D.I.R.F. the training part 2

By Mark Chase on 5 October 2008

Day 3 The final two dives of the course

Dive one was to be the by now standard Valve drill and S drill but this time the instructor would step in if he spotted an error missed by the buddy and end the drill. You would then be required to re set the drill and start again from the beginning. Personally I felt this was a much safer way of handling drills and avoiding the potential danger of inadvertently shutting both valves.

This was followed by a drill called the Basic Five. This involved reg removal and replacement, swapping from primary to back up reg and back again, mask clearing, mask removal and finally a modified S drill. This was an odd one as it was apparently practice for a full S drill? Instead of donating your primary reg to your buddy to breath from he would just hold it in his hand whilst you went through the donation and re stowing side of the drill.

Next came the centre of gravity drill where arms legs head and breathing are used to pivot the diver forwards and backwards around a fixed point in his abdomen. The last task to perform was a 3min ascent to 3m then 3mins to the surface back to 3m and back to 6 all whilst maintaining horizontal trim.

Once again back on dry land and the usual debrief and pre dive briefing for our final assessment dive. Until now the skills and drills had been performed over platforms. Now we were to do our skills in 6m of water on the side of the ledge and then to execute a 6m deep swim around to the platforms. During the dive we were to be hit with out of air drills and at some point be asked to send up an SMB as a buddy team.

Things did not get off to a good start. During my S drill my back up regulator failed. Close examination of the video footage following my shut down drills couldn’t identify any errors in procedure and but the regulator fed me water instead of air and the resultant coughing fit and retching nearly caused an ascent. In the end the dive was cut whilst kit was checked and rinsed but it was an awful moment. In retrospect it’s easy to see how this could happen on a back up regulator.

This is one of the least used pieces of equipment and in my case it had suffered a long period of inactivity extending back over a year. Multiple breathing down re gassing and purging of this regulator is a pretty good way of showing up any defects. Like most divers I checked my equipment before the dives by pre breathing it but it wasn’t until I got the regulator home and striped down that I found the wrinkled diaphragm that was the likely cause of the problem. In the opening talks on DIR divers are told to ensure kit is properly maintained and fit for duty. These sage words were ringing in my ears after striping the reg in the work shop.

The kit thoroughly checked and ready to dive we descended again to re do the drill and to continue on with the dive plan. My buddy’s torch had failed so he was to lead the dive due to the fact he had lost the power to signal by torch. The powerful 18 or 21W HID’s favoured by all the divers on the course earned their keep as the light sabre beams gave clear signals to a buddy even when he is facing away from you. As we finned along the wall of the quarry, towards the training platforms Richard signalled me to go out of air. I flashed my buddy with the torch and he turns quickly and donates the long hose using the practiced S drill. My OOA was swiftly dealt with but I made the mistake of continuing the dive as we had on all the other S drill practices, rather than thumbing it as I should have done on this one.

Finally we were given the signal to deploy an SMB. We had agreed prior to the dive that I would do this and having built the bag and sent it on its way Richard hit us again with an out of air, this time it was Ian asking me for gas. The skill was made harder as I had no option to dump the spool because I couldn’t lock it off quickly and I was therefore working one handed. During the drill for reasons unknown the SMB that had happily been on the surface, sank. As it was not a self sealing type I assume it fell over and deflated, but it was odd. My buddy and I ignored it and carried on air sharing and doing a free ascent. Once on the surface the dive was over. We had finished the wet bits of DIRF.

Once more back to the B&B for a final video debrief. Each diver was asked to talk through their own dive and analyse it. The lectures then continued with gas planning and thirds calculations and an interesting discussion on Narcosis. The gas planning was an eye-opener as despite years of trolling the net for information on DIR I had never fully understood thirds. I thought I had, but I was wrong. The discussion on Narcosis also included C02 narcosis which I also found impressive having suffered form this malady and having only herd it discussed at advanced CCR level despite it relevance in any form of diving.

Finally the course drew to a close and it became time for the individual debriefs. For the others this was a very interesting section but I was still reeling from the earlier regulator failure and put in a fairly lack lustre performance during my self assessment. Ultimately the decision was to award a provisional pass to Ian and my self and a full pass to Andy and Garf.

The provisional pass is another way of asking for a further assessment dive. You are given up to six months to do this in which time you can practice the skills taught and then arrange for a re-assessment dive. This practice is less common in other agencies and I don’t think I have ever herd of an official provisional pass as such. It’s a good idea as not only does it stop you having to totally re sit the course but it gives the instructors a way of dealing with the almost but not quite group of divers. I feel there will be a lot of these on DIRF. However it does put a bit of pressure on the diver as there is little or no excuse for errors on the reassessment dive.

Contact

Author: Mark Chase
Email: info@travel-dive.com

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