My Underwater Life...

Come Fly with Me

2012-01-23T22:15:00.001-06:00

It's about a year and half too late! But never late than never, I suppose. Here is a video from a dive in Cozumel that I did in June 2010. The dive site was Paso Del Cedral.

Come Fly with Me from James Williams on Vimeo.

UTD Cave Week Video

2011-11-22T13:32:00.000-06:00

Here is a nice video of some of the cave dives that we did during Cave Week. It was a blast! I can't wait to go back!

The Future of the Riviera Maya

2011-11-22T13:29:00.003-06:00

The Riviera Maya is home to one of the largest fresh water sources in the world. It provides life to the area and feeds both the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Human encroachment and development is threatening the aquifer and in return will threaten the seas. Please watch this video and share it with others.

Video's from Recent Dives

2011-11-18T10:57:00.000-06:00

Here are some video's from recent dives in Mexico as well as Rock Lake.

Lowering Gear into The Pit:

Jumping into The Pit:

Raising Gear out of The Pit:

Rock Lake Nav Searies - 70' Crystals:

The J Team has some fun at Rock Lake:

UTD Rocky Mountains Mapping the Lake:

Turquoise Lake:

Deep Crystal Shelf, Rock Lake:

It's Never Just Diving with a UTD Instructor, Tulum Edition

2011-11-15T13:43:00.001-06:00

I've been back in the states now for a few days and I've had some time to reflect on my adventure in Tulum. I close my eyes and I can still see the jungle, the caves, and my friends in Tulum. It really was a pretty amazing trip.

The first week was to be UTD Cave Diver training. One of the "J Team" members and myself have been talking about taking a cave course for about five years or so. Originally, we intended to take GUE Cave 1, and earlier this year we decided that we would bite the bullet and planned on taking the class this fall. We started our initial planning and by late spring, we had an opportunity to meet Emanuela "Ela" Bertoni and take UTD Overhead Protocols with her. After spending a few days with her, my team mate and I were set. We wanted to take the UTD Cave Diver course with Ela and also wanted to attend UTD Cave Week that Adam Korytko and Ela were hosting through their dive center, Cave Heaven.

Let me just say, that I believe we absolutely made the correct choice. The UTD Cave Diver program is a combination of UTD Cave 1 and Cave 2. Cave 1 is mainline only, utilizing 1/3's - rock bottom for gas planning and Cave 2 includes complex navigation. We showed up with our heads screwed on and ready to rock. The Overhead Protocols class gave us a base skill set that we could practice before the class, which helped tremendously. That allowed us to focus on team building, communication, and procedure differences. Which is a great thing, because the caves in Mexico are a complex maze of underground, underwater passage ways and it would be very easy to get completely lost. We experienced many simulated failures during the class including, but not limited to, gas failures, light failures, lost buddy, lost line, blind exits while navigating jumps and T's. I have a whole new respect and appreciation of the overhead environment now. I was thoroughly pleased with the class.

As amazing as the class was, the hospitality of Adam, Ela, and many of the Tulum locals was what really made the trip. Cave Heaven is no ordinary dive shop where you go in, pay your money, do some dives, and leave. They have really built a social environment that is refreshing to be around. After a day of diving, we would all sit around and have a couple drinks while telling stories of the day or just dive stories in general. The way that their dive shop is laid out, it really is meant to be the center of the larger aspect of diving, which is hanging out with your friends and sharing your dive experiences. Beyond the social aspect, Adam and Ela are spectacular hosts! Adam and Ela graciously loaned me their personal gear during the two week stay; from a drysuit, when my neck seal ripped on the second day; to a primary light when it became apparent early on that the bulb on my HID had seen better days. Those types of accommodations would be something that you would expect from your friends, not a dive retailer, and I am grateful to them for that.

Cave Week were my first cave dives outside of class. What a treat that was! Every dive was amazing, with every dive seemingly getting better and better. Everything from decorated passages with soda straws, stalactites, and stalagmites, fossils of prehistorical marine life, bones of animals that seemingly felt out of place, places of historical and cultural value. These places really got my imagination going. We had Bill Phillips give a presentation of the R.E.M., Referencing Exit Marker, and Adam also gave a very interesting presentation on the formation of the cenote's, the cave passages, and the relevance that they played in Mayan culture.

With as good of a time that we had, I suppose that all great things must come to an end. It was a shame to have to leave, but I'll soon be back!

Here is Cave Heavens' Blog of Cave Week.

Also, our friend, Andrea Schenato made an excellent video of our cave training! Check it out!

Thanks to the great people at Cave Heaven, our driver during Cave Week - Manuel, and Marco and Daniele at iTour Mexico for your amazing hospitality! Ya'll guys are amazing and really made the trip!

