallow -- and I am; I'm going to Port Hardy, where the red gorgonians live in the deep water, and there's no helium available . . . :(

[ljj]

Or get a camera

Well, I think what happens is that we go down to depth, and it turns out what's down there is the same as what's a few feet shallower, and a few feet shallower than that, and the next thing I know, it's 25 minutes into the dive and I'm at 95 feet again.

I need to go somewhere where there's something exciting to see deep that isn't there shallow -- and I am; I'm going to Port Hardy, where the red gorgonians live in the deep water, and there's no helium available . . . :(

[Kendall]

So, I've had a few opportunities to go down and do staged decompression dives, and I have to laugh at myself. We keep making dive plans to average 130 feet and incur 15 minutes or so of deco . . . but we get down on the dive and I keep shallowing it up, and in the end, we have little or no obligation by the time the formal "ascent" begins. I don't really do it consciously -- I'm not thinking, "Oh, dear, I don't want to be down here!" It just seems to work out that way. Sometimes I think I've just done so many multilevel dives that my subconscious is trying to create a check-mark profile without consulting me

Has anybody else found themselves doing this? Or is it just because all these dives are wall dives, so it's just easy to do, as opposed to wrecks, where you're pretty much confined to the depth where the wreck is?

Don't sweat it, Lynne. A couple of shots of sour mash before each dive and it won't be a problem.

[Nailer99]

My 2 cents worth: It depends on the dive. If it's a deep dive somewhere like Mukilteo state park, to get tuned up for a bigger dive, I'll shave minutes off the bottom time to minimize the "cost" of the deco. I particularly like doing 200' dives there. Great site for getting tuned up for the deeper stuff- the bottom drops away at about 45 degrees, so you can get to max depth pretty fast. Anyway, once you're there, you realize that there isn't really much to see. So, even when I plan on doing 20 minutes there, I usually start working my way up the slope after maybe 10 minutes. I've found that if one ascends at just the right rate, you can end up in 20 fsw with about 10 minutes of deco, and be out of the water in about 60 minutes. It's a pretty fun dive- there's just enough interesting stuff to see, that it's not boring.

On the other hand- doing a dive that I look forward to all year, like the SS. Governor- if the conditions don't turn to crap, I'm going to do my full bottom time. I get one, maybe 2, chances to dive it, per year. It costs a significant amount of money to get there, take time off work, pay for the hotel and boat....don't get me wrong, here- I scrubbed one of my 2 dives on that wreck last year when my team hit bottom at 240', and we had a slight difference of opinion/ miscommunication- one of us thumbed the dive, and we all went back up the line. No way I'm gonna be "that guy". I respect anyone, at any time, telling me that they want to go back to the boat. If I'm diving with you, and you thumb the dive, we're outta there, no questions asked. We can talk about the dive once we're both out of the water.

BUT- if conditions are good, on a high stakes dive? Yeah. I'm doing the full bottom time, and paying the price. My team usually cuts tables for at least 3 different BTs, and if all goes well, we all know that we're going to do the 3rd one.

[Mpellet]

OK - is that small patch on my belly from the hot pocket I ate on the boat on the way back in, or did I push it a bit today? My ankle is sore tonight - did I hit it on the cleat on the way off the boat or should I not have stayed so long on dive two? Man - I'm tired. Is this normal fatigue from a 4 dive day, is this from laying off the gym last week or is this from taking dive 4 deep on that shortened SI?

You will find post dive consumption of alcohol will chill you out and alleviate many (depending upon how much you drink) perhaps all of these "phantom DCS hit" worries. If you're truly twisted, the irritation will still be there in the morning or will have gotten progressively worse and you can get it treated, knowing that the chamber is a requirement not a fantasy. In the mean time you have not phorked up what should have been a a good session of apres dive worrying about issues that are likely in your imagination in the first place...

(TIC) sort of........

Dive safe.

