movescount/moves/move27475573 This was my 74th dive with North London Scuba. We were back at Edmonton at last. The pool has been broken since our last visit there on 24 July last year. Thats 32 missed weeks of pool diving on Wednesdays! How long does it take to fix a pool floor? Bloody ages if you are Enfield Council in partnership with Fusion. It was great to be back and there were a lot of people at the pool to celebrate this week. Terry still has my Spare Air, and is servicing my pony regs. I used my Vyper Air this week to give it a run and it paired with the transmitter without fuss, which was a relief as I had been using my D4i for the last few weeks. (Unlike Kaares, as he was at the pool for the first time since one of the Southgate pool dives. His Vyper Air did not pair. I tried afterwards and I could not reset it, perhaps because it was wet. We were going to try a reset of the transmitting code in the pub, but forgot.) I was wearing my 2mm wet-suit, with SMB, my nozzle was attached. I was using my main regs XTX200, and my spare transmitter to take the air to the computer. My knife holster was attached to my BCD hose. I forgot to put on my bandana. I must put it in my BCD pocket in future. Actually, I do not really like my new bandana (too flimsy) so I bought a couple more new ones earlier today from the company who supplied my old one, which I lost at Park Road pool in Crouch End. As usual, I wore my Imprex fins with boots and two pairs of socks and the metal spring straps, and carried my mirror, but did not use it. I used my blue mask with the bi-focals again. I had managed to find my little torches, which I attached to my mask at poolside. I had already fixed the metal clips to the mask strap when prepping up at home. Again, I had not practiced threading my strap and strapping my BCD to my cylinder. I must do it at home, starting this week. When I arrived at the pool, Terry had already arrived in the van and I cursed myself a bit for not setting off from home at 8pm on the button. I quickly grabbed a cylinder from the van and put it inside the door with my bag before heading off to park the car in the car park. I removed my contact lenses in the car so that I would not forget at poolside. I was well behind some of the others at poolside and was up to 10 minutes later than some of them into the water. The old crowd were all back together with Paul and Don, and Kaare turned up a few minutes later. I quickly prepped up. Stephen was there as usual, and Martin was teaching, but Ian was not there (but was at the pub later). After a lightning quick BWRAF check, during which I forgot to put on my bandana (to make the mask-offs a bit more challenging), I jumped in holding my BCD inflator open to practice a drift dive entry. Martin advised not sucking the air out of the BCD as I had speculated last week, as lots of germs thrive in the BCDs damp interior and you risk infecting your lungs with something nasty. But actually there is no need, as holding the inflator valve open is enough for your momentum to carry you straight down. I can do this now without fuss. After descending, I wasted no time in immediately composing myself on the bottom for my mask-off exercises. I did not leave the mask in the corner, but some way along one of the sides, as people often congregate in corners for study exercises. I remembered to set the bookmark before each of the mask-off exercises today. It was apparent as I swam along that the sides of the Edmonton pool are longer than those of the Park Road pool. This is perhaps due to the two sloping sides at Park Road which make the deep part of the pool smaller. Each circuit took over three minutes to complete. The pool seemed much brighter as I swam along and the water was so clean by comparison. Everything was white and there were no bits floating about. I much prefer Edmonton and am so pleased that it is open again. It took noticeably longer to do a circuit. Reunited with my mask I filled it with air again and after a quick look around immediately set my bookmark and started on the second. The pool, being bigger had quite a few people in it but was not crowded by the time I had finished my fifth exercise and circuit of the pool. After finishing this first part of the dive, I noticed that Kaare was still not in the water, and wondered what had happened. He had mentioned at poolside that he did not have a cylinder yet, and I hoped that there were enough of these. I supposed that this was not the problem though as Darshan had been expected at the pool, and Jean had said that she would put a cylinder on the van in any event, so there had to be one spare at least. I allowed myself a little celebration after the fifth mask-off, as this was my 100th since I had started counting in my goal towards 1000 in the pool. I now realise that even at 10 a week, 1000 will take many years, so I guess that rather than go for a massive total, it is more important to practice it at least once a week, so that you are always used to it. Even after the X-mas/New Year break of just a few weeks, I had become a little nervous of it again. Little and often is the way to keep it up. After this I wasted no time in swimming to the middle of the pool and preparing for the BCD-off and swim for the surface exercise. I do this every week now and am starting to feel as though I know what I am doing. This was however only the third time that I have done the exercise, so it is a bit early to be blasé about it (in the way that I am now definitely blasé about mask-off). I forgot to bookmark, but this is not a problem as the moment at which you visit the surface is clear from the computers dive profile. I started the exercise at about 20 minutes into the dive. I undid the BCD releases and loosened the shoulder straps to the max. I made myself negatively buoyant and removed one, then the other arm and lay the BCDE out on the floor of the pool. Then I remembered to close the venturi valve on my second stage and close down the flow to the minimum setting. Next I removed the second stage from my mouth, started blowing small bubbles and placed it carefully on the floor of the pool, where it would be easily visible from the surface. I then swam really slowly and in a measured way to the surface, again remarking at how much air actually comes out of your lungs on the ascent. A reminder that even in the pool you must not hold your breath. As a result, I arrived at the surface in really good shape and immediately noticed that Karre was still at poolside prepping up. I waved to him and he seemed to be OK, so I circled my kit deep below, before swimming away slightly to give myself an angle of approach for re-descent. I swam down again with a big breath in my lungs, this time confident that I could easily get back to my sunken kit in good shape. My fins rose above the surface of the water briefly as I dipped back down and my momentum took me down really quickly, with the only issue being the usual pressure in my ears at 3.6 metres. Ian says that he can clear them on the way down, just by swallowing, and I guess that this must be