UTD Tech 1 - "Let's go for a swim..."

2010-06-15T20:20:00.034-05:00

"Let's go for a swim..." Those were the last words I remembered our instructor, George Watson, say to us before we submerged for the first dives of our Tech 1 class. Knowing what I know now, George is a horrible team mate. Disasters seems to strike when ever he starts a dive with "Let's go for a swim". I've never had so many entanglements, broken lights, blind buddies, failed buoyancy devices, or failed gas supplies in my life with any other team mate. Did I mention that many of those failures were simultaneous?

Let me put it into perspective for you; during one dive, my buddy was mask-less, out of back gas and had a failed deco gas supply. During our simulated deco ascent, I did my deco, stowed the reg and proceeded to attach my deco bottle to my blind, out of gas team mate. When we surfaced George commented on how comfortable that we were in the water, but we really didn't need to do a blind bottle pass when the team was already that compromised. It was George's way of saying Good job, now don't do that again. We experienced many moments like that throughout the class.

The dives started off simple, pretty much where my Fundamentals class left off, but quickly became more complex, to the point where my brain seemed to shutdown at one point in time and I couldn't interpret which gas failure George was trying to throw at us, much less figure out how to fix the problem. I left that weekend fairly disappointed in my performance, but knew that a break away from the class would do some good and I would be able to self-analyze the dives and wrap my head around the failures.

I came back during our next training weekend with my "A" game and ready to complete our critical skills dives so that we could begin our experience dives. This weekend, a third team mate had joined our two man team. All of our names start with the letter J and we were quickly named the "J Team". I had dove with everybody in our team before, so I mostly knew what to expect. During our critical skills dive, George threw multiple complex failures at us, which we handled almost flawlessly. Then we started our blue water ascent, which started off fairly relaxed... in the beginning, but quickly turned into multiple failures with multiple lost masks, lost gases, and failed buoyancy devices; while doing our simulated deco. I was impressed by how quickly our team came together to deal with the failures. When we surfaced, George made a few minor critiques on our team work, which we were already well aware of before we surfaced, but George was pleased enough to allow us to start planning our experience dives.

During our surface interval, we blew down the remaining gas in our back gas / deco tanks, began blending for our experience dives, and began planning our first of two experience dives. We wrote our profiles in our wet notes, which George went over with us before the dive to make sure that we weren't going to kill ourselves.

Then came the dives. I started both dives a little more nervous than most dives. George didn't start either dive with "Let's go for a swim", so that eased my mind a little bit. I was more nervous about the significant deco that would be incurred instead of my skills or depth of the dive. I was confident in my ability to do the dives, but since these were firsts for me, I was intensely focused on the execution of the dives. Both dives went off without a hitch. The vividness and the fine details of the things that I remember were amazing. I had done this same dive previously without helium or the significant deco and I only thought that I remembered the details of the dives. I've now seen and remembered things from these dives that I have not experienced before; from the white algae looking substance with tiny green spores, the tiny crustaceans bobbing in and out of the silt, a translucent fish, and the gypsum crystals that are more abundant and unique from the crystals in the shallower depths. I'm excited to explore some more and now have a license to learn, grow, and gain more experience.

Overall, this class was an excellent experience. Ocean First Divers, where the class was hosted for the academics and pool portion, was a very clean, professional, and personal dive shop. It was the first time that I've been in a shop with an attached, indoor pool. Very nice! George is a patient and talented instructor. He put up with many hours of newbish questions, walking us through thought processes, and the numerous personal blunders. And the team.... Being familiar with the other members of J Team made the critical skills easier to deal with and made the overall experience that much more enjoyable.

On a parting note, I'd like to display a public service announcement from the "J Team". I pity the foo' who has to enter the water with George when he starts the dive by saying "Let's go for a swim..."

Rock Lake & Blue Hole - Santa Rosa, NM - January 23-24 2010

2010-01-31T18:53:00.002-06:00

I met up with some buddies to do a handful of dives last weekend. I've been contemplating new dives to do in Rock Lake for a while and my primary dive buddy and I had been shooting emails back and forth to come up with a dive plan. With the dive plan set, we met up to do our dives. We ended up modifying our dive plan a bit at the last minute so that we could accommodate another dive buddy. All in all, we only shaved off about 10 minutes of our dive plan, which ended up being a 96 minute run time.

When we got into the water, the air temperature was running about 35 degrees and the winds were blowing slightly out of the west. When we surfaced, the winds had picked up dramatically and were blowing about a constant 40+ mph. We really wanted to get back into the 55 degree water, as it was much warmer then the air temperatures, especially when factoring in the wind.

