Dive 124


Anytime I am exposed to an event that is out of the ordinary and very pleasant, it reveals to me a pleasant afterglow. Whether it is a vacation, sex, or in todays case, diving, I get pleasure in just thinking about it after the fact.



Today I dived number 124 for 50 minutes, in a dry suit, side mount, in cold water. This is my first dry suit dive since April when I dived with a busted disc and didn't know it at the time.

Dry diving adds several layers of complexity one doesn't experience in wetsuit diving. There are weight differences, I added 26 pounds to my rig and normally add only 12 pounds. There is an additional inflator hose, I already have a rats nest of hoses with one wrapped around my neck. There are more things to think about and monitor. All this is for the added thermal protection of being dry.


On the onset I had a leaking hose that I had to change out. Then at 65 feet I switched regulators and took in a bunch of water.

Part of dive training is tricking ones mind to "not panic" when something goes wrong. Something was wrong and I switched back to the original gas source. The faulty regulator was so close to my neck that I could not see what was wrong. My breathing increased from stress. I signaled my dive buddy to look and he indicated it looked fine. It wasn't though.

I was breathing a lot of air. I got my wits, trimmed out and though about what it could be.

I reasoned that the mouthpiece was crimped by the necklace around my neck, so I pulled the mouthpiece away from the necklace and that fixed my problem at 65 feet.



Now I needed to calm down and enjoy the weightlessness, the peacefulness, and I did. It ended up to be a nice dive and as always, a learning experience.

Ah, the afterglow.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Again....the Copernicus of Caroline.