Arnotify

A lot of dive theory today: physiology, physics (PV = n R T, Gay-Lussac, Boyle, Dalton, Henry), equipment.

Speaking of equipment, my brand new regulator got busted. The seat in the first stage is blown and no spare part in the dive shop. So, we had to rig together a new regulator. Good practice on equipment maintenance, though

Gabriel played the dive student today, and I gave him an underwater tour of his own backyard, starting with the predive briefing and leading and navigating underwater. Of course, he wouldn´t make things easy for me, so he had on purpose a series of non-life threatening incidents: he “forgot” to put his second stage in his mouth when doing his entry, I had to go and rescue him, using my panic diver training. Then he managed to loose his weight belt, loosen his tank, go off course, and bit his second stage. Each time, I had to keep an eye on him to catch him as soon as the problem occured, then assist him in fixing it. I only missed one of the simulated difficulties, which was his fin kicking style.

There´s quite a bit of pressure when you have to keep your eyes on a student as clumsy as Gabriel was today, but thankfully today´s was the worst it gets in a given dive, although all of these problems happen regularly in everyday dives. Yesterday, for example, a diver in another group lost their weight belt just as we were beginning the dive. Most incidents happens in the 10 minutes at the beginning of the dive, so I´ll have to keep my eyes peeled.

Got some nice churros at Plaza del Sol. California law prevents churros stand in California from making them fresh, so they´re always pre-made and stale. This one was the real thing.

Today, review of dive physiology, meteorology, oceanology and biology. A lot to cover, but Gabriel keeps it light and interesting, generously sharing his experience that goes beyond what´s covered in the manuals.

Equipment failure: my first stage delivers too much pressure to my second stage, making it leak. The technician was out today, so we switched to a spare first stage and will have to get it fixed tomorrow.

We went in the water to do some additional work on my basic skills. My hovering (stay immobile in the water without moving hands or legs) and mask clearing (full removal of mask, then putting it back on) was better this time around, but I fumbled my underwater equipment removal (removal and replacement of scuba unit). I have to be able to do all these to “demonstration quality”, that is with sufficiently exagerated and clear movements that a student watching me could learn how to do it. I still have to work on that.

Later, I accompanied Gabriel and two students on an underwater trip as divemaster in training. It was the students’ second dive. Although you could see they were excited about exploring the environment and the experience of being underwater, they were also swimming all over the place. As a divemaster who is worried about their safety, this makes your job more interesting…

As it turns out, one of them had a problem with his BC that he had filled with too much air and he started ascending out of control. I went after him, grabbed him, purged my BC and tried to empty his. With the underwater adrenaline rush, I didn´t manage to quite empty it and Gabriel had to come over to give a hand.

This real life experience helping out some students was both humbling and exciting. I’m looking forward to more.

Gabriel is the intstructor for my divemaster training course. We met today for our first session. We covered the duties of the divemaster, interaction and supervision of student divers. Gabriel has a very conversational style, covering a lot of content without any notes, just discussing one topic after another and providing tips as he goes along. For example, don´t give negative commands to divers. Don´t say “don´t go deeper than me”, because that’s the firt thing they will be tempted to do. It’s like if I tell you “don´t look behind you”. Instead, say “stay shallower than me”. Same meaning, but better results.

We also did a review underwater of the 20 basic diving skills. I´m not quite used to my new equipment yet and I’m having trouble staying vertical because of the way the weights are arranged in my BC jacket. Something to get used to.

As a bonus, we did a dive which ostensibly was to work on my breathing. After a little while underwater, I started hearing some clicks and pops that seemed unusual. Underwater, you can’t tell the direction sounds come from: our brains are used to calculating direction based on the speed of sound in the air and the small difference in timing between our two ears. Because sounds travel five times faster in the water, our brains just get confused and sounds seems to come from everywhere at the same time. So I wasn’t sure what they were, but they kept getting louder, and then suddenly I saw three dolphins playing with each other underwater. A sight to behold.