Arrrr' We be searching for yer burried treasure!

Ok, so I suck as a pirate, especially a pirate diver... the parrot keeps drowning...lol.  I know, bad joke.  But this was in fact how we spent last Sunday afternoon.  Saturday was my Emergency First Responder course, which as you can see from  I Can Save Your Life... I Just Don't Want To!.  was kind of an intense course.  But Sunday was fun in the sun!  Ok, it wasn't sunny, more rainy, but it was still a ton of fun.  For Sunday, as a continuation to last weeks Hide and Seek! class, in dive number one we had a large object (several weight belts in a milk crate) "lost" by Dennis Chow in Whytecliffe Park in a general direction. Additionally a "treasure" was deposited out in the bay as well for dive number 2 for the day (dive number 4 in the course).  Our objective, using the Jackstay search pattern, cover 40,000 square feet of a search grid, find the "lost" item, secure it using the knots learned and practiced in previous dives and with a lift bag, recover the object.


In my class was myself and two fellow students.  Between the three of us we sorted out who was carrying reels, and who was carrying our pegs.  With that established it was on to planning our search and mapping our grid.  Now with the Jackstay search pattern (pictured below) you create a base line, for us it was 100 feet long, staked at both ends.

Now attaching your second line to a post on your base line you swim directly away in the direction of search using your compass to remain perpendicular to your base line.  While swimming with your partner(s) one navigating, and one running your second line attached back on the base line, you swim out 100 feet.  At the 100 foot mark you secure your reel to a post in the ground and you have created your search axis.  Within that 100 x 100 foot section or 10,000 sq feet should be your "lost" item, if it is not you return to your base line and form a new axis using the other 270 degrees off the base, covering 40,000 sq feet, or the size of a decent warehouse, strewn with rocks, debris and  tree stumps and covered in silt.  By following back along your newly created axis fanned out to search more area you look for your lost item, upon reaching your base line you pull up your axis post move it along your base line a predetermined distance re-secure the post and follow the line back to the past at the other end.  Pull this post, move the predetermined distance, re-secure and swim it again.  This goes on until the item is found or you have covered the entire base line and move on to the next 90 degree search grid.

 
After completing a few runs along our search grid we were able to locate our "lost" item and using our knot skills tied up to the crate, secured the lift bag and added, in short bursts, enough air to get the bag off the ground.  Then with crate in tow, moved back to collect our reels and pegs, stow them and then float our recovered lost item to the surface and move it in to shore.  Now, as with every course I take, there are always moments of particular humor or surprise or both, and Sundays dive one was no exception.  You see to start with, during about pass three or four, we swam over and located our "treasure" that we were to recover in dive two on the day, so we all tried to make note of it's location while Dennis laughed at us.  Then to make our recovery a little more interesting, Dennis' lift bag has a few small leaks so once full and lifting a large weight, it starts to lose air and then sinks.  We did not notice this at first and lifted, as we are trained, using a reel attached to the object so that should it slip loose you can re-recover.  We also, following the rules, ascended out from under the crate to keep from having it, or anything else fall on our heads.  Well, it was a good thing we followed the rules and part of me still wonders if we got this lift bag to test us, but sure enough after we reached the surface and prepared to tow in our recovered object, it was no longer on the surface... a quick glance under the surface allowed one of my partners and I to watch as our crate slowly descended to the bottom of the bay again.  Some quick signals right out of our open water course allowed us to, without removing our regs, signal all was good and descend.  Working together again as a team, my partner and I were able to quickly descend the 20+ feet to the crate and with my partner in charge of the reel, I was able to fully inflate the lift bag and together, my partner, the crate and I all ascended to the surface to join back with our other team mate and Dennis and with my partner towing I swam behind using my snorkel, and with my alternate in hand, fed air into the bag when needed to keep it afloat.  With shore not far off it was a quick swim, lift out our "lost" item and head up to the parking lot for some hot chocolate and food before heading out to "re"locate our treasure. Snacks were in the bellies quick, followed by a touch of hot, hot chocolate and then it was time to gear up and head back to the water.

