auchmeddan

I had a really bad dive Saturday morning - just one of those days where everything goes wrong and you think “hmmm…maybe today isn’t my day”. Further down this entry is my dive log, which is worth a laugh. On Saturday afternoon we did our “Emergency First Responder” skills and test, to prepare us to start our PADI Rescue Diver course. Our course instructor is a funny and upbeat Czech called Ondrej Hindl.

The worst part of Saturday was having to cancel our night dive as we were both too tired and had to study for the Rescue Diver test. We were in bed asleep by 10.

Sunday Morning we started our Rescue Diver course, and had a fun day although it was mostly theory and the written exam (which Jules got 100% in, beating my shameful 96% into the dirt). We had about 30-40 minutes in the water doing some basic refresher skills for Self Rescue, and then did some “panicked diver at surface” skills.

That was “panicked Diver” scenarios were kind of fun, and for some reason I didn’t feel stupid when it was my turn to pretend to panic. The skills were pretty simple today, but made harder by the awful visibility in the bay at the Wyndham resort - the vis was only about 10 inches at best.

We ended Day One of our course by putting oxygen equipment together blindfolded, which was enjoyable to do yourself, and funny to watch others do (especially as Ondrej would move pieces while you were blindfolded).

My dive log is below.

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Dive No 69. 27th August 2005 Location: Hermes. HELL DIVE

Everything that could go wrong did. Felt ill this morning from a Pizza I ate last night. The end of a hurricane (or maybe high pressure or something) brought us 6 foot swells on the way out. I felt a bit ill - Did a backwards roll off the boat clutching my camera (with great concern for it’s safety) and lost my mask as it was ripped off my head! IDIOT! I shouted to Jules that I had lost my mask and then had to fin on my back for 5 minutes in medium current while Jules and Leanne retrieved it from 71ft of water. Michael (the captain) asked if I was OK, and when I shouted “I’m fine. Just annoyed” he smiled and told me to hang onto the mask strap next time.

Jules told me later that as she raced down trying to get my mask before it hit the sand that it was “attacked” by several Great Barracuda that were obviously drawn to the shiny object sinking helplessly. Jules reached it just as it hit the bottom, and brought it back up to 20ft where she relayed it to Leanne to bring up the rest of the way (Jules would have needed to do a 3 minute safety stop before she could have come up).

When Leanne popped up in front of me with my mask I was so happy! I got down to about 60ft, and noticed several Great Barracuda swimming around. I took 4 photos and as I wondered why all the photos looked so dark in my LCD screen I finally realised my strobe (flash) was not on! IDIOT! I had some good Barracuda shots lined up too!

As we got closer to the Hermes I realised my Octopus (the 2nd regulator) was leaking air. Jules had a look at it and tried to purge it to clear it, and it went into full free flow! (if you don’t dive - this is bad. It means it just starts dumping air continuously and forcefully). I tried to shake it, tap it, turn it upside down but it wouldn’t stop. I tried breathing through it but it pretty much blew itself out of my mouth. I managed to hold it in place for a few breaths, blew hard out through it, and after a couple more shakes managed to get it to stop. Cool. no need to abort the dive.

At the wreck another diver in our group was stressing me a little and when I checked his air he only had 1000 psi left and thought he was OK (he had used 2000 psi in 20 mins, and we still had to get back to the boat through the current and do a 3 min safety stop). We decided then it was time to start heading back. We went up and had to swim against the current on the safety stop - if you didn’t pay attention or stopped finning you would be swept away from the boat. The weird thing about the safety stop was as you finned in place tiny jellyfish were swept past you continuously, sort of like the old Windows Starfield screensaver. It was cool, but made me a little dizzy trying to watch them.

On getting out of the water my tank slipped out and Michael had to grab the tank valve and take me back to my seat.

…and then I got seasick!

I decided not to do the 2nd dive!

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The worst thing about my mask sinking to 70 feet isn’t that it was bumped, nudged, and prodded by Several Great Barracuda on the way down (it has a shiny silver frame)- it’s that I didn’t get to see or photograph it. I’ve gotta start carrying a spare mask!

Oh, and I need to thank both Jules and Leanne for salvaging my mask and something of the dive for me!

I guess the good thing about the experience is I didn’t panic or get freaked out when things went wrong, I was just generally annoyed.

And finally, Ondrej took a quick look at my Octopus on Sunday and tightened the screw inside it in about 5 minutes. It seems fine now. Thank you Ondrej!

It’s taken me a while to find the time to get around to this update. Work has been crazy, and our Weekend/social time has been mostly taken with diving (shock!). Right now I’m feeling tired, and spread a little thin. This isn’t a good time to ask me stupid questions.

