In to double figures
I had another couple of dives yesterday which takes me in to double figures (dives 9 & 10)since November, I am still not as comfortable in the water as maybe I should be although I really don’t know where “there” is. It was purely by chance that I visited the UKDivers forum last week, I had been trawling around for something to interest me and I had a look to see what was going on, by chance they were going to Capernwray Dive Centre for the weekend. I emailed a mate and logged back in, so I arrange to pop up and see them on Saturday, unfortunately I put my knee out again on Friday night and it didn’t recover until Saturday night. Sunday morning arrived and I wasn’t sure I could be bothered to get up, anyway with the prospect of a dive and maybe the sun would shine again I decided to go for it.
I arrived and joined the queue of traffic waiting to get in, parked the car and went up for the obligatory hot chocolate. I wasn’t sure who I was looking for but did spot someone I recognised talking to a few people, so I ventured over and asked if they were from UKD - good they were and after a quick chat Dave came over to say hi. I joined him and he introduced me to Jen and another Dave. We had a chat and he said it was OK to join them, after chatting some more, Dave said it would be better to dive in pairs than a 4 so I left to get kitted up. Thanks Dave sorry I wrecked your plans. I joined Dave in the water and we had a chat about what we would do, so off we went along the road in about 7 or 8 metres, once again reaching the valves seemed to be a problem this is becoming frustrating as the last time I dived I thought I had mastered this. We finned around and Dave showed me some stuff and then I tried to do a valve drill, which wasn’t going to happen so I gave up, we continued with the dive ending up around 17m. Nearing the end of the dive I found my valves probably because I had a little more air in the suit, during the ascent Dave and Jen came past and Dave was signalling to say I had a problem, opps my weight belt was sat on the bottom a metre or so below me. As I was only wearing 1kg on the belt it didn’t make that much difference so I held on to it and we exited the water. Dive was 46mins to a depth of 17.4m, water temp was 7degrees. Off for a cuppa and a chat. While we were chatting we were joined by Jonathon at this point Dave left to join his team for their second dive.
Jonathon was back in the water after a layoff due to an operation and he had been diving with a friend who was doing a course for a couple of students, but said it would be OK for me to join them for the next dive. Dave (too many Dave’s) the instructor asked if we could run out a line so that one of the students could do one of their required skills, Jonathon volunteered me, I suspect the line wasn’t very straight as I haven’t done this before, on the way back I changed hands to have the reel in my left hand with my torch this was much easier than the right hand I had used to reel out.
We then rejoined the group for a dive, the students were doing some navigation skills and while they went to do their stuff, Jonathon and I stayed to do some other stuff. I seem to have a problem with keeping still and while Jonathon was doing his basic 5 I had to keep peeling off and coming back to face him, this is something I need to work on. At the end of the dive we did a free ascent and exited after a dive of 40mins to 7.9m again the water temp was about 7 degrees, quite pleasant really and didn’t feel cold despite having wet gloves and everyone else seemed to be in dry gloves.
Thanks to Dave Dowson and Jonathan for the dives.