There is definitely something to be said for over-confidence in a water environment, and obviously our fearless captain was well aware of this as my team of three completed our safety checks on each other and then started our surface swim to where we believed our treasure would be laying in wait.  Shortly before leaving Dennis asked how long we thought we would be, with a large measure of confidence we informed him we would surface in 5 - 10 minutes, if it even took us that long...lol.  During our surface swim we discussed our plan, it was decided that based on our general confidence that we should be able to drop right down on it we decided an expanding square pattern would be best and knowing that our depth at the time of sighting was less than 30 feet we knew that any leg of our search that took us deeper could be cut short.  We had a plan, we had confidence, we were a team.... we were wrong!!  lol... We swam to where we figured we should be right above it and descended figuring we should land right on top of it, then be able to grab it and surface and be the fasted class in the history of this course for finding their "treasure". (Not that anyone actually tracks who the fastest team is).  But as mentioned, upon reaching the bottom, our "treasure" was not there.  A slow rotation in the water as one might do during separation on a night dive, led us no closer to finding our object.  So it was time to get serious, with a quick look at the compass and a few signals between the team we set off as practiced and started our expanding square, noting land-marks (which all look the same by the way), we had a lot of "Oh, look, a rock, let's see if it's behind that one..."  which under water sounds more like "mmm mmm (point point) mm mmm mmm  (bubble bubble) mmm m mmm mmmmm"...lol.  Fortunately we followed our training and instead of doing a random swim after every rock or object that looked like it could be our object, we stuck to our squares, avoiding going deeper than necessary, our shape was more of an expanding rectangle, but sure enough after 10 minutes, we had still not found it....  So on we went, fifteen minutes and still nothing, (good thing I am on bigger tanks, on AL80's I was only getting 20 minutes), then or turn four, the magical turn four, where Cole Trickle passed Russ Wheeler to win Daytona in Days of Thunder.... no sorry... wrong turn four... on our turn four or fourth square, there where we should have looked first, was a rock, like every other rock, except this one had our mesh bag sitting beside it, and inside our mesh bag... our treasure!

Seeing as our treasure was very light it was simple enough to swim to and have one of my team members tie it off to her belt, a gentle ascent to the surface, a quick wave to Dennis to advise we were all good and complete with treasure in had at 18 minutes.  With the confirmation wave from Dennis on shore, we gave each other that satisfying grin, knowing that we had once again, as a team completed our task and it was now time for some fun.  With quick signals and pressure checks, down we went and with one partner in the lead just off my left shoulder and my other partner just off my right we moved out along the bay at a relaxed pace to just enjoy the surroundings, the quietness and the company.

After a good search, a clean recovery and then the return from our recreational / tour portion of the day it was time to return to the vehicles, strip off our gear, pack up our vehicles and then open our mesh bag, and with deliberate and careful hands pass around our prize, one for each of us, a nice, very cold (thank you ocean refrigeration) Granville Island beer.  With another course complete, our prizes enjoyed, and the gear stowed safely away, it was once again, time to call it a day and head home till next the ocean called, and with gear and friends in place we respond.  Of course I happen to know it's gonna be calling about the same time next Sunday, when my same team returns to complete another course and become... Team Naturalist!

Hide and Seek!

Ok... so I am a day late with my update and my apologies to everyone who was looking for it yesterday as promised.  Sunday was day one of my Search and Recovery course, which Shannon and Dennis graciously postponed from December so that I was able to attend.  After meeting up with Dennis and Matt and the other two students in my class at Whytecliff, we got our kits put together and sat down to review the first half of our review questions.  A quick once over of the questions showed that everyone had reviewed their manuals and despite a few questions we were all on the same page and anxious to get into the water.  One final step of the surface review had us practicing and demonstrating our knots for Dennis and Matt.  The three knots used and practiced in the PADI Search and Recovery course are the Bowline, Sheet-Bend and Two Half-Hitches. 

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. 

What was that? Speak up and talk into my good ear!

Ok, so those that have been following along know that I had to really work this last weekend to get my ears to clear because of this stupid cold I've got in my sinus'.  Well today i went to see my family doctor because it felt like I had a blockage or build-up in my ear, nothing too serious, I've had it before and the doctor just rinses the ear with warm water and presto everything is good.  So I went to see him today to get my ear flushed to have him let me know that in fact, I had no blockage, the reason my ear feels funny is that I have a collapsed ear drum!

Apparently when I was pushing to clear my ears under water I moved the "gunk" (big medical term) through my sinuses and into my ear canal (no idea how everything in there connects but somehow apparently it does) and when my eardrums collapsed to equalize the pressure of being under water, the one stuck in place.  So even when i had ascended and dried off and returned home, my ear never re-equalized leaving me unable to hear in one ear for a while.

According to the doctor, my ear should clear itself in about 2 - 4 weeks, if it doesn't then an ENT specialist will need to insert tubes which will take me out of diving for another 8 - 10 weeks.  Let's just all hope and pray my ears get better and no tubes are needed.  Plus I have Search and Recovery coming up in a couple weeks.

Fingers crossed!