Saturday 9 February 2013

Diving in the dark

In the last couple of weeks the air temperature has crept up after the snow in January but with the warmth (8c is warm when it’s been -1) has come a whole lot of wind which has scuppered the usual boat dives. Instead it’s been shore dives aplenty, mainly in the dark.

Location: Eastern Kings – Type: Shore/Reef wall drop off – Max Depth: 29m – Length: 33 mins – Surface: Clear/Night
The top choice of dive site for our evening bimbles has been Eastern Kings. After my first attempt bouncing up and down for the duration, I’ve been able to practise my buoyancy and am glad to report that I’m improving. My comment in my log book from ‘teach’ on the second go was ‘much better’. Although she did manage to burst my bubble when we surfaced and told me, after letting me get through my excitedness at having managed to keep my runaway ascents/descents under control, ‘yeh, I was letting air out of your BCD without you realising half the time…but it was still better than last time’!

Location: Eastern Kings – Type: Shore/Reef wall drop off – Max Depth: 30.2m – Length: 48 mins – Surface: Overcast/Night
Kings strike three was definitely better on the buoyancy front. No particularly notable issues** which was incredible considering my brain was numb for most the dive as I was so damn cold (or bloody freezing for want of a slightly stronger term and what I wrote in my log book afterwards)! I was already cold before I went in, which should have been a sign that I was setting myself up for failure. It took a little while for us to get going once in the water. Myself and my buddy were at the back of a four; one of the guys in front was leading (this involved sitting on the bottom for a while to get his bearing, spinning round in circles a few times and then heading off…this episode has been pointed out a few times in the days following)! Once we got to the reef (I found out afterwards we’d followed the leader to the 40 metre side which was why nothing looked familiar) we parted ways with the other two (combination of bad vis and having to stay at 30 metres) and started a gentle paddle along the wall.

Pretty quickly my torch failed followed by my buddy’s so we had to switch to backups. I’d bought a couple of torches from someone on eBay and this was my first attempt at using them; I had the smaller one (an Underwater Kinetics C4) and my buddy had the huge one (an Underwater Kinetics D8). I’d charged my torch but hadn’t charged hers as I thought it was working fine. I’ve since discovered the little one has a life of around 35 to 40 minutes on full charge which will do as a backup. The large one on the other hand lasts around three hours and is like a floodlight! Fantastic for night dives, but not so hot on this particular outing having not been charged. Doh! And as I jotted down in my log book afterwards – ‘I don’t like the dark’! It’s not one of those overarching ‘I have to sleep with the light on’ kind of childhood fears, it’s more the ‘I’m underwater and the light’s just gone out, where the hell am I’, kind of fear. But that’s why we carry backups!
By the time we got to 18 minutes, I was really feeling the cold and for the first time ever had to signal to my buddy to let her know. As I’ve mentioned before, Kings is in a shipping channel, so you have to swim in to shore before you can surface. We were still quite a way out on the reef and as it was high water, and we’d spent a while messing about with directions and torches towards the start, we had a way to go. By the time we got back to shore, my computer was reading 48 minutes, although I’d lost all sense of time as I was focused on trying to minimise the intense shivering. Just as we were about to climb out the others surfaced, exited quite quickly and helped me get out, bearing in mind I couldn’t feel much so my legs weren’t doing as I wanted them to!

It was a quick (as quick as I could manage with numb everything) change in the van out of everything wet and into some dry clothes then back to the warmth of indoors, a hot shower and a hot chocolate. Key term: hot! I was after whatever warmth I could get my hands on. Fortunately it wasn’t too long before I started to feel my extremities again but it was a while before I thawed out completely.
I can only presume I felt the cold so much because of a combination of tiredness, having had a large meal beforehand and getting incredibly warm and cosy indoors before venturing back out. All I know is I’d prefer not to feel like that again and as you can imagine, I was a little nervous on the next dive that I’d be just as cold but fortunately my worries weren’t necessary.

**Several hours after writing this post, my buddy was recounting her version of this story to a friend and reminded me of a moment I had blocked out of my memory. It occurred towards the end of the dive, when I couldn’t feel a thing and had lost most of my ability to think. As we made our way into the shallows a few metres deep, we stumbled across some concrete posts, which you only come across at high water on the way out. Not having seen these before, they came as somewhat of a shock, but proved a particularly helpful guide. As I trailed my hand across each one on the way up, I realised I was ascending a bit, which then altered to quite a lot. I tried to reach my dump valve as the inflator hose was at too much of an angle to work, but I couldn’t feel my hands to grab it. Next best thing; cling onto the post with arms wrapped around it. The friend being told this story pointed out that it sounds like a moment Piglet had in a Winnie the Pooh story as he got swept away by the wind…I can relate. My buddy finally looked up and realising my predicament, darted around me to get to the dump valve and lower me back down. So when I said no notable issues, there might have been just the one!
Location: Eastern Kings/Devil’s Point – Type: Shore – Max Depth: 3.4m – Length: 24 mins – Surface: Clear/Night
Kings part four was not quite the same as the previous dives at the site, in that we didn’t actually make it onto the reef, so essentially it should really be called a Devil’s Point shore dive. My buddy was hissing. Well, her regulator was, so we couldn’t risk the 30 metre dive. We settled for a three metre bimble alongside the rocky shoreline from the entry point back to the swimming pool where you would normally end the dive. My ability to cope with 8c water temp had returned to normal and I was surprised at just how much there still was to see. It was like a miniature version of the reef, with shed loads of crabs (mainly velvet swimmers and hermits) and lots of babies around in the shallows; bib, scorpion fish, gobies and what I’m pretty sure was a cat shark but my buddy thinks it could have been a dragonet, and after looking at pictures could also have been just a different type of goby. Swatting up on species needed!  By far the funniest find (in an ‘oh dear’ kind of way) was a sole, half buried in the sand with his little eyes poking up on top of his head. The reason for the underwater giggling – we’d just eaten his relatives for dinner! Poor fish!

