Enjoying the view before gearing up to explore the wonders beneath!

Saturday afternoon while the Vancouver Canucks were preparing to dish out their punishment on the Boston Bruins, I was meeting up with a few friends at our cabin up at Porteau Cove.  The plan for the evening would see us completing 2 dives before calling it a night, catching some sleep and then joining Ocean Pro Divers in the morning for their monthly BBQ and dive day!!

By the time I had arrived at the cabin, my buddy for the night had just arrived and the Canucks were going into OT tied 2 - 2.  After grabbing my over-night gear and throwing it on the couch and flipping on the TV, we were just in time to see the puck drop and Alex Burrows suck Thomas out of the net, out skate Chara, and wrap around the net depositing the puck in the back of the net taking game 2 sending the Boston "ruins" back home to lick their wounds.

Shortly after the game, the third member of our group arrived and started preparing his dinner while I walked down towards the shore to look and see what the tides were looking like for the evening and was met with this wonderful view:

The water was so calm, only a few clouds in the air, conditions we dream about!

After my walk, the last of our team had arrived for the night and we loaded our gear and headed for the shore.  Taking our time to discuss the plans for the night and review any concerns we geared up and decended the stairs to start our first dive of the evening.

Surface swimming out to the first marker, the plan was to descend to the bottom, group up and move out along the fire hose exploring the darkened ocean floor.  Upon reaching the bottom and forming up in our buddy teams we headed out across the bottom.  Unfortunately the other group of divers turned out to be determined to move as quick as possible and since my buddy and I were looking to actually explore the under-sea world instead of watch it blast by while setting a record for how fast we could swim.  It did not take long for the other group to pull well ahead of us as we watched their lights dim into the distance.  Signalling to my buddy we slowed down to a complete stop, checked air, confirmed depth and started a slow patrol of the bottom moving in the general direction of the second marker.  After slowly exploring and capturing a few photos we started our slow return back towards the stairs watching as the fish dashed in and out of our beams of light.  Before we knew it, nearly 40 minutes had passed and we were watching as the bottom angled up and our depth drew down.  By 45 minutes we were back at the base of the stairs, regs out, fins off and then the short walk back to the vehicles to switch tanks and head back.

As it turned out, the first group had returned before us and had already stripped down their gear and packed it away.  One of the divers had decided to wear a wet-suit for the night, so after dive one he was uncomfortably cold and his buddy had decided one dive was enough for the night.  My partner and I, however, couldn't wait to get back in the water so while our friends headed back to the cabin we headed back out into the water, this time with a slightly different plan.

With me taking the lead we surface swam out just far enough to have about 10 feet of water below us before we descended.  Upon reaching bottom, we checked for neutral buoyancy, confirmed air and direction and then completely relaxed, slowly kicked and let the water move us slowly across the bottom while watching the world move around us.  As we approached half air we made a slow turn and moved back towards the stairs enjoying the underwater world and the wonderful life that it revealed to us along with some interesting looking animals that I had never seen before and will have to see if I can find someone to identify.

After finding and photographing our little buddy here we made our way to the stairs and up to the vehicles to strip down our gear and head for the cabin.  Back at the cabin we spread out the gear that would be needed for the following morning to allow it to dry a bit before being needed again and headed inside to join the rest of our party. 

As it turned out it wasn't much of a party... inside the cabin our other two divers had already found their sleeping bags and were working on catching their zzz's.  Quickly grabbing a snack and something warm to drink I headed to bed to snore away my night and dream of what the next day might bring.

Embracing the Darkside...

Last night I faced a challenge and overcame... You see I don't often tell people this, but I have a small discomfort or for lack of a better word fear of the dark....lol.  Now it's nothing where I need lights on in the house or a night light or can't walk somewhere on my own, it is more that I have a VERY vivid imagination, as a child this is a great thing, even as an author this is a useful tool, but as an adult who has spent many a night walking alone, often through dark places, this is not often helpful.  While most people see a dumpster, I imagine all of the horrible things that could potentially jump out or be inside.  People see trees, I see locations to hide my body...lol.  So the thought of the ocean, an already interesting enough environment, in the dark... gets the imagination flowing.  I mean we all grew up with the woman out for the cool evening swim, whose body parts they found washed up a few days later to kick off the first of the Jaws trilogy of movies.  Anyone who has seen a National Geographic has seen the horrors caused by Jelly Fish (who are attracted to light by the way...)  We have Octupus, Squid, Seals, Sea Lions and Killer Whales... HELLO... Lions and Killers....I can't wait!  Now, just so that you can't see them coming, lets go in the water at night! 

So now you can see what my imagination was doing to me the few nights leading up to actually getting into the water.  By the time last night arrived, I was pretty sure I was gonna get eaten, but i was bound and determined to enjoy the dive for as long as it lasted....lol.  After arriving and gearing up, it was a quick briefing, equipment check, and a short walk to the edge of the water (down a really steep hill... in the dark...).  Once in the water, fins on, and a short surface swim along the rocks of Whytecliff Park, it was the moment of truth.. time to descend.  For tonight's dive, Denis (our fearless leader and instructor) accompanied by a soon to be Dive Master, lead the way towards the bottom and along the rocks for our first dive, a short tour and familiarization of the deep dark.  Prawn everywhere with their glow-in-the-dark eyes, and hermit crabs darting in and out of shells.  Fish of all shapes and sizes sleeping in the drift and massive schools of other tiny fish out for their evening swim.  I soon found myself more comfortable under the water than I feel above it... funny how that happens sometimes. After a quick 26 minutes I had consumed my air so it was ascent time and a slow surface swim back to shore discussing my need to get bigger tanks...lol.  Looks like I'll be needing to look at buying tanks sooner than I had planned if I want to extend my dives...lol.  Well, that's it for now, time to grab a quick nap before I head off to do it all over again tonight.  This time two dives, the final of which I get to spend the last three minutes of, lights off, sitting still.. in the dark!

Doing it with your eyes closed....

Take any basic task you do, walking, running, even eating... now do it with your eyes closed.   Whole different experience isn't it... did you feel the nerves?  Especially if you try running, normally you'll run or walk at a casual pace, you won't think about where you put your feet, or what you're doing with your hands.  You may even be talking with someone or listening to them.  But with your eyes closed you are very careful where you put your feet, your hands are generally feeling around in front of you or around you and typically you want it quiet so you can hear whats going on around you and focus.  Now if you were smart about it, you went slow, I had a young man at my house in the summer who learned this lesson the hard way by running with his eyes closed, misjudged his location and ran into a fence, face first.... split his tongue in two (looked like a snake) and chipped teeth... that's one trip to the ER neither he nor his mother will soon forget...lol.  So why is it so much harder to do our day to day activities with our eyes closed?  It's because our eyes are like the scanner on your computer, it's how the information gets to the brain, sure you can type it all, or use a mouse to click one character at a time, but to put a whole page of information, or several, into a computer quickly the best most accurate route is a scanner.  Take eating, you eat without really thinking about it, (this also leads to why more than 60 - 80 % of the population of North America is obese, but that's another blog), you hold your fork in your one hand, knife in the other, cut your food, pick it up, place it in your mouth... simple.  With your eyes closed, you need to really focus to make sure you know where your food is, the placement of your fork, how big a piece are you cutting, finding that piece, picking it up and then carrying it to your mouth... all these tasks... SOOOO much harder with your eyes closed.


