Our lady who decided that SCUBA wasn't for her, still joined us on the boat for a nice relaxed day of sunbathing and snorkelling, while we completed the course.
The first dive on the boat is always a pretty busy dive, as it is this dive that I use to complete the compass swims, CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascents) and at the end, BCD and weight belt removal and replacement at the surface. This is in addition to the set skills for this dive, so we had much to do today. This does however, mean that the afternoon's dive is as close to a pure fun dive that we can do on the Open Water course.
So first up, we had surface skills to do, buoyancy checks done, as I had ambitiously removed two kilos off each diver. Thankfully my judgement had been right, as all were able to descend gently at the end of the buoyancy check. The compass swims were a little interesting, as a lively surface current sent everyone off on more of a diagonal than a straight line, but their method of setting the bearings and looking at the compass ensuring that the North needle was between the markers as they swam was all correct.
Even the CESAs went well, if a little speedier than I would have recommended. My computer still didn't beep at me, so that is good.
The dive went pretty well, with a couple of buoyancy issues as we headed over the drop off... it is very easy to forget to add air and just keep dropping down, so I had to stay on the ball here to make sure no one broke depth. The visibility was beautifully clear after the slightly hazy beach viz of the last few days. And we saw some of the usual suspects... clown fish, trigger fish, and a whole heap of glassfish on the Fiddle Garden pinnacle.
The afternoon dive was a semi drift from Middle Garden towards Near Garden, and I do believe that the current had picked up even more.
The initial descent was not the best I would have liked, but this is a slightly deeper site, so the first level was around seven metres, not really ideal for Open Water students practising their free descents, especially when one had a slight tendency to drop too fast and push his ears a little. However, the skills went well, and once we were swimming along, all three of my divers kept perfect buoyancy without me having to remind them too much. Bonus. We really travelled quite a distance too, being students, they hadn't really drifted, as opposed to finning with the current, and gone a little faster than normal. And this was a great move too as we saw a very large feather tail ray (without the feather) sat on the sand right at the end of the dive. Had we been going my usual totally chilled out speed, we would never have reached this spot. Great stuff!
And now, I think that may well have been my last dive before Christmas... unless I find myself working for one more day.
So a huge Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope 2012 brings you health and happiness.
Become a DiveBunnie and sign up for our free newsletter here!
Tweet
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment