Rescue Diving

Who would of thought that becoming a rescue diver would require so little diving.  The course took three days.  Day one was classroom time.  It was not too terribly exciting.  We went back over all of the questions that we had to answer prior to class.  There were 5 chapters and 10 questions for each chapter.  In case anyone is mathematically challenged, that is 50 questions, each one with a short video segment from the Rescue Diver DVD to reiterate the answer.  Once we went through all the answers, we had a test, also 50 questions.  It was a standard multiple choice, true/false test.  The whole class combined only got three wrong.  We each could have gotten 12 wrong.  Obviously it was not a hard test.  The whole thing took about three hours.  

Day two was in the pool.  We practiced the skills we would need to use in the open water session.  The skills you learn during Rescue Diver include how to tow people who need help making it back to safety, how to bring an unconscious diver to the surface, how to stop a panicked diver from making an unsafe ascent, how to escape from a panicked diver, and my personal favorite how to ride a panicked divers tank so that they cannot get to you.  The pool water was nice and warm and clear.  That would not be the case for day three.

Day three was in Goose Creek.  It was a clear, windy, cold October day, I even wore a sweatshirt.  We started by going over our emergency contact numbers and the emergency action plan and how to perform an expanding square search pattern.  Then it was time to get in the water.  We had four scenarios that we had to go through.  Scenario one was an out of air simulation.  The hardest part of the scenario was finding the person who was going to be out of air.  As soon as you dropped below the surface, visibility dropped to less than a foot.  The only way to find them was swinging your arms around until you found an object, and hope it was the person you were looking for.  Scenario two was approaching a tired diver who turned panicky why you got there.  This one was on the surface so it was much easier to complete.  Scenario three turned out to be a mess.  We were supposed to locate a missing diver, who looked oddly like a bucket.  We were supposed to perform the expanding square to find the bucket.  It did not really work to well.  I could not see the compass to use a heading to make a 90 degree turn and could not see far enough to have any sort of orientation for turning.  After several failed attempts at an expanding square we tried a different approach.  We created a line by holding onto the octopus of the person next to us and swam forward.  Then spun, and headed back in the opposite direction.  We completed this pattern somewhat successfully, but swam right over the bucket without ever seeing it.  The last scenario was an unconscious diver at the surface.  

After completing all four scenarios, we went to the assistant instructors house to dry off and warm up.  The water temperature was a balmy 53 degrees.  One instructor was wearing a dry suit and I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit with hood and gloves.  Overall, I spent less than half an hour underwater.  However, each scenario counts as a separate dive, so four dives in less than 1000 psi of air, talk about efficiency.  

New SCUBA Gear

Last night I went to Y-kiki Divers to buy all of my dive gear. I started looking at new dive gear while at home the week before going back to camp. I looked at ScubaPro, Oceanic, Mares, and Aqualung. There is a whole lot of different gear out there and it is expensive. I looked at three different dive shops in the St. Louis area. I decided on Y-kiki because it is the one that my parents have had the best experience with and they also were willing to throw in the next course in my quest to become a Dive Instructor so I will be taking O2 Provider and Rescue Diver with them.

The equipment that I bought was all Oceanic.

BC - Cruz


This BC has two features that are pretty common but I am really grateful to get to use. One of them is the alternate air source built into the inflator pump. This will allow me to leave the octopus at home when on fun dives. Whenever you go SCUBA diving you always have a primary air source and a backup one in case your buddy needs to breathe off of your tank for some reason. By having it attached to your inflator hose instead of independent, it eliminates the need of a hose coming from your tank and is one less thing to accidentally drag along the reef.

The other feature is an integrated weight system. After putting on all the gear needed for diving, you end up being positively buoyant which is not a good thing if you want to go to the bottom of the ocean. To remedy this problem, you add lead weight. If you do not have an integrated weight system, you put on a very stylish belt with lead weights positioned either on the hips or a little in front of them whichever is most comfortable. However, the weigths often slide to the position that they want. The integrated weight system means that there are pockets designed to hold weight eliminating the need to wear a belt. The weight stays in the same spot the whole dive and some of it can be placed near the tank to help trim you while under water.

