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**Freef** · 31st May 2007, 20:41

Still annoyed at having a stuffed ankle and declaring all boat diving off until it’s better, and deciding that I should test the adage that misery loves company, I drag Claire off to Guildy for the day, mainly to use the scrubber in the Dolphin that I packed for Plymouth.

Claire had bought a Weezle Extreme in winter but had so far wimped out of diving it until the water warmed up a bit. Unlike us rufty-tufty divers she doesn’t like the cold stuff, so I have to grab other divers for the winter stuff. There was a boxer pup over the way which I played with for a bit until Claire started to get annoyed for me wasting time, as she wanted to get back to watch the rugby finals. Rigging up the Rebreather I said hello to Bryan and Helen, who run a shop and school in Northampton, and Richard one of their AI’s who I know from years back. They had Paul, a new trainee Divemaster with them who I chatted to about the Dolphin for a while as we kitted up. Bryan wandered past with warnings about us rebreather types, so I did my Darth Vader and invited Paul to the dark side, although as he asked if it was really kitty litter in the scrubber I had a sense the force was weak in him. The ‘husband stitch’* in my RB tank band snapped as I tightened the strap, but the tank still seemed secure, although I have noticed a crack on the buckle courtesy of my acrobatics at Wast Water, so I will be replacing the band at some point soon if I can’t get a bit of plastic welding done. I stowed my gloves in my drysuit pocket for the dive in case it got cold, but as the water is in double figures I didn’t need them, and inland it is getting warm enough to forgo the hood down to 20m ish.

Claire was getting a bit warm as she was wearing her usual ‘I have a crap undersuit’ gear under the Extreme, so we wandered down to the water for a splash. I was looking for the Skyvan that is found on the East side of the lake as I hadn’t dived it since my second trip to Guildy in 2002. I took the big jump from the pier, Claire walked in down the adjacent slope and we dropped down to one of the training platforms where I was a little concerned about the large amount of bubbling from the Dolphin, which turned out to be a lot of trapped air from the ‘kitchen sink’ belt pouch which had my yellow blob, spare mask and trauma shears in it. We swam past the bus and down and followed the 15m contour to the wreck of the plane. We swam through the fusilage, with Claire stopping for a look in the cockpit. When we left the plane I pointed to the ‘Shorts 36’ painted on the side of the fuselage, the make and model number of the plane. We swam a little further at 15m and I stopped to give Claire a little impromptu navigation exercise. I indicated my compass and then gave her the signal for 330 deg out and back swim. When signalling a bearing I use the ‘number of fingers and a T if appropriate method’, so 330 is three fingers, a ‘T’ and another three fingers. Due South is 1-T-8, North is 3-T-6 [zero being a pig to indicate!] and East just 9.

In her excitement to get navigating Claire just took the 3T signal to be the direction and headed off looking down at the compass. I don’t like that method of navigation as it is too easy to lock the compass, so I got her to take the hose over her shoulder and use the side window. After a swim I asked her to go on the reciprocal heading and she headed back on 120 degrees to start with until I indicated 150 deg. I saw we were off course by the silt trail, but we made it back to the Skyvan. It turns out that Claire saw my 3-T signal but missed the extra 3 for the 30 degrees.

We swam back at a steadily decreasing depth until we got to the bus which we swam through, although Claire was a bit more elegant than I was going up the stairs. We then hit 5m where we did out 3 min stop and I tried to pop the blob Inspo stylee, but all I got was a gob full of water, so I went open circuit to send the DSMB the whole 5m to the surface. We got out at the lake at the steps to the West end and went for a warmer of hot chocs. While waiting around I was groped from behind by a chap who was there with Dave ‘Red Dog Leader’ Simmons whom I have done several tech courses with. Dave was diving his Inspo [or Jannette’s Evo-all these yellow boxes look the same to me] with the new electronics, which he was asking me to decipher for him. Dave was wearing his trademark ‘high visibility red’ mask, which everyone else calls pink, and he had it on top of his head at one point, leading to my wrath.

Claire still had 110 bar in her 12, and she wanted to pootle around the East side for dive two as she considers it more interesting than the West side. We dropped in as Dave was leaving the water, both of us from the high diving board this time, although Claire nearly bottled it and I had to threaten to push her in. Dropping quickly to 10m we hit the bus, and then the lorry where we turned East and worked out way up to the sunken trees at 8m-ish. There was a bit of fish life, but I couldn’t find any invertebrates to point out to Claire. We found the tree that reminds me of a ‘Graboid’ from the film ‘Tremors’, and I managed to signal Claire that is what I thought it was, but it appears that it is only my imagination that makes the connection. We clambered out after a gentle swim back and got sorted out in the rain, where I made another tentative arrangement with Richard to meet up for a dive sometime and to give Paul my number if he fancied a play on the Dolphin. I dropped the 12 that Claire had been using in for a normal fill, but it was refused as I had not bought a ‘clean air’ band. The tank is 18 months out of O2 clean status, but I was refused a normal fill, but there was no problem in getting my money back. Red Dog was still under water, so we went to get a bite to eat, but as the food service had a 20-30 minute wait so we left without eating. Not a bad days diving, but I would rather have got my 50th Dolphin dive in during the Plymouth trip, but weather and ankle put paid to that.