Why all this talk about eyes closed.... because Tuesday I was fortunate enough to join Dennis Chow and a fellow student for our classroom portion of our Night Dive certification.  Now this is not my first night dive, for the story about that adventure see It's Dark... Very, Very Dark...., but for this I will not just be doing one night dive as before, I will be doing three over the course of this weekend, one Friday and two on Saturday night.  Each of these three dives will have skills that must be demonstrated including Navigation (yeah my favorite....lol), Buoyancy, Orientation, etc.  Alone most of these skills are no issue and many of them are very natural after you have completed a number of dives.  BUT... much like basic stuff on the surface with your eyes closed, doing all these skills at night on a dive is much harder than in the day.  Under the water at night you only see what your light touches, and unlike in the open air, light does not travel very far under water,  leaving you with a very narrow field of vision.  At night, much like daytime activities with your eyes closed, you spend much of your time "feeling" for your gear as opposed to looking for it.  You need to know where your light, b/u light, compass, knife, BCD inflator, Drysuit inflator, gauges, etc all is, and be able to get it by touch and not by sight.  This adds an interesting dynamic and further emphasizes that you must be familiar with your gear, and must streamline your equipment as much as possible.  Now by streamlining, I do not mean under any circumstances that you want to avoid back-up items or safety equipment, etc, but until one is comfortable with night dives, it's probably a good idea to leave the cameras at home...lol.  With streamlining, you want to eliminate gear that you should not be taking with you (stick to your dive plan), if you're training for night, dive your night dive, don't load up on camera or video equipment.  Try not to have endless amounts of clips and cords all jumbled together, on the surface or even on some day dives you may be able to look to see which item is which and where cords attach, but in the dark, keep things simple and easy to remember, clip your main light in one location, easy to reach and control, simple enough to turn on with one hand and easy to recover should it be dropped (ie, clipped where you can follow the cord to pull back to your hand.)  Your b/u (and you must have at least one) needs to, again, be somewhere easy to locate, especially in the dark as this is used if your main goes out, but is secured where it is not dangling in the way or wrapping around other items and equally if not more important, not dragging where it will disturb, disrupt or injure any sea life.  Make sure your compass can be easily reached and used and that you can access your gauges and/or dive computer easily and read them all in the dark.  For me this has taken some practice, so despite looking like an idiot, I have geared up a couple times and hidden in a dark room to make sure I can find my compass, reach my lights, and control my computer... so far so good.  We'll see what Friday night brings and I'll let you know all about the adventures that await me in the dark, when once again I get "In Over My Head..."

I CAN BREATHE, I CAN BREATHE....

Or rather you can, or any other injured or distressed diver that I might come across...lol.  Last night I had the wonderful opportunity of being trained one on one by Shannon in Emergency O2.  The Emergency O2 specialty covers everything you need to know to administer Emergency O2, from how to recognize signals that someone is in distress, how to set-up the air, test it, what to say to the individual in distress and finally how to administer the O2 until medical help arrives. 

It's funny how much I am starting to feel like I belong at OPD, maybe one day they'll give me a key...lol.  I arrived a few minutes early last night and just waited out front for Shannon but had to laugh when she arrived and opened the door for me.  You see Shannon hurt her back recently (that was not the funny part) and was bringing gear (laundry) back to the shop, but due to her injury she is unable to lift anything so I had to go to her truck and bring in her laundry.  It's just like being at home, grab the laundry and get it put away...lol. 

It was a great night and lots of learning, instead of going through the book page by page and reviewing the chapter review one question at a time, because it was just the two of us, Shannon took me through everything in detail asking me questions along the way.  How fast should the flow be? What are the 2 different types of mask systems? What is Oxygen? What is it made up of? Why is it important? What does it do in the body?  It turns out in one of the recent classes Shannon was teaching, she had a Doctor in the class who was able to detail out exactly what the process is, from how much O2 the body actually absorbs, how much is exhaled, how that differs with exertion level, and what exactly it is doing in your body.  Shannon was kind enough to walk me through a similar conversation, and due to my gross lack of biology knowledge this was a great experience for me.  I now see lungs in a completely different way, no longer are they just bags that sit inside you and hold your air, they are complex systems of branches upon branches of what are called bronchi ending in bronchioles the thickness of a human hair!  This is where O2 is absorbed and then moved through your body... man we are an amazing creation!

After assembling and disassembling all 3 of the O2 units OPD has, and talking through all of the differences in masks, portability, ease of use, set-up, and additional tools.  Shannon then tested me by asking me to, given a scenario, (1)  pick which unit I would prefer to have, (2) set it up, (3) talk through what I would say to the diver, and (4) explain why I would have used this unit in the configuration that I did.  We went through a few scenarios so that I got experienced with a couple of the units and different masks and the uses of each depending on the divers status and the amount of O2 to be delivered and how it was to be delivered.