Regulator - Delta 4
Octopus - Octo Swiv Mag

This regulator is the only regulator that NOAA allows their divers to use in water under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Although I do not plan on doing much cold water diving, it goes to show the overall quality of the regulator. The first stage (the thing with all of the hoses attached to it) is environmentally sealed which is why it is able to be used in cold water. The second stage (what you breath from) has a swivel connected to it so that you can move your head without needing to pull and twist the whole hose making the regulator less tiring to use. I also have control over the ease of breathing so I can set it wherever I want based on the conditions.

The Octopus is the secondary regulator that I would need while teaching a class to PADI standards. It is bright yellow so it is easily found. It swivels and twists to allow for the most freedom in the event that it is necessary. Another cool feature of this octo is the mag part of the name. It comes with a magnet on a clip to connect to the BC. This is much easier to use then any other connection device on the market.

Computer - Atom 2.0

This watch is a dive computer that connects wirelessly to a transmitter on the tank. This system eliminates the need for another tube coming from the tank. It can gauge my air consumption rate and can calculate how much time I have left on my dive. It will display the time remaining based on air time left or non-decompression limits. The advantage for having a dive computer is that it can adjust for changes in depth where a dive table is set hard and fast. The person helping me at the dive shop said that he was able to go on a dive where he hit 130 feet and be done for one hour and ten minutes. He was not at 130 feet the whole time but on a dive chart he would only be allowed to be there for 10 minutes and then he would need to go to 15 feet for a safety stop. With the computer calculating in real time he had an extra hour.

Altogether I spent 4 weeks of working at Cedars to buy all the gear making this be far the largest purchase I have ever made. And now I have to wait almost one month before I get to try it all out during the rescue diver course.

Shop til you drop

This does not take long for me.

But...

Who would have thought that I would spend over four hours shopping. I got gift certificates to a dive shop in St. Charles for graduation. I went to the dive shop to figure out what I should get. Originally I thought this would be quick trip to one dive shop. I wanted to get a dry bag for the dive boat or for any other time that I wanted to keep things dry while in Honduras. We get to the dive shop where I have gift certificates and start looking around the store. The guy asked if he could help us and I wanted to look around the store first so I had some idea of what I wanted. By the time I was ready to talk to the guy working the store, other people had shown up and started signing up for the Open Water class. We waited for close to half an hour to talk to this guy when he asks, "Do you need help? Let me go get Chris from the back room." Why he did not tell us that someone was there earlier I am not sure.

So the new guy comes over and shows me the prices on all the buoyancy compensator (BCs). I never knew how expensive BCs could be. The low end range is around $500, the high end up to $720. Beyond buying a BC, I still need regulator, gauges and dive computer. Altogether, this shop had a set up of around $1500 with Scubapro gear.

Then we went to another dive shop. This is the dive shop that my parents have the strongest connection with. Why? I am not sure. They just always say that they leave the shop thinking that the people really know what they are talking about. We went in and started piecing together a set up. This dive shop pushed Oceanic gear. The prices and equipment were similar however, this company was willing to throw in a $235 course if I bought all my gear from them. Not a bad deal.

The whole process took 4 and a half hours. The end result of the whole process was that I have to make a lot of choices and making decisions is not my strong suit. The internship that I am attending does provide a full set of gear but from what the two dive shops told me about Mares, I think I would rather get a different brand. I am just waiting to find out how much the internship price will drop to see if it is worth bringing my own gear or if I should just use the gear supplied and then use that as a base to help me make decisions on what gear I want in the future or if I am happy with the gear that I already have.

The dropping, not me, but my mom and sister. What are the odds of me out lasting them in a shop-a-thon. Inconceivable.