Not quite the lemon sole we'd just had for dinner (this one's a common sole) but enough of a resemblance to leave me feeling guilty!
Location: Cawsand – Type: Shore – Max Depth: 4.3m – Length: 21 mins – Surface: Clear/Sunny
Aside from the frequent Kings visits, I was lucky enough to join a group of trainee divemasters (DMs) on an exercise at Cawsand one sunny Sunday. I was playing the hapless student (yes, I know, not much acting needed). In a few metres of water and really bad vis, myself and an already qualified DM were given role play instructions for descent/ascent training. My favourite was by far leaving my snorkel in to descend rather than putting my reg in. The idea is that the DM is meant to realise before you descend; you’d be surprised how many get caught out by this one. I also threw in a bit of fun for myself, switching to my snorkel just as they had descended so it wasn’t so obvious. On one occasion I had to shoot back to the surface as I’d reached my breath holding limit; the trainee DM tried to stop me (it would have been the right move had I been at some depth and actually had a reg in) but I broke free to get back to the surface and then explained why I’d had to go when they appeared after me! Another time, I kept my snorkel in, changed to my reg underwater directly in front of the DM and they still didn’t notice! Some more training needed I think, although we were told to give them a chance when we got a bit carried away!

Towards the end we were told to do whatever we wanted to make it tricky. As we started to descend, I got cramp in my leg. No, I ACTUALLY got cramp in my leg! No role play needed. Fortunately the very competent trainee DM with me at this point helped me out straight away, while I was explaining that I definitely wasn’t acting! My personal golden globe moment was the upended turtle. On starting to ascend, I acted out failing to inflate and falling onto my back with arms and legs flailing so the DM has to calm me down and help stand me up so I can ascend properly; it’s happened before, I’ve had practise! I really enjoyed taking part in these challenges as at some point down the line I’d like to advance to this level myself, so it was a great taster of what could be to come. I want to become more experienced before I sign up for the Rescue Diver and DM courses though. I can’t contemplate being responsible for somebody else when I still need a helping hand myself on occasion! Myself and the other actor (!) went for a little dive afterwards but barely made it to 20 minutes before heading back in. The vis was terrible and the current was strong so we had a bit of a swim into shore on the surface.

Location: Waterfront – Type: Shore – Max Depth: 6.1m – Length: 32 mins – Surface: Overcast/Night
My final dive in recent days was off the Waterfront. Again, like all except Cawsand, it was a night dive. I went out with a couple of the trainee DMs; this was most definitely a fun dive though, not a training one. About 20 minutes in, one of the guys deployed his SMB. We carried on for a bit, then I realised he was on the surface up above me so followed him up, flashing my torch down towards our other buddy so he would make his way up. We were only in a couple of metres of water and the vis was excellent so it would have been hard to lose each other. Buddy number one was having mask issues. He’d got a new prescription mask and this was his first time trying it, but was having problems and whilst switching to his other mask, managed to drop both new mask and snorkel. While he was having a moment, my rationale was that the water was flat, the vis was good and we were in two metres of water; it couldn’t have gone far. Sure enough our other buddy dropped down and found the snorkel quite quickly. With all three of us back down, the mask was then located and secured in a pocket. With that the snorkel was once again making a great escape, so it was back down for that and we were on our way. It really wasn’t mask buddy’s day; he managed to get tangled up in his SMB line on the way back too so I unravelled that from his fin. Makes a change from me being the one in need of help!
Along the way we saw a few large starfish, one of which was eating a sea urchin. I didn’t realise this until I was told by our resident marine biologist afterwards; I thought they were having a hug! I was also quite intrigued by the scallops (I didn’t realise that’s what they were until I researched later) which essentially look like large pretty shells but they breathe! It has left me wondering whether their inner contents would taste good on the dinner table though.

I really enjoyed the dive. The conditions couldn’t have been better and the search and recovery aspect made for a bit of fun (well that’s how I saw it, a certain someone may argue with that analysis)!