After our single dive at Rock Lake we packed it up and went to the Blue Hole, where we were much more protected by the wind and we had some pretty good dives playing with scooters, practicing some of our skills, and taking pictures. All in all, it was a good weekend of diving... Not that I've ever had a bad weekend of diving. :)

Here are some of the video's from the weekend. Pictures can be seen here.

Rock Lake - This is a very short video, compared to our run time during the dive. During this dive we decided to turn what we normally do over two dives, into a single dive. We visited the gypsum crystals at 100ft on the east wall and another set of gypsum crystals at 70ft on the southeast wall.

Blue Hole - This is just a fun video of us playing with the x-scooters in Blue Hole. Turns out, that's a good was to keep entertained in the Blue Hole. :)

Valve Drill - This is just me performing a valve drill.

It's never just diving with a UTD instructor

2009-08-18T21:57:00.003-05:00

Jason and I met up with George Watson and his Tech 1 student (Stephen) this past weekend, with the idea to dive and talk about UTD and the classes that he is able to teach. Little did we know that George had some other plans for us. His student was solo this weekend because his team mates bailed on him at the last minute, so George wanted my buddy and I to act as his team mates so that he could practice some of the skills.

The first dive was a shakedown dive with valve drills and OOG's. I wasn't performing my best since I it was my first time wearing double LP72's and I didn't quite have the trimmed out correctly. So I was yo-yoing a bit trying to find that happy medium. After a quick debrief, George must have felt confident that we weren't going to kill each other or him, so we did a really cool experience dive to look at some gypsum crystals growing out of a clay bank.

I must say that I've only dove on this site a few times, but have never really had an opportunity to explore. So this really turned out to be a real treat for me. Out of the local sites we have available, Rock Lake is truly unique. The geologic features of the spring has some similarities of some other local springs, but at the same time are dramatically different.

After a surface interval that included some land drills and George explaining how to *cough* manage some scenarios (that should have been a clue of what was to come), we were back in the water. My buddy was to blow an SMB to use as an upline, while Stephen, was to run the line south along the spring. We experienced fixable post failures, unfixable post failures, lost mask, and even an instance where we were buddy breathing because of the available working regs between us. We even experienced a couple failures that weren't due to George, such as line entanglement and light failures. Luckily, my battery died on my primary light during deco on one of our experience dives.

On our last dive on Friday, George gave us our first dose of crack, for free of course. It was my first time to pilot an x..... I must have one... Dammit, George!

I went into the weekend expecting some simple dives and chatting up George, but what we got was completely different. It's very cool to see how you handle failures when your head isn't in class mode. Over all, we could have handled some things differently, but no body died and I think that's a big plus. Two days, 11 dives, excellent weekend. I think my buddy and I will be starting our Tech 1 class with George in the early spring.

Our first dive on Saturday morning was one of the coolest dives that I've ever experienced. It was dark, except for our light sabers lighting up the wall. If you looked up, all you could see was a green silhouette of the surface. If you looked down, all you saw was a vast wall in front of you disappear into the abyss. And the gypsum crystals hiding in plain site stole the show for the weekend. That was a completely unexpected surprise. I loved it.

My favorite moment was when I had a left post failure, so my only breathable reg was on my primary reg, Stephen was maskless and I was guiding him up the line via touch contact, and Jason and George were having a pretty detailed underwater conversation, where George was telling Jason to go OOG and take Stephens primary regulator. Jason, being the nice guy that he is wanted to make sure that George really wanted him to do that. After a few moments, George reached down, took Stephen's primary, and gave it to Jason. I have to admit, I was chuckling a bit by that.

I have my chance to break away, but I may not take it.

2009-07-29T19:28:00.005-05:00

I've spent a good portion of the year getting ready to break away from my normal day to day life to go beach bumming around the world. Finally, I have a possibility of going to work for a reputable live aboard and I may not take it. You see, I've also "unofficially" been offered a job locally that has been growing like wild fire, even through the recession, and has a laid back, friendly atmosphere. They are also offering me a good sum of money. So the question is Beach bum it for little money, with almost no expenses, and live the life style, OR white collar it locally with a thriving, friendly company with good pay? It's something that I've been trying to wrap my head around for a few days.

The Texas Clipper - July 18, 2009

2009-07-21T19:29:00.002-05:00

A buddy and I made a long road trip down to South Padre for a four day weekend, last weekend. While we were there we dove on the Texas Clipper through American Diving.

It's a longish boat ride out to the clipper (18 miles off the coast / about an hour boat ride). We had a mild surge (2 ft surge) the entire way out there, so it wasn't too bad. We had the privilege of diving with four disabled vets (two of them recently back from Iraq). Great bunch of people.

Current's were mild, visibility was about 40 - 60 ft. Apparently there were shrimpers scraping the sea floor around the clipper shortly before we arrived at the site at around 8AM. We did two shortish dives. 85 fsw for 35 minutes. It's a long ways out for a couple of short dives. I would have been more pleased with three or even four dives to really get a feel for the ship. She's about 350 ft long and sits in about 120 of water. Either way, we had a good time.

