Technical Ventures
By Mark Davies on 29 August 2008
Mortality
When I was a young man still in my late teens, like everyone else of that age, I thought I was immortal. Life was going to last for ever and nothing I did I thought of as dangerous.
I was rock climbing in those days; testing myself and pushing the edges of the envelope. It was simply a personal challenge and I never considered it genuinely dangerous. But then someone I knew was killed in a climbing accident. Graham wasn’t a close friend to me; he was a school friend of my older brother. They had climbed together though Graham and I hadn’t. But he was a very dear friend to the young woman who today is my wife. She really felt his loss.
His death didn’t stop me climbing – not immediately – but it did start me thinking about what was important to me and who was important to me. It also taught me that I probably wasn’t immortal after all. I thought more about those I was leaving at home, who would be sitting worried sick until my return. I stopped stretching myself and taking those risks, and in the end the only climbing I did was indoors – perfectly safe.
I’m not sure that was necessarily a good thing but it did mean that young girl felt able to become my wife and stick with me for the last 20 years! It was a matter of priorities.
When I took up diving I adopted the same approach. For years I have deliberately limited my diving to simple recreational limits; single tank, no decompression diving to a maximum depth of 30m. Keep it simple – keep it safe. While my buddy progressed to twins, deco procedures and on to Trimix diving I stayed clear of it, despite his efforts to encourage me into it. It was all adding that extra element of risk that I considered being a step too far. It wasn’t necessary.
But recently, after six years of strictly recreational diving, an opportunity has come up that I don’t want to miss. And to take up that opportunity I need to extend the range of my diving. So finally, and with a certain hesitation and reluctance, I am going technical.
Doing It Right
My mind was clear – if I was going to do this I would do it properly. I knew some divers who had been in a similar position to me; who for the sake of their loved ones took their diving safety very seriously. That had led them down the DIR route, trusting to the discipline and high skill levels to ensure the risks were minimised. I considered it for a moment, but frankly I am a rebel at heart despite being a champion of law and order. I prefer to make up my own mind on how to do things, so clearly
DIR wasn’t for me.
Fortunately my years contributing to Yorkshire Divers had brought me into contact, either personally or by reputation, with some of the best technical diving instructors in the country. These were people I knew I could trust to prepare me properly for the kind of diving I was planning on doing. So, having made my mind up that I was going to do this, I didn’t have to go hunting to find someone to prepare me. I simply picked up the phone and called Andy Hayhurst at Dales Divers. Andy comes with a reputation of high standards with no corners cut. I knew he would see that I was up to it, or he would just not pass me.
I told Andy what I wanted to be able to do and he told me what I needed. I booked myself in to do an Advanced Nitrox and Deco Procedures course. A few days later the course materials arrived and I settled myself down to some study.
In the meantime, I set about acquiring the equipment I would need; a set of second-hand twin 12 tanks with decent bands and manifold, a donated back-plate and a new harness. I got all these together only four days before the start of my course. I rigged it all up in what I trusted was the correct fashion and did a couple of dives. It felt comfortable, so I could only hope that was preparation enough!
Talk And Chalk
The first day of the PSA course is theory. Getting up early I drove up the M6 to Andy’s facility at Sedbergh in south Cumbria. It was a cold day and in the converted barn the gas heaters were on full blast to try and give us some warmth. I had the advantage arising from working shifts. I was free mid-week and so was the only person taking the course and benefited from one-to-one tuition.
With the aid of Powerpoint materials Andy delivered the knowledge I would need. We started with the history of the Professional Scuba Association, the agency whose qualification I was hoping to get. From there we moved on to basic Nitrox theory. I listened intently to take it all in. It wasn’t completely new to me. I had started a PADI Nitrox course over a year earlier and had learned the theory and passed the exam, but then the instructor who was taking me through the course as a favour had fallen ill before we had been able to do the dives necessary to complete the qualification. PADI have a great reputation for producing good, easy to understand course materials. I don’t know whether it was because it was the second time I’d done it or whether it was because PSA really hit the nail on the head with their manual, but I found the way the theory was delivered very easy to understand – more so even than with PADI. Or perhaps it was just down to Andy!
We moved on to decompression theory and dive planning. We had that covered by lunch time and Andy left me with my butties to prepare a dive schedule. I got my calculations spot on which seemed to satisfy Andy that I’d grasped the theory. We then moved on to talk about equipment and various techniques for managing dives and deco-stops.
The day went by quickly. To be honest, after spending six years jumping off the same boats as technically qualified divers, little of what was presented to me was entirely new. I had spent that time asking questions and learning. I was already carrying the right safety equipment and knew how to use it. My single tanks had long since been fitted with H-valves so I already had a twin reg set up. But Andy was there ready with answers to those questions I’d been carrying around with me and I was reassured that I was ready to take the next step in my diving career.
Ice Diving
I’d been watching the weather forecast all week as the course was approaching. For two days the country was being assaulted by Siberian blizzards but the North West of England had pretty much escaped the worst of it. On that second day I set off up the M6 once more, heading for the inland site of Capernwray. It was a beautiful day and the sky was clear. We had still escaped the snow but it was desperately cold.