the next target to aim for. I reached for the second stage and as usual pressed the purge button to rid them of air, before slipping my right arm through the shoulder loop and flipping on to my back to quickly slip my left arm through the other shoulder strap. Then I flipped onto my front again, so that I was lying face-down on the bottom of the pool, which makes sorting out your kit much easier. I fastened the cummerbund and waist strap, tightened my shoulder straps, then my chest strap before checking that my Octopus and SMB etc were all hanging as they should be. I then re-inflated for neutrality and the exercise was complete. I was really pleased with how this had gone, as it truly is much less of an event than the first time I did it just a couple of weeks ago. My heart is pounding less, as I am confident that I can do it. The most difficult bit for me is getting my arms back through the shoulder straps. This is still a bit of an anxious moment, as I am so inflexible these days. After swimming around for a couple of minutes with my little mask torches lit (to the obvious notice of some of the others). I reverted to type and ploughed back into mask-offs to see if I could do five more. Kaare was in the pool by this time and was there to see one of my mask replacements. After three more circuits, this time picking my way carefully past the student groups, I decided to do a second BCD-off and surface exercise to further build up my confidence. I swam back to the middle and again forgetting to bookmark, repeated the exercise, this time feeling even more relaxed. I went up super slow, and blew and blew, but still had a reserve of air in my lungs, which I exhaled at the surface. I was increasingly relaxed through this exercise. At the surface I briefly loosened my mask to allow residual water to dribble out, which was a mistake, as the warm air in the pool-room was in danger of fogging my mask. Having been off my face for probably over 20 minutes under water, the de-mist must have been running out of zap, so a note-to-self is always to clear the mask underwater, and not attempt the lazy-mans clear on the surface. After a shorter surface stop, I re-descended and replaced the BCD... purge second stage, right arm, onto back, left arm, onto front, do all straps and check kit placement, then re-inflate. It went well. Even quicker than last time. I have now successfully done it four times, two of which were on this dive. I must remember to practice BCD replacement at the surface, so next time will ask someone to inflate it when it is lying on the bottom so that I can practice replacing it on the surface. Someone else sending it up will add to the fun. It was now 45 minutes into the dive and I wasted no time in knocking off my final two mask-off circuits for the day, while picking my way through the relatively full pool. I deliberately swam over a couple of training groups this time to demonstrate to myself my mastery of buoyancy with my mask removed. I touch the side of the pool when I do this to reassure myself that I am going up or down. I can tell from feeling the grout between the tiles. I knew that having completed 10 mask-offs, and a total of 105 on my project, that the dive could come to an end at any moment, so I quickly whipped out my ropes and while slowly swimming around with easy neutral buoyancy, I tied each of my three knots twice (two half hitches, sheet bend and bow-line). Then there was just time for one SMB deployment, which went off without incident. Again I forgot to bookmark the exercise, but more importantly did remember to look up to make sure that no divers were above. I unwound the line more than necessary, as it was clearly a bit loose further down on my reel. After my knots, Stephen had signalled to ask if I wanted to practice... him turning my air off and then me turning it back on myself. I did not feel confident to do this, but it has given me the idea to practice it myself next time. The off and on exercise is a useful self-reliant diver trick to have up your sleeve. You use one arm to raise the tank at the base and the other to reach the valve, to re-open the air flow. Stephen mentioned in the pub that inside wrecks etc, it is possible to brush along the side and inadvertently turn your air off! That would be a nasty shock. Good reason to practice then. I will then feel confident to do the exercise with Stephen later. Shortly after this Lorraine and then Stephen signalled for the dive to end and I swam to the exit ladder, and removed my fins under water, before climbing the ladder. I had managed to suck my air down from 190 bar at the start to slightly less than 40 bar at the end of the dive. My SAC rate had been 17 lpm, which is not great, but given that I was busy the whole time and sucking air hard at moments (after the surface visits), I suppose that it is not bad. I think I was using a 10 litre cylinder, and the software was set for 10 litres, but I am not 100% sure about the cylinder size. On the surface we all chatted happily about stuff and I went across to have a look at Dons new super-value torch. It really is super bright and lit up the pool like a full beam headlight. Impossible to see anything else if it is directed at you. Truly dazzling. Perhaps I will get one as they are so cheap, but I think that the light is not even enough for quality photography/video. There is a bright pool of light in the middle. However, the fact that such waterproof brightness is available so cheaply surely means that prices are going to tumble on these products in the future. While I was admiring the torch I was holding my mask/de-mist spray and pouch, having already removed the snorkel and metal torch clips from the mask strap. I casually threw it across to my open bag, so that I could use the slider on Dons torch and inspect it with both hands free. Stupidly, I had thrown the mask, not into my bag, but into Kaares, which was next to mine... a mistake that only came to light (no pun) when I was back home and cleaning my kit. The initial moment of anguish gave way to reasoned thought as I remembered what I had done and thought about the probabilities of what had gone wrong. I texted Kaare and next morning he put me out of my misery, by confirming that my precious (expensive) mask, with bifocals etc was indeed in safe hands. Phew! I paid Jean £60 for the annual club membership and £7 for the dive. We meet at the pub, where Ian was waiting for us. Don has booked a dry chamber dive to 50 metres during the week, which sounds like fun. I want to do this with the club and will try to tick the PADI dry-dive box, which I think is a (minor) specialty. We stayed in the pub until really late, and it was after 1am when I got home to clean my kit. I wrote the dive notes next morning as I do not have late-night access to the office/2nd bedroom any more. Hsiang-ling is sleeping there, so I need to plan each return so that all my necessary cleaning stuff etc is already in the bathroom.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 11:34:17 +0000
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