Here's a short video from the dives. (My third over all attempt at underwater video... I'm slowly getting better...)

Five Years of Diving.

2009-05-18T17:37:00.005-05:00

So, I was bored last night, was looking through some pictures, and realized that five years ago this month I became a certified diver. I threw a handful of pictures into Google's Picasa and this is what it came out with.

It's pretty cool to watch the progression from a poodle jacket wearing numpty, to my first dive in doubles, to a reasonably competent diver who actually is allowed to share my passion in a professional setting. I've met some wonderful people, been to some awe-inspiring locations, and have seen so much more than I would have ever imagined when I first started diving. This truly is a lifestyle. I can't wait to see where my diving is five, 10, and even 50 years from now.

March 2009 Dive and Jive

2009-03-18T19:44:00.005-05:00

I met up with some buddies from Colorado and New Mexico to do a long weekend of diving and general goofing off. It was an excellent weekend of diving, food, and company. Throughout the weekend I did seven dives, which were all relaxing and exactly what I needed as I have spent the majority of my free time readying my house to sell lately. What a total relaxing weekend with good friends! Here is a video I made of the weekend.

This is my third attempt at shooting underwater video. My second attempt doesn't count since there really wasn't any usable video. My editing is getting a little better, although, I was too lazy to try to correct the color since I wasn't using a filter.

Here are some of the things that I learned from shooting this weekend:

1. If the water has a lot of particulate, then it's probably better to use manual focus. I noticed that my video would go out of focus for short periods of time when there was a sudden wash of particulate in front of the camera.

2. Don't assume that those water spots on the housing lens will go away once you're in the water. I didn't notice it all weekend, but my video shows a water spot on the lens from previous use. Note to self: take some Windex to the lens before the next dive.

3. When shooting with a wide angle, it's best to get closer to the smaller subjects, such as fish and crawdads.

4. I really should try to shoot some video with the red filter to see how much light it cuts out. It may turn out decent.

2009 is the Year for Opportunity!

2009-02-24T21:52:00.003-06:00

Surely everybody knows that 2009 is the year that I am leaving Amarillo. Many of my latest blogs and discussions with friends and family have revolved around steps that I'm taking in getting ready to move, but the last two weeks have been full of realization that this is really going to happen this year.

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you know that I have been promoting, spamming, and pushing my Australia video application like a drug dealer pushes crack. Working in the tourism industry in Australia for a six month contract would be a HUGE boost to what I really want to do, at least for the next few years. What do I want to do, you ask? I want to travel the world, island hopping, and working as a divemaster along the way. Getting the Australia job would allow me to gain some excellent experience in promoting tourism, allow me to explore the wonders of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef, and to $105K USD for six months of work would go a long way to providing a rainy day fund for my global trotting. Even if I don't get the job, I'm still proud that my video is ranked in the top 1% out of 34,000 video applications. That means a lot to me and I have my friends and family to thank for helping that happen!

That's not the only opportunity I'm exploring. Last week, out of no where, I got an email from a local US Army recruiter asking if I would speak with him. What really through me for a loop is that he emailed an email address that I typically don't give out on web sites, just because I use it for friends and family and don't want the spam. I have no idea how he got the emal address, but I spoke with him and will be going in to speak with him on Thursday. This wasn't an opportunity that I was expecting, but I'm not going to turn down the possibility. I'm going to explore all options available to me and ultimately make my decision in the next few months. I also put a add on the employment forum on the PADI members website. The PADI members website is where PADI dive professionals can network on job opportunities around the globe. Anyways, I've recieved to emails from potential employeers today, both seeking divemasters in tropical locations. One is for a position in Maldives and the other is in St. Maarten.

Maldives is located about 435 miles south east of Sri Lanka/India in the Indian Ocean and St. Maarten is in the post Atlantic, south west of Puerto Rico. I'm totally excited.

I'm also looking at the possibilities at doing Scuba Instructor internships. Doing so would make it easier to gain employment while traveling. I'm looking at a 2 - 6 month internship in Pattaya, Thailand! I have a lot to think about as I'm finishing up my house over the next few months. Wow!

Best Job in the World!

2009-02-20T16:45:00.002-06:00

Hey Guys/Gals,
I'm sure many of you have hear of Australia's "Best Job in the World", and I would appreciate any help that you can provide. My video application has been accepted and Tourism Queensland will be selecting their top 50 candidates for voting starting March 2. It would be awesome if you could visit the link below, watch my video, and rate it. Rating it, at this point doesn't officially gain me any head way with beling selected, but it could help the Tourism Queensland panel make a decision to select me as a top 50 finalist. I would much appreciate your help!
Thanks,
James
My Video:
http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/HPTIfYyWOO8
Information on the "Best Job in the World"
http://www.islandreefjob.com

Operation: Get out of Dodge - Phase 1

2009-01-04T19:56:00.003-06:00

The holidays are out of the way. Now it's time to get my rear in gear and get things moving.

I'm currently working on the first phase of being able to move with out having to worry about any obligations that I leave behind. Phase 1 is prepping my house for sale. There are many things that I'm doing around my house to make it more attractive to perspective buyers, as well as maximize the potential profit from my house.

Those things are kitchen and bathroom remodels, painting, refinishing the wood floors, and getting the landscaping outside looking nice. It's coming along slowly, but hopefully within the next couple months it will be ready to sell. Working outside will be the limiting factor because of weather.

Other things that I'm doing is down-sizing my possessions. I'm some what of a pack rat and over the years I have accumulated several things that I just don't need. I hope to change that very soon. I've been tossing things, donating goods to goodwill, and selling items on craigslist. All I can say is, WOW, I have a lot more things than I realized. Never again will I be such a pack rat. Simple is good.

I'll keep you posted on the progression.

The Beginning, The Goal

2008-12-17T20:23:00.001-06:00

So for the last few years I have felt like I've been in a rut, like I've been going through life living day by day with no goal, no direction, just aimless like a compass whose needle never points north. It all boils down to a period of time where I took life way to seriously, without taking the time to enjoy life, and getting burned out. Four years ago, this past May, I did something that I had always wanted to do, but never really thought that I would do; I took a basic scuba diving class. As far as scuba is concerned, the four years since then have been a blur. I fell in love with the sport and a passion consumed with for more knowledge about it.

Even with a passion that I've been pursuing with as much enthusiasm as I've had in a very long time, I still had my rut to deal with. I've often wondered what it would be like to go off and island hop and work as a dive guide in a tropical location. I've had many conversations with boat crews and people who actively do it. I've understood from the get go that a person doesn't become rich by scuba diving as a career, but it's still something that I thought that I would like to pursue, even if it's short lived. Honestly, I've never had the guts to do it. I've feared the unknown. That is until May of 2007 when I decided that I needed a change. I needed to finish school, because I never graduated from high school and wanted to finish my associates degree for my own satisfaction before I moved off and eventually started working towards a bachelors degree. I also needed a change in scenery, to see the world, and pull myself over this rut. So last spring I decided that I was going to start going to school full time to finish ASAP.

While I may or may not end up moving to an island, I am definitely going for a change of scenery. I'm going for that laid back, beach bum environment where you deal with things as they come and you move on. I need that in my life. It will happen, very soon. 2009 is the year that I leave Amarillo and search for the beach bum inside me.

GUE Fundamentals - March 2007 (Archived Blog)

2007-03-19T12:00:00.007-05:00

Part 1:

So I finally signed up for a GUE Fundamentals class and have been excited about taking the class for sometime. After a few months of reviewing schedules, my budget, and emailing instructors; I finally settle with Rob Calkins from Flatirons Scuba near the Denver, CO area.

Rob and I email each other back and forth discussing the class schedule and so forth. Originally the class was going to be over two weekends on March 10-11 and March 17-18. The first weekend was to be at Robs shop for lecture, field drills, and pool work. Then I get an email from Rob asking when I was flying in because he just got the new teaching material and it covers information in greater detail then it did before and he wanted to get a head start by holding a lecture on March 9th. So I email him back stating that I am actually driving and that it should only take around 7 hours to drive. A few days later I get an email to myself and the other students taking the class saying that we would have lecture on March 9th from 6-9PM. Not a big deal, since I was actually going to start driving that Friday morning.

So Friday, March 9, I started my journey to the Rocky Mountains at around 8AM. After around six and a half hours/420 miles of driving, I made it to the hotel that I was going to be staying at. I actually really enjoyed the drive. It’s always cool to watch the changing geological features as your driving. For my drive it went from flat plains, to rolling hills, to extinct volcanic uprisings, to the first sight of the Rocky Mountains just before Raton, NM. It was really cool to see the snow covered mountains as the western backdrop of my driving.

Once I got checked into the hotel, I went to my room and unwound from the days driving and just laid in bed for an hour or so. After that I went through and unpacked my things and turned on my laptop to check email. Sure enough, the class hadn’t even started yet and Rob had sent me an email with a PDF document asking me to print it off and review it before class. The class hadn’t even started yet and I already had homework! Thankfully it is a subject that I’m already fairly familiar with, Nitrox. I skimmed through the document quickly, without printing it out, since I didn’t have access to a printer and jotted some notes down in my notebook before the class. The next thing you know it’s time for me to start heading towards the shop for the first few hours of lecture.