I met Andy at the gates for 10.00 am and found out that we were going to be joined by one of his rebreather students who wanted to get some extra time in on his box. We got parked up and then headed up to the centre to pay our daily fee and discuss the day’s plans over a cup of hot tea. Andy explained the drills that we would be going through and warned me that anything could happen at any time. As I’ve said, I knew Andy by reputation and this wasn’t news to me!
We got kitted up and sorted a slight leak that had appeared in one of my first stages. We discussed my suit which was the original one I’d bought off the peg six years earlier and which was clearly going to pose problems for me when it came to shut-down drills. It was too short in the body and simply didn’t allow me enough range of movement. In the medium term it would have to be replaced but for the time being Andy explained how I could overcome the problem.
We headed down to the water and had to use our fins to crack away the thin layer of ice as we waded in. There was now no doubt about it, this was going to be cold! Andy’s computer read 3c!
We spent a few minutes sorting out a few minor technicalities with the rebreather and then we were descending, through a thermocline to slightly warmer waters.
A Dive And A Half
What followed was just about the most eventful dive I would ever hope to have. I have done dives that nearly killed me (especially around Anglesey!) but none were as stressful as this. None of the things we did were on their own particularly taxing, but I think because of the cold conditions Andy wanted to get everything done as quickly as possible. The result was that it was one drill right after another, then another, then another. It was relentless and the 45 minutes turned into one continuous crisis of a dive. If I’d wanted challenging preparation then I certainly got it!
We started with shut-down drills. Andy demonstrated first, unfastening his rig and pulling it up over his head to show me how I could reach the valves even in my restrictive suit. I followed, but very slowly at first. Andy got me to repeat the drill. This time I was much quicker, though I got the sequence wrong. I got myself strapped up again and saw Andy was struggling a bit. He was using a borrowed twin-set and the belt strap was frayed and wouldn’t pass through the buckle. Andy had to take a glove off to mange it and in doing so lost the glove. It was out of reach before I spotted it floating up to the surface. It was too cold to continue the dive without it, but we’d not been in the water long and were not very deep so Andy surfaced to retrieve it. At the surface he could see the snow had started.
He came back down and we then proceeded with an out of air drill, swimming 10m or so to the buddy with no reg in. Not a problem.
We followed that with an unconscious diver lift. Andy demonstrated and I followed suit – in a fashion! I picked him up, righted him and then swam with him over to the oil rig to do the lift. I made the mistake of not getting him squarely in front of me, so to demonstrate the error of my ways Andy ensured that his legs kept rising up, making the lift particularly awkward. I eventually managed to get him into an upright position to complete the lift. These are the best lessons; the ones you learn from your own mistakes. I won’t be allowing that to happen again.
But that was where the dive started to slip away from me a bit. The struggle with the lift had got me off balance and we then immediately went into a mask off swim. That in itself was never going to be a problem for me. I’m very confident in the water and taking my mask off to swim the length of the container, even in freezing conditions, wasn’t going to pose any difficulties. But it did stop me settling down. That wasn’t helped by Andy then swimming over and pulling the reg out of my mouth. My reaction was to take the first reg I saw, which was Andy’s octopus which was sat right in front of my face. Not the smartest thing to take a reg from an apparently OOA diver! I immediately knew my mistake. Again, a hard won lesson.
That complete and Andy beckoned me to lead him into the container. I knew exactly what was coming but even as I felt Andy turning my air off I was still flustered from the previous drills. Even so I got on with swapping my regs, lifting my rig off over my head, turning the valve back on and strapping myself up again.
As we exited the container Andy showed me his slate with a warning that we’d be surfacing into a blizzard.
We then moved away from the container into open water where Andy demonstrated deploying an SMB with the exhaust bubbles from his main reg. We’d discussed this the previous day and I’d explained how I’d once tried it with the result that the reg was pulled from my mouth and sent upwards towards the surface! He showed me how it could be done safely. He then indicated that it was okay for me to send up my crack-bottle SMB.
I could have sworn I’d not used it the last time I’d filled it, but embarrassingly I found the bottle was empty. So in the end I got the opportunity to demonstrate a manual fill of the bag as I’d been shown. This time it went up fine and my reg stayed in my mouth!
We ascended to 6m for a safety stop and it was freezing!
Arctic Conditions
With relief we got to the surface but it was still snowing. In fact, in the 45 minutes we’d been in the water nearly 2” had fallen. We de-kitted, dumped our stuff in the back of Andy’s van and went up to the café for a hot bowl of soup and a debrief of the dive.
I knew what my mistakes had been. We discussed the correct sequence for the shut downs and with a better understanding of why I was doing what I was doing I’m sure I’ll get it right from now on. Andy couldn’t help smiling as we talked about my pathetic efforts on the diver lift – again, I won’t be making that mistake again.
Anticipating problems with the roads and getting home in the snow we decided to can the planned second dive. After the first I can’t say I was that disappointed!
It had been a busy two days as it was. I’d known the course was going to be a challenge and the wintry conditions had only served to make it more so. But this was what I’d expected. I’d wanted to be prepared to deal with and survive anything that extended range diving was likely to throw at me. If I could do it in these conditions I could probably do it anywhere.
I knew I still had a long way to go but in all I thought I’d made a fairly decent start. After all, I was still alive!
Can Mark complete this course or will it kill him after all? Find out in Technical Ventures – The Return, coming soon
Contact
Author: Mark Davies
Email: info@travel-dive.com
Article Comments