Dive data

Dive 1

18.9m
32 min
vO2=0.75

SI 1h 06 min

Dive 2

19.8m
29 min
vO2=0.77

[* you really, really don’t want to know what I mean by this]

31st May 2007, 20:41	#9 (permalink)
Freef Custom Title Disallowed! Current Rebreather/s: Dolphin Other Rebreather/s: Dolphin Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Land of the Freef, UK. Posts: 1,455	27th May "I need a clever bloke like you to tell me how it works" [Dolphin dives 49 & Still annoyed at having a stuffed ankle and declaring all boat diving off until it’s better, and deciding that I should test the adage that misery loves company, I drag Claire off to Guildy for the day, mainly to use the scrubber in the Dolphin that I packed for Plymouth. Claire had bought a Weezle Extreme in winter but had so far wimped out of diving it until the water warmed up a bit. Unlike us rufty-tufty divers she doesn’t like the cold stuff, so I have to grab other divers for the winter stuff. There was a boxer pup over the way which I played with for a bit until Claire started to get annoyed for me wasting time, as she wanted to get back to watch the rugby finals. Rigging up the Rebreather I said hello to Bryan and Helen, who run a shop and school in Northampton, and Richard one of their AI’s who I know from years back. They had Paul, a new trainee Divemaster with them who I chatted to about the Dolphin for a while as we kitted up. Bryan wandered past with warnings about us rebreather types, so I did my Darth Vader and invited Paul to the dark side, although as he asked if it was really kitty litter in the scrubber I had a sense the force was weak in him. The ‘husband stitch’* in my RB tank band snapped as I tightened the strap, but the tank still seemed secure, although I have noticed a crack on the buckle courtesy of my acrobatics at Wast Water, so I will be replacing the band at some point soon if I can’t get a bit of plastic welding done. I stowed my gloves in my drysuit pocket for the dive in case it got cold, but as the water is in double figures I didn’t need them, and inland it is getting warm enough to forgo the hood down to 20m ish. Claire was getting a bit warm as she was wearing her usual ‘I have a crap undersuit’ gear under the Extreme, so we wandered down to the water for a splash. I was looking for the Skyvan that is found on the East side of the lake as I hadn’t dived it since my second trip to Guildy in 2002. I took the big jump from the pier, Claire walked in down the adjacent slope and we dropped down to one of the training platforms where I was a little concerned about the large amount of bubbling from the Dolphin, which turned out to be a lot of trapped air from the ‘kitchen sink’ belt pouch which had my yellow blob, spare mask and trauma shears in it. We swam past the bus and down and followed the 15m contour to the wreck of the plane. We swam through the fusilage, with Claire stopping for a look in the cockpit. When we left the plane I pointed to the ‘Shorts 36’ painted on the side of the fuselage, the make and model number of the plane. We swam a little further at 15m and I stopped to give Claire a little impromptu navigation exercise. I indicated my compass and then gave her the signal for 330 deg out and back swim. When signalling a bearing I use the ‘number of fingers and a T if appropriate method’, so 330 is three fingers, a ‘T’ and another three fingers. Due South is 1-T-8, North is 3-T-6 [zero being a pig to indicate!] and East just 9. In her excitement to get navigating Claire just took the 3T signal to be the direction and headed off looking down at the compass. I don’t like that method of navigation as it is too easy to lock the compass, so I got her to take the hose over her shoulder and use the side window. After a swim I asked her to go on the reciprocal heading and she headed back on 120 degrees to start with until I indicated 150 deg. I saw we were off course by the silt trail, but we made it back to the Skyvan. It turns out that Claire saw my 3-T signal but missed the extra 3 for the 30 degrees. We swam back at a steadily decreasing depth until we got to the bus which we swam through, although Claire was a bit more elegant than I was going up the stairs. We then hit 5m where we did out 3 min stop and I tried to pop the blob Inspo stylee, but all I got was a gob full of water, so I went open circuit to send the DSMB the whole 5m to the surface. We got out at the lake at the steps to the West end and went for a warmer of hot chocs. While waiting around I was groped from behind by a chap who was there with Dave ‘Red Dog Leader’ Simmons whom I have done several tech courses with. Dave was diving his Inspo [or Jannette’s Evo-all these yellow boxes look the same to me] with the new electronics, which he was asking me to decipher for him. Dave was wearing his trademark ‘high visibility red’ mask, which everyone else calls pink, and he had it on top of his head at one point, leading to my wrath. Claire still had 110 bar in her 12, and she wanted to pootle around the East side for dive two as she considers it more interesting than the West side. We dropped in as Dave was leaving the water, both of us from the high diving board this time, although Claire nearly bottled it and I had to threaten to push her in. Dropping quickly to 10m we hit the bus, and then the lorry where we turned East and worked out way up to the sunken trees at 8m-ish. There was a bit of fish life, but I couldn’t find any invertebrates to point out to Claire. We found the tree that reminds me of a ‘Graboid’ from the film ‘Tremors’, and I managed to signal Claire that is what I thought it was, but it appears that it is only my imagination that makes the connection. We clambered out after a gentle swim back and got sorted out in the rain, where I made another tentative arrangement with Richard to meet up for a dive sometime and to give Paul my number if he fancied a play on the Dolphin. I dropped the 12 that Claire had been using in for a normal fill, but it was refused as I had not bought a ‘clean air’ band. The tank is 18 months out of O2 clean status, but I was refused a normal fill, but there was no problem in getting my money back. Red Dog was still under water, so we went to get a bite to eat, but as the food service had a 20-30 minute wait so we left without eating. Not a bad days diving, but I would rather have got my 50th Dolphin dive in during the Plymouth trip, but weather and ankle put paid to that. Dive data Dive 1 18.9m 32 min vO2=0.75 SI 1h 06 min Dive 2 19.8m 29 min vO2=0.77 [* you really, really don’t want to know what I mean by this] __________________ David. "I've got the whole cast of Fraggle Rock here; they're not happy..."
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