The first night of lecture was pretty leisurely. We pretty much did a meet and greet and dove right into to the lecture, which basically covered how GUE came about, why GUE is doing what it is doing, why the fundamentals course, among other subjects. The lecture lasted a little longer than expected and Rob gave us even more homework. EEK! I’ve read many of these Fundamental reports before, but nobody ever mentioned homework. I was already half drained from diving most of the day, so I decided to just go to bed when I get back to the hotel and wake up early to get a start on the homework. The homework were basically some handouts dealing with deep stops, partial pressures, gas management, surface consumption rate, and determining thirds with dissimilar tanks.

So the next morning, I wake up early and do the normal morning routine: shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast. I then start working on the homework to only get through a few out the handouts before having to head to class. Thankfully, Rob informs us that the handouts don’t have to be done until we meet next weekend! Wahoo. After about four hours of mind numbing lecture on gear configuration, buoyancy, trim, propulsion techniques, and the basic five we break for a short lunch and gather our things to head to the pool. For the past month or so I have been dreading the swim test, because of my bad memory of the swim test in my Divemaster class. Thankfully though I did the 300yard swim in 6 minutes and 27 seconds. I was quiet proud of that time even though the altitude kicked my butt during the swim. I found the 50-foot breath hold to be quiet easy and popped up right next to where the Rob was standing to have him look at me and say, “OK”. Next Rob got to have his fun with us as he demonstrated different propulsion techniques and then wanted us to practice them as he filmed us. From the very start Rob emphasized a unified team and told us to practice the kicks as a team by swimming around together. He told us that it would be wise to not solo dive or that “bad things will happen.” Everybody in the team had their strong points and their weak points. As a team, Rob said that we functioned well together, which is a real compliment as I have never dove with anybody else in the class. The other two students know each other, since they work in the same shop, but how often they dive together is beyond my knowledge. My weak points are that my knee’s drop when I’m asked to perform certain kicks and I don’t get the ankle action that I should be getting for other kicks. Also, my situational awareness goes out the window when I’m asked to perform tasks, such as the basic five. When performing the basic five, I not only blinded Rob with my primary light, but I ran him into a wall. Rob pointed out the light to me pretty quickly and I gained enough awareness to try to keep my light pointed down when performing the basic five, but I didn’t even notice that I was charging Rob until he was already pinned to the wall, at which point I attempted to do a backwards kick.

After a few hours in the pool we got out and went back to the shop for a video debrief. The video is very unforgiving. You never think you are doing certain movements until you see yourself on the television. At some points during the video I thought my legs were having convulsions that I wasn’t aware of. It was actually me doing a modified flutter kick, which worked, but at the same time wasn’t efficient because my feet were to tense. I knees dropped when doing a proper flutter kick and my left leg hangs a little lower than my right. All in all it was very humbling and a great learning experience to see me doing things that I was oblivious to. While watching a little bit of video we decided that we needed to drown our sorrows in a little bit of keg beer, conveniently provided by the shop from a spring party. We showed our team building skills by having one person pump the keg, one person operate the spout, and the other person hold the cups. Then we promptly returned to analyze the video a little longer before calling it a night and getting ready for the next day.

Sunday came way to soon for me. The whole daylight savings time kicked my butt since I’m used to Central Standard Time (CST) and Colorado is in Mountain Standard Time (MST), which means that I didn’t just lose one hour of sleep, I lost two! I woke up all groggy eyed and did my morning ritual of getting ready for the day and headed for the shop. After a short discussion on the previous pool session, we decided that we would prefer to have some more pool time. Rob liked the idea and we decided to follow a similar schedule as Saturday. So again, we dove right into lecture, and this time getting into some more complicated subjects such as gas planning, logistics, decompression, physiology, etc that prompted me to take numerous notes, which held up the class some what. I was actually impressed at the detail that the class went into as some of the course material is actually material that you would expect to see in a technical class. I learned quiet a bit over this lecture and we ended up finishing the presentation after a few hours. We then made some adjustments to equipment that needed to be made, did some field drills, and headed back to the pool to have some more humble pie in-front of the camera. We actually looked much better, but still had things to work on. Rob for the most part just let us do our own thing, since this really wasn’t a planned pool session and just filmed us as we practiced the skills learned so far. After a couple hours in the pool we headed back to the shop for more film reviews, while not perfect, was allot better than the previous day in the pool. We then discussed the plan for next week and broke for the weekend.