OPD (Ocean Pro Divers) has a great policy in regards to their Emergency O2 and their Emergency training.  Once you have received the training you are welcome (and encouraged) to repeat the course when they offer it again, free of charge, to ensure you are keeping up on all your skills.  Additionally, they allow divers to take out their O2 kits so that the kit is available should a diver need it, instead of just sitting in the shop where it doesn't do anybody any good. 

I am happy to say, I am now certified to administer Emergency O2... now I hope i will never need to...lol.  I am getting quite the collection of certification cards... and next month... NIGHT DIVING!!

It's Dark... Very, Very Dark....

So last night marked the first two of our five Adventure dives, needless to say I was a wee bit excited.  The shop had given me new gear to try, this time using a neoprene dry suit.  So after calculating the additional weight required to account for the new buoyancy of the suit, I was all good to go.  So with Virpi as our guide we geared up and descended into the depths.  Our first of two adventure dives on the night was our Wreck dive,  after a surface swim (I hate surface swims.. lol) to the Grant Hall marker, we grouped, signaled and descended to set foot, for the first time, on the deck of a boat that has been serving as a natural reef for years.  Once grouped at the bottom we made a slow search around the wreck both down where it was buried in the silt and along it's upper surfaces.  With our lights on and a careful scan of the underbelly of the ship we were able to discover an octopus den, not sure if our friend was at home or not, but you could tell he had been eating well, by all the crab shells outside of his house.  A beautiful kite fish caught our attention as it skirted along the bottom of the ship but staying just long enough for us all to have a good look.  Along the upper surfaces of the Grant Hall we were able to meet up with a Decorator Crab, no, not Martha Stewart, this is an actual crustacean who uses bits of seaweed, sponges and debris and sticks it to itself as a disguise, I didn't see him until Virpi pointed him out and disturbed the water nearby so that he moved a bit.  Then out of the corner of my eye I caught what surely have been a shark or a barracuda or some other man-eating creature of the deep.  It ducked down inside a crevice between a holding tank and the bulkhead, (ok, obviously not a shark...) so me being inquisitive (and a little dumb) I moved in on the crevice to take a closer look and with the help of my dive light, found myself face to face with one of the largest Ling Cod I have ever seen.  He must have been about 12 feet long and at least a thousand pounds... ok, maybe 4 feet long, but the menacing look he gave me was really scary.. lol.  After a quick once more over the surface of the boat we found ourselves back at the chain and ready for our ascent to the surface... and another surface swim in and back out for our next dive, our last dive of the night, our Night Dive!

So after a quick break, a Nutrigrain bar and a tank change, no that's not code for bathroom break, although it would work, this was an actually tank change, we headed back down the stairs of Porteau.  After some trouble with my fins, which should have been a sign that this was not going to be my night, we made our surface swim out the the marker buoy, fortunately not as far this time as the Grant Hall, and prepared for our decent.  I'll stop here so you can get a idea of what this looks like, it's after 8:00pm (closer to 9:00), it's dark, darker than dark.  Here in the city, night is spoiled by light pollution, street lights, neighbors, headlights, etc.  up at Porteau we have a couple parking lot lights and the lights in the distance on the opposite shore... it's DARK!  Add to that the fact that we are now going to drop down 30+ feet below the surface loosing color, light and visibility more and more the deeper we go... it's REALLY REALLY DARK!