[Grateful Diver]

I need to go somewhere where there's something exciting to see deep that isn't there shallow -- and I am; I'm going to Port Hardy, where the red gorgonians live in the deep water, and there's no helium available . . . :(

Check your e-mail ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[limeyx]

I need to go somewhere where there's something exciting to see deep that isn't there shallow -- and I am; I'm going to Port Hardy, where the red gorgonians live in the deep water, and there's no helium available . . . :(

You can always bring your own, right ? The last trip I did where "no helium is probably available", thats what we did ... 55 cylinders

[ljj]

there are lots of sites between here and port hardy that have 'cool' stuff to see in the 200' range...

With regards to helium being available, you've done a gas blender course, right? If you get creative and get in touch with the local tech diving community, trimix can be available most places short of 'expedition' type destinations (such as Nick was referring to or the likes, where you bring in your own)

Last time i checked, there was indeed helium and tech friendly operators in port hardy.

[JS1scuba]

You can always bring your own, right ? The last trip I did where "no helium is probably available", thats what we did ... 55 cylinders

Prepping for locations where gas is hard to get but air is not requires a little bit of planning. We have been field mixing for almost 20 years now with great results. But it takes some planning AND it requires a good open mind as to how much helium you really need.

We do 3 day Andrea Doria trips with 6 dives planned and do it on 3 sets of doubles. I've done week long ops with upwards of 12 gas dives with only 4 sets of doubles for each. The key is the early prep.

For example. You start off with 2 sets of 16/55 and 2 sets of 10/90 trimix filled fat. You do a dive with Set 1 and come back with 1800 psi or so -- transfill some 16/55 on it and bring it to 2800, then dive that. Bring that back with 1000 in it and top with some 10/90 and top with air.....

You get the picture. The key is to have sets filled to high pressure with the trimix and mix and match in the field with air tops.

For deco gas ........ start with 60% EAN in 80s and top up with air until you are down to 32% ean ....... 100% oxygen always stays 100% until less than 1400 psi then it gets topped and re-labled ......

To do this you need a transfill whip, oxygen analyzer, mixing software in your palm or iphone -- helium analazer is a plus.

If your initial analysis is correct you can get away with just oxygen analyzer and mix ware

--------
for tables / computers /// keep bottom mix gas set the same 16/55 even when you top to 19/30 -- and adjust deco mix as needed.... plus oxygen --
Mixing in the field is fun.

Cheers
JDS

[limeyx]

Prepping for locations where gas is hard to get but air is not requires a little bit of planning.
Cheers
JDS

I wasn't asking for advice done this schlepping a few times. (at least where we could drive --- flying stuff in I thankfully haven't had to do yet)

[LCF]

Well, transporting multiple sets of cylinders up to Port Hardy for that trip would require taking the pickup truck. I'm not sure we're up for doing that. It's an old truck; you don't measure mileage in miles per gallon, but gallons per mile . . .

[Nailer99]

Well, transporting multiple sets of cylinders up to Port Hardy for that trip would require taking the pickup truck. I'm not sure we're up for doing that. It's an old truck; you don't measure mileage in miles per gallon, but gallons per mile . . .

Lynne- contact John Deboek and ask him if there's any chance of getting mix on your trip- Trust me, you're really going to want to go deeper than 100' on Browning wall. On my trip up there 2 years ago, the Mamro liveaboard was anchored in a cove near the hideaway, and happened to be full of tech divers doing a gas blending course- we were able to drop off our rebreather bottles for 02 fills on the way out to dive, and pick them up on the way back.

[limeyx]

Well, transporting multiple sets of cylinders up to Port Hardy for that trip would require taking the pickup truck. I'm not sure we're up for doing that. It's an old truck; you don't measure mileage in miles per gallon, but gallons per mile . . .

Yes, but you could do something like Joel suggested. Bring more He than you need and get air or 32% topoffs.

How many days are you going for ?

Sadly, only being able to carry 1 bottle is a little limiting probably.
I would just bring 1-2 sets of doubles with extra helium in, and as many Al80s of 25/25 as I could fit in the non-truck, and just dive stages as much as I could, and then top up the doubles when necessary.

But with a single bottle, you are a little more limited in that manner.

[lobstah]

Well, transporting multiple sets of cylinders up to Port Hardy for that trip would require taking the pickup truck.

U-Haul