As the title says, this is only part 1 of 2. Next weekend, March 17, we will be meeting up for our open water portion of the class. I would really like to get some pool dives done this week, but I won’t be able to with my work schedule. Hopefully though, I will be able to do some field drills and work on keeping my knees up while performing kicks. So far this has been an excellent class and I don’t see it getting worse anytime soon. We’ll see how the next dives go…

Part 2:

Okay, I need to really make this blog glow since Rob will read it and haze me until no end on the next class that I take from him.

In preparation for the second half of my Fundamentals class I spent the week consuming copious amounts of caffeine, analyzing the kicks in the 5thd-x Essentials video, working on my study handouts, and laying down on the ground working on kick techniques trying to build muscle memory to keep my knees up. I really wanted to get some pool time in, but unfortunately with my work schedule it didn’t work out.

So the weekend finally comes and I meet up with my instructor, Rob, and class teammates at their hotel at 8AM before going to the infamous Rock Lake. It’s infamous if you are a diver in the region anyways. This was to be my first dives in Rock Lake and as much as I wanted to dive there, I wanted to do the class in the local watering hole that I was used to, or so I thought. As it turned out the local watering hole was packed full of open water classes, visibility was shot, and resembled a large can of sardines from what I’m told. So I was more gracious to be diving in Rock Lake after the fact and it didn’t take long to get used to the small area of Rock Lake that we were exposed to.

The dives were packed full of skill drills and emergency skills. Each dive Rob gave us more long hose to hang each other with and became somewhat more complex. Over all, I felt that my teammates and I worked well together as a team, especially for not ever diving together other than in the pool the weekend before. One of the biggest benefits that I got out of this class was how the emergency drills (such as OOG and unconscious diver recovery) were conducted when you least expected them to happen. You really had to keep your awareness sharp so that you would notice the emergency and then react appropriately to it.

We definitely had some blooper moments during the class. Mine was while doing the primary light stow and reserve light deploy. I stowed my primary light, but left it turned on. So after I was working through the procedures to stow my backup light I was pointing the light against my hand to see if it was off, but my hand kept being illuminated by my primary light. After about three full turns of my backup light I finally realized what was happening and turned my primary light off. Rob said afterwards that he thought he was going to get to see three C cell batteries fall out the front of my backup light. It was definitely one of those brain-fart moments that were caught on film. Another blooper moment actually came from one of my teammates while trying to do a valve drill with a single tank. He had been struggling through out the dives trying to manipulate the valve, but could not reach it until the last dive. He managed to turn the valve completely off and then crack it open slightly, but then lost his grip on the valve. It was definitely a serious situation when it was happening, but we all had a pretty good laugh over it after the fact.

After our last dive of the day I was somewhat disappointed in myself. I didn’t feel that my buoyancy and trim were where I wanted them to be and was telling Rob that I was just going to give myself a provisional rating. So it was surprising to me to have Rob tell me that he felt that my skills were within the standards and that he was going to pass me (tech pass). I almost had to look at my watch to make sure it wasn’t April Fools Day. My teammates both received a provisional status and I’m sure that they will nail their update dive(s) with Rob in the future. They were excellent divers and all around great guys and I would definitely dive with them again.

Overall, This has been the best investment in scuba diving that I have made. I was very impressed with the GUE standards, the class, and Rob as an Instructor. I feel that my technique has improved and that I am overall a safer diver, which is my ultimate goal as a diver.

TDI Advanced Nitrox & Decompression Procedures - September 2006 (Archived Blog)

2006-09-30T12:58:00.003-05:00

Part 1:

This is a two part series of my TDI Decompression Procedures class. The reason that this class is broken into two parts is because my check out dives are in two different dates as we can only do two dives per day because of our nitrogen loading. Part 1 covers our classroom and first two dives of the class.

The classroom and first two dives were on July 21, 2006 at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. The classroom portion mainly consisted of dive planning and gear configuration. For dive planning we planned our dives to 120 feet based on U.S. Navy Dive Tables. For those who have dove the Blue Hole you know that the maximum depth was 82 feet. (Yes, I know I said “was”. You’ll find out.) So you may be thinking “WTF?!?!?! There is a huge difference between 82 feet and 120 feet!!” The reason that we planned the dive to 120 feet is because we had to take altitude and water temperature into account. We planned the first dive to be at 120 feet for 20 minutes. So going by the U.S. Navy Air Decompression Tables we would have to do a deco stop at 10 feet for two minutes and our ascent rate from our max depth to 10 feet would need to take a minimum of 6 minutes. My instructor informed me that he also practices a deep stop at half the maximum depth for a minute during our ascent. We know had all the information from the dive tables that we needed. We now went through and calculated what our maximum partial pressure of oxygen and nitrogen would be at 120 feet. After we calculated this information and wrote it all down we reviewed all the information again to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Once we started had our plan we then started gearing up where the instructor critiqued my hose routing a bit and then had me do valve drills on while on the surface. After this we donned our drysuits and geared up and walked to the water.