Here is where life gets interesting or mildly more dramatic, unfortunately I was already having issues with my buoyancy by this point, neoprene is more buoyant so it takes more weight and a slightly different approach to obtain and maintain neutral buoyancy.  Little did I know I was already coming down with a cold and my lungs were already working harder than they should, add the fact that my jaw (a long standing medical issue I've been dealing with for years) decided to act up after nearly 9 months of no issues.  So lets condense, we have me 30+ feet under water, pitch black except for my (and my groups) dive lights, body already tired and sore, lungs already working over-time, and a dry suit that wants to make an ascent to the surface with or without me...lol.  So we are going to practice our Navigation swim, again not a skill I am fond of but one that is essential.  My job is to swim in the direction Virpi points, keep my needle in the marks, and my partner counts kick cycles, hit 15 cycles, turn around and swim back keeping the needle in the reverse position and after 15 kick cycles we should be back where we started.  Sounds simple, and I am sure for those with a decent sense of direction or even me under normal circumstances it would have been ok.  Now remember, I'm already having issues, so here is roughly what happened, my partner and I started to swim, I can't see bottom, all I can see is my compass and all I can feel is my partners hand on my arm.  I am struggling for some reason to keep the needle in the marks and my partner is pulling at my arm, not knowing what he was trying to tell me I turn to see him giving me the thumbs up, which in diving means ascend, so I turn to ascend and grab my low pressure inflator for my BCD to prepare for my ascent, look at my partner and break the surface... completely disoriented, I thought we were still right along the bottom, apparently the pulling at my arm was my partner realizing I was ascending the whole time and he was trying to signal that I was going up.  After getting my bearings and swimming back to the marker buoy with my partner we started our re-decent and that is when the "fun" started.  The hood i was wearing was too big for me so when I looked down on my decent and exhaled, the air caught in my hood, sliding my hood back and pulled my regulator out of my mouth. Unfortunately I was inhaling at the time and took water down my throat.  It's funny though, looking back, how fast your training, if you are trained by good instructors, kicks in automatically.  Upon hitting the surface and knowing buoyancy was my first and only concern, I reached for my BCD low pressure inflator, unfortunately my gauges were still over my shoulder from the navigation swim so I couldn't find the inflator, so I did the next best thing, I inflated my drysuit, giving me enough buoyancy to take a breathe or two, take my gauges back off my shoulder grab the low pressure inflator for my BCD and add air to my BCD.  Now that I was floating safely, it was time to kick back to the marker so that I was centralized for when my group surfaced, engage my lights in the possibility that in the dark my group may see the light above and realize I was still on the surface.  Sure enough, after only a minute (seems longer when you're waiting) my group surfaced, checked on me, we got regrouped and descended for a tour of the dark bottom and a surface swim back to the vehicles and on our way back to the shop to switch out tanks then home to rest.  After-all, we'll be back in the water today.

Schools back from Summer!

I know the Alice Cooper song is actually Schools out for Summer, and that was what my kids were celebrating a couple months back.  But for me, I am excited to be back at school, last night marked my return to OPD (Ocean Pro Divers) for the start of my Advanced Diver training.  I have spent the last week trying to read through the entire Adventures in Diving book which includes an intro, a review quiz of Open Water diving to make sure it is fresh in your mind and then a chapter and review for each of the potential, I believe, 14 specialties you can choose from.  In this we were supposed to have at least a few read and try to narrow down what we were interested in doing.  To complete your Advanced you need to complete 5 adventure dives, Navigation (my least favorite), Deep (the one I am most excited about) and then 3 of our choosing.  Options include, Altitude, Aware Fish ID, Boat, Photography, Video, Naturalist, Drift, Dry Suit (which I am already certified on), Multi-level, Night, Search and Recovery, Wreck, and Peak Performance Buoyancy.  Our group of three managed to narrow it down to Night, Wreck and PPB (Peak Performance Buoyancy.)  Now it's time to read through the 3 additional sections and get the homework done and be ready to dive Saturday afternoon.  We will be starting our dives late on Saturday as we are going to try to get 2 dives in (probably Wreck and PPB) before the sun goes down and then in the dark of night slip back into the water for a night dive... I'm both excited and afraid... is now when I tell people I'm not a huge fan of the dark...lol.  Sunday will be our final 2 dives including the one i am most looking forward to, our Deep dive, I believe we are going to 80 feet... that's a whole heck of a long way down!  Well, wish me luck and I will report on Sunday (or Monday) how the dives have gone.