On a lighter note, We started the PADI Night Diver Specialty course just over a week or so, so we’ve managed to get a couple of mid-week night dives in as well as our normal weekend diving. In the past 11 days we’ve managed to get 8 dives - not bad, eh?

The highlights of the dives have been a couple of close encounters with Great Barracuda, swimming into a (dead-end) cave filled with Glassy Sweepers, a pair of Filefish, and pretty much all of our 88 minute Night Dive with Joe (a new record bottom time for us!). On Joe’s dive we saw lots of Lobster and Octopus, a large sleeping Stoplight Parrotfish, a couple of Banded Coral Shrimp, a scrawled Cowfish, and we also got to watch the Glow-worms mate for around 10 minutes with our dive-lights off.

For me, it was a fun weekend for underwater photography as I got to play with my (new) macro lens and was able to take some decent night photos thanks to the diffuser I bought for my strobe (which probably also stopped the barracuda reflecting back too much light). I spent ages trying to get a close up shot of a Lizardfish on our last dive of the weekend, and got a couple of decent ones. My problem is that my camera doesn’t have an autofocus (it’s a fixed length digital) so I have to move it perfectly into place to get the focus in the right spot, and try to judge this underwater, looking at a tiny screen. I did have a Macro wand attached to the camera to help measure distance, but (unsurprisingly) it just scared the fish away!

As usual, Jules navigated for me this weekend and left me free to worry about photographs and nothing else. Bliss!

The photos below are (in order) a filefish, Great Barracuda, Octopus (easy one, that!), Glassy Sweepers, and a close up of a Lizardfish.

The day started with a “mystery deep dive” (we just had to find about 70ft for some people to complete their Advanced course) so Chris anchored in the middle of nowhere and off we went. We saw our first “Rock Beauty” but I didn’t get a photo, and we saw a small shoal of Blue Chromis.

The 2nd dive was the Lartington and although we were slightly disappointed that our LionFish wasn’t there, it did deliver a Lizardfish (which flew in and landed like a fighter jet!) and the first BalloonFish we’ve seen. Jules found it and pointed it out for me - I would probably never have noticed it.

The 3rd dive was Blue Hole, and it was kind enough to deliver a pair of Sharpnose Puffer,and my best photo yet of these little guys! I have an obessession with these cute, odd-shaped little fish that Jules finds a little funny. I don’t know what it is, but I just love them to bits!!

The Photos below are a Blue Chromis, LizardFish, Balloonfish, and my fave little guys!

Had a pretty good day today - we managed to get in 3 Dives over the course of the day with Blue Water Divers

On the first dive, The Lartington, we saw our 2nd LionFish in Bermuda but got up-close to this one and got some pictures…see below.

On the 2nd Dive (the Constellation/Montana) we got within a reasonable distance of a Great Barracuda who was about 3-4 Feet long. I was feeling pretty good about finally managing to get some decent pics of a GB here!

On the afternoon dive, we went back to the “Monstellation” and saw our first eels here! We watched one for a little while and tried to get some pics (which was very, very difficult) and then about 10 minutes later I spotted another.

We’re heading back out tomorrow. For now, I’ll post a pic of the Lionfish

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve managed to fit in 7 dives -3 of them on the 29th July
and have managed a few firsts :

1) We saw our first Octopus night diving with our friend Joe. Joe guided us around an area of North Shore near to where he lives, and we saw 4 octopus over the course of the dive! We were very pleased with that, but then we ended up getting pretty close to a large Smooth Trunkfish which swam right up to Joe’s light, and then up to Jules mask. It was also our first time diving with Joe (though hopefully wont be the last!).

2) Saw our first Scrawled Filefish at Southwest Breaker.

3) Saw a pair of Lobster at SW Breaker. We’ve seen Lobster before, but this was the first time we have seen an obvious “couple”. The larger of the 2 agressively ‘charged’ me while it’s mate scurried for cover. (In the first photo, you can just see the mate at the back)

4) We saw our first Yellow-Headed Trumpetfish (several times on the one dive).

5) We played with a Coney for a while. We’ve played with Puddingwifes before (it’s hard to ignore them sometimes) but this was the first time a Coney took an interest in us. It seemed to enjoy getting as close as it could to take a good look at us (so close that my macro lens couldn’t focus properly on it).

Puddingwife and Coney photos below.

6) Saw our first Barred Hamlet at Blue Hole. What a pretty little fish!

7) Saw our first group of CreoleFish (also at Blue Hole).

It’s been good diving - just wish we could spend more time doing it