In the water we did a buddy check and bubble check on each other’s gear, and reviewed our dive plan one last time before going underwater. At first I was a little apprehensive about the dive. This was the first time I was going to be on a dive where I had a manditory decompression stop and I didn’t know what to think about it at first. Shortly after the dive started I started to relax and we just swam around looking at all the different features of the Blue Hole. This was the first time that I would really go to the bottom and spend any kind of noticable time looking around at the bottom of the Blue Hole. I looked back behind the grate covering the cave entrance where I found the deepest depth that I have ever found at the Blue Hole. It was 86 feet! Back behind the grate was cool. Part of the cave entrance was exposed and you could see down in it and really get a sense of how much water the aquifer is really pushing through the hole. Soon enough our bottom time was up and my instructor signaled to make our ascent to our deep stop, where we would hang for a minute before making our way to our 10 foot decompression stop.

Once out of the water we took off our gear and the instructor walked over to me and said that he was going to pull my bottom eye lid down and look between the eye lid and the eye for bubbles. If there are bubbles they will be nitrogen bubbles. He informed me that during any dive if a diver has more than three bubbles in any eye then the diver should be placed on oxygen and monitored for signs and symtoms of Decompression Sickness. He checked my eye’s and I checked my instructor’s eye’s. Neither one of us had any bubbles.

Here is the dive profile from dive 1:

Maximum Depth: 86 feet

Bottom Time: 20 minutes

Run Time: 28 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 30 - 40 feet

After a six hour surface interval we met back at the Blue Hole to get ready for our second dive. For this dive we planned a 25 minute bottom time at 120 feet using the U.S. Navy Air Decompression Tables. This dive would have the same deep stop, but the 10 foot decompression stop would be 6 minutes and the total ascent time would take 10 minutes. Once geared up we walked down to the water and did a buddy check and bubble check on each other and reviewed our dive plan one last time before making our descent. On this dive my instructor wanted me to relax as much as possible and didn’t want me to create a work load for myself. This was because he wanted to go through and calculate my SAC rate for our future dives. This dive was very relaxing and I felt much more comfortable on this dive then I did on the second dive. At 25 minutes we started making our ascent to the deep stop for one minute and then made our way slowly to our 10 foot deco stop. On this stop I really got a sense of what deco stops where all about. I was litterly dusting silt off the side of the hole with my hand waiting for the time to pass. Several minutes later we made our way up and were out of the water.

Here is my dive profile for dive 2:

Maximum Depth: 85 feet

Bottom Time: 25 minutes

Run Time: 39 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 30 - 40 feet

Later that evening we completed our dive logs and reviewed our dive profiles and talked briefly about our next two dives. I can’t wait for the next two dives and we are planning those dives and working out a location that is deep enough for the next two dives. I’ll write about those dives after they have been completed.

Part 2:

After my first two dives as part of the decompression procedures class I went ahead and asked my instructor if we could go ahead and throw in the advanced nitrox class and work on it as well. He agreed to do so and ordered the book for me. In hind site it would have been more advantageous to take the advanced nitrox class first. The reason being is that the advanced nitrox class answered allot of my questions that I would have thought would have been covered in decompression procedures. Overall this was a good class and I feel comfortable planning and executing basic staged decompression dives. I will definitely put the skills to use in the future for staged decompression dives.

We originally were going to dive at a site called Rock Lake, but the lake is on private property and the owner of the property only leases out the lake to one dive shop at a time and another shop already had the lake leased. It was fine with me because one of the disadvantages to the decompression procedures class is that it advocates deep air, which I don’t like the idea of being impaired for such a serious dive. I will however dive Rock Lake sometime in the future and hopefully it will be on a trimix based gas.

Below are my profiles from my dives from September 29-30, 2006. The dives were executed at the Blue Hole in New Mexico and were planned out using Buhlmann air decompression tables for 120ft for 25min. As stated in the previous blog the reason the dives were planned for 120ft is to compensate for altitude and the cold. In all reality I didn’t mind having the conservatism built into the dives as these are some of my first staged decompression dives.

Dive Profile from Dive 1:

Maximum Depth: 87 feet

Maximum Bottom Time: 25 minutes

Run Time: 48 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 80+ feet

Dive Profile from Dive 2:

Maximum Depth: 87 feet

Maximum Bottom Time: 25 minutes

Run Time: 49 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 80+ feet

Dive Profile from Dive 3:

Maximum Depth: 86 feet

Maximum Bottom Time: 25 minutes

Run Time: 45 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 60+ feet

Dive Profile from Dive 4:

Maximum Depth: 87 feet

Maximum Bottom Time: 25 minutes

Run Time: 46 minutes

Water Temperature: 62 degrees

Visibility: 60+ feet