The Bowline (in orange) is used for securing to a lift bag and/or to the object to be recovered from the bottom. This is a nice knot as (if tied correctly) the loop does not close, it just creates a loop that you can clip the lift bag or item to. The second knot (blue and white) is the Sheet-Bend, Bends are usually used to tie two lengths of rope together and this one does as good a job as any I have tried. Finally the Two Half-Hitches (white rope secured around the pole) is another knot used for securing to the lit bag or object to be lifted yet the key difference is that this knot tightens down on the object or clip it is attached to making this a good knot to use to secure to a section of the object to be lifted when you don't want the knot to move. All of these knots are fairly easy to pull apart making them good choices for underwater recovery.
For the knots I had purchased myself a few lengths of rope while studying so that I could practice as suggested in the manual. Of course the saying "Practice makes Perfect" is a misnomer, if you practice something incorrectly you only get perfect at doing it wrong. Only "perfect" practice makes perfect and since the book is a little unclear on the knots I was only practicing the Bowline and the Two Half-Hitches correctly. The Sheet-Bend however I got really good at doing wrong....lol. Fortunately Matt was able to show me a way to do it that made sense and got me and the rest of the class back on track with the Sheet-Bend while Dennis made sure everyone was comfortable with the other two knots.
With us all reasonably confident with our knot tying ability and after reviewing the skills to be covered in our dives one and two for the day, it was time to finish gearing up and head for the water to play Hide and Seek with ankle weights.
When it comes to diving I would have to liken it to riding a bike, while I have not been in the water in about 6 weeks, it took only a few steps into the surf before the nerves were calm and as soon as I started my descent I immediately felt at home. Visibility was amazing, the other students were confident in their abilities and along side the instructors we descended to the bottom with zero issues and almost no disruption of the bottom. After some quick signals between my classmates and myself we all fell into position and started our first search using, a Circular Search pattern. With one student / partner as the anchor or pivot point holding the rope and myself and the other student as the searchers holding the end of the rope taut, we start swimming making a large circle. If the "object" (in this case an ankle weight) is not found after the first complete circular pass then the anchor or pivot person lets out more rope and the searchers make another pass. In our case my partner found the object on our first pass and returned it to Dennis. Dennis had us swim a couple passes so that we would know what it was like anyway. Following this we made the short ascent to the surface, during which Matt had swam away to hide object number two, 16 lbs of weight. For the second search we were to do the U-Search pattern, where the navigator takes a bearing based on the approximate direction of the object and swims across the search grid with one of the partners counting kick cycles and remaining party members searching. Upon hitting the set amount of kick cycles you make a "U-Turn" and spacing yourselves out again you swim back along the same bearing searching for your object and turning again at your set distance or kick cycle count. This moves you in consecutive U's until you find the object. This time I got to play navigator and see if i could keep us on track and on our bearing, after a few passes we managed to find the weights and it turned out I wasn't to far off my navigation, yeah me for getting better!....lol. Once we found the object, with Dennis and Matt following behind us, it was time to show off our knots, but this time underwater. Dennis came up beside us all as we settled on the weights and he passed us all a section of rope which I was able to tie a Bowline in without any issue (1 down, 2 to go), after showing Dennis my Bowline and getting my congratulatory "ok" sign, he passed me another piece of rope, which I tied (thanks to Matt's predive surface tips) a Sheet-Bend to join the two pieces together. After showing the Sheet-Bend to Matt and getting his approval that the knot was complete, it was time to tie the Two Half-Hitches on to the band attached to the recovered object and then slip back and wait for the other students to finish up. Once everyone was done it was tie to check the connections and then while one student held the lift bag open and the other held the reel that was connected to the lift bag, I gently put air from my alternate air into the bag, testing it's buoyancy until presto, lift off and the bag was tracked slowly, with all the divers following behind, to the surface to finish a very busy and very successful dive number one.
Dive number two for the day wasn't going to be as busy, for this search we would descend at the same point and with one of the other students on Navigation and one counting I got to play Searcher for this pattern. For this search we were doing the Expanding Square pattern. This proves to be a difficult pattern if not thought out in advance. The concept is, you take a bearing, swim a set number of kick cycles turn 90 degrees and kick the same set of kick cycles, turn 90 degrees and kick adding a set number of kick cycles moving you past your start point and turn 90 degrees kicking a set number of kick cycles past your starting number. Sounds a bit confusing but the math is pretty simple. If you start swimming 5 kick cycles, turn and swim 5, then turn and swim 8 (adding 3) and then every time you turn you add 3 you end up constantly expanding your search area until you find the lost object. Simple right? Where this does get difficult is staying together....lol. You see the inside person is always the inside person, so if they turn and keep swimming, if you maintain your distance apart the outside person has not yet made the turn and falls behind and has to swim quickly to keep up, and then falls further behind on the next turn and the next one and so on and so on.... Guess where I was? You got it... the outside person. To make things more interesting, the navigator is an incredibly strong swimmer so I was being being left well behind the group. By turn three I was reminiscing about my fitness test and remembering how much I need to work to get back into shape (and round is not the shape I am looking for...lol.) After managing to get ourselves organized and making a couple of passes, sure enough I spot the target just out and to the left of us, unfortunately with falling behind I was unable to signal my team and we proceeded to do another, ever expanding, lap. By the time we had lapped back around the object was now on the inside of us, meaning we were doing the pattern correctly and not going over the same area too many times. Again the ropes were passed out, knots were tied and with me holding the bag and a different partner controlling each the reel and inserting the air, we managed to once again float our objective to the surface and with Dennis and Matt close behind, made our slow and controlled ascent to the surface to finish dive 2.
Now for those who haven't gathered already, I am not in the best shape of my life. As such I tend to breathe through my air faster than most which, as mentioned in previous posts, has led to me having to surface earlier than wanted due to lack of air. So in November I bought myself brand new steel 130's. These tanks hold WAY more air and, despite their weight, are wonderful to dive with. After finishing dive one for the day I had a little over 1000 psi of air left, normally I am finishing with just over just under 500 psi so this was incredible. After dive 2 I had more than 1700 psi left in the tank so, at Dennis' suggestion, my dive buddies and I swam out to the point and descended for a third dive. This dive was just a calm and relaxed drift back towards shore along the wall of Whytecliff. There was not a lot to see, lots of starfish, a few crab and a couple of fish, but more than that it was just a great time to take it easy and dive with friends in a completely relaxed atmosphere while enjoying our surroundings.
This weekend should be an exciting one with my Emergency First Responder training at the shop on Saturday and who knows what this Sunday will bring as my dive team and I get back in the water to finish off the last two dives for our Search and Recovery certification.
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