Wasn't feeling the best this morning, starting to feel a bit fatigued from each day's training. Normally i'd do 2 days training and take 1 day off, but since we're only here for a short time we don't really have that luxury. Everyone else is starting to feel the same way too, sickness aside we're all a bit knackered. We got to the Blue Hole today to find it unseasonably cold and very very windy with larger waves being chopped up than we've had so far. I had my goal of 50m FIM and 70m Variable in mind, though was thinking of adjusting these given the conditions. My cold had also resurfaced during the night thanks to the cool breeze that's been hounding us. When we jumped in the water it was much warmer than the air, and a few metres down all the chop subsided and it was lovely and clear. I did my warm ups which were a bit better than the previous day, then put Mark's lanyard on and started my final breath up. I duckdived and started my descent, feeling not that bad but not superb either, I tried to concentrate on long slow arm strokes. In the sink phase I kept reminding myself to mouthfill and equalise and something must have been working because it was a bit easier than the previous day. My gauge went off at 45m and I managed another small equalisation and glided until I was pretty sure I was at 50m or a bit over it. I opened my eyes and I saw a massive cavern right in front of me... the Arch! The Arch is a big hole in the side of the Blue Hole that is about a bit over 50m deep. In all my Variable Weight dives i'd been looking for it but have never seen it thus far, so I was pretty excited, well as excited as I could get for someone trying to stay calm. I turned and started heading for the surface, felt a bit of fatigue in my arms but generally it felt easier than the previous day. Linda met me around 20m and we glided to the surface together and I did my surface protocol no problems. A quick check of the gauge told me i'd done a 52m dive so I was very happy with that. After disconnecting the lanyard I headed over to the Oxygen cylinder for a couple of minutes of decompression. Later on we got the sled ready and approached our Variable dives. Mark went first and did a great PB, which we later found out was a bit of an accident as he had taken his hand off the brake and then couldn't relocate it. Oh well, whatever gets you down there ;-) I was up next and told Linda my attempted depth (65-70m), expected time, did my breath up, packed and took off. The sensations of a sled dive are still a bit weird and I was struggling not to release
too much air to equalise my mask on the way down. After 30m the sled sped up and we rattled all the way down to 60m when my alarm started beeping. Linda had given me some advice before my dive so I was thinking of this as I did my last equalisation and rode it down a bit further. When I could not equalise again I hit the brakes straight away. At this point I realised I was pretty narked as I remember being confused and lifting the airbag up so it would fill, turning the gas tap on, then realising that I hadn't climbed off the rig yet and my knees were locked in by my monofin! Shite! (you see the sled has "handlebars" that you sit behind your knees. With a monofin you have to kind of lock your knees in place then release them one by one at the bottom). I quickly turned the gas tap off and got my knees free of the sled and turned the air back on. Eventually the bag filled and I turned the tap off and it took off to the surface. I gave a pull on the rope and started monofinning back up, thoroughly dazed and confused. When it started getting lighter I looked up the line and Linda was waiting for me. Once again we glided up together and I got to the surface, did my surface protocol, looked at my gauge and once again gave a sheepish grin which was part narcosis and part guilt as I said "oops" and showed her my gauge... 76m! We all had a bit of a cheer and then she shooed me off to the oxygen tank for 10 minutes of decompression. At lunch there were smiles all round, both Mark and I hadn't thought we'd do anything like we'd done today, Sam Kirby had a great day just mucking around and seemed to find the love again, Anne-Marie had some earlier mental issues but managed to find the love again at the end, and Sofus our Danish mate just had a good time helping us and got a decent Constant Weight dive in again. Smiles all round! As we rode back into town in the Jeep we all had a bit of a collapse and everyone now is really knackered. A quiet evening tonight and records day tomorrow....
Wasn't feeling the best this morning, starting to feel a bit fatigued from each day's training. Normally i'd do 2 days training and take 1 day off, but since we're only here for a short time we don't really have that luxury. Everyone else is starting to feel the same way too, sickness aside we're all a bit knackered. We got to the Blue Hole today to find it unseasonably cold and very very windy with larger waves being chopped up than we've had so far. I had my goal of 50m FIM and 70m Variable in mind, though was thinking of adjusting these given the conditions. My cold had also resurfaced during the night thanks to the cool breeze that's been hounding us. When we jumped in the water it was much warmer than the air, and a few metres down all the chop subsided and it was lovely and clear. I did my warm ups which were a bit better than the previous day, then put Mark's lanyard on and started my final breath up. I duckdived and started my descent, feeling not that bad but not superb either, I tried to concentrate on long slow arm strokes. In the sink phase I kept reminding myself to mouthfill and equalise and something must have been working because it was a bit easier than the previous day. My gauge went off at 45m and I managed another small equalisation and glided until I was pretty sure I was at 50m or a bit over it. I opened my eyes and I saw a massive cavern right in front of me... the Arch! The Arch is a big hole in the side of the Blue Hole that is about a bit over 50m deep. In all my Variable Weight dives i'd been looking for it but have never seen it thus far, so I was pretty excited, well as excited as I could get for someone trying to stay calm. I turned and started heading for the surface, felt a bit of fatigue in my arms but generally it felt easier than the previous day. Linda met me around 20m and we glided to the surface together and I did my surface protocol no problems. A quick check of the gauge told me i'd done a 52m dive so I was very happy with that. After disconnecting the lanyard I headed over to the Oxygen cylinder for a couple of minutes of decompression. Later on we got the sled ready and approached our Variable dives. Mark went first and did a great PB, which we later found out was a bit of an accident as he had taken his hand off the brake and then couldn't relocate it. Oh well, whatever gets you down there ;-) I was up next and told Linda my attempted depth (65-70m), expected time, did my breath up, packed and took off. The sensations of a sled dive are still a bit weird and I was struggling not to release
too much air to equalise my mask on the way down. After 30m the sled sped up and we rattled all the way down to 60m when my alarm started beeping. Linda had given me some advice before my dive so I was thinking of this as I did my last equalisation and rode it down a bit further. When I could not equalise again I hit the brakes straight away. At this point I realised I was pretty narked as I remember being confused and lifting the airbag up so it would fill, turning the gas tap on, then realising that I hadn't climbed off the rig yet and my knees were locked in by my monofin! Shite! (you see the sled has "handlebars" that you sit behind your knees. With a monofin you have to kind of lock your knees in place then release them one by one at the bottom). I quickly turned the gas tap off and got my knees free of the sled and turned the air back on. Eventually the bag filled and I turned the tap off and it took off to the surface. I gave a pull on the rope and started monofinning back up, thoroughly dazed and confused. When it started getting lighter I looked up the line and Linda was waiting for me. Once again we glided up together and I got to the surface, did my surface protocol, looked at my gauge and once again gave a sheepish grin which was part narcosis and part guilt as I said "oops" and showed her my gauge... 76m! We all had a bit of a cheer and then she shooed me off to the oxygen tank for 10 minutes of decompression. At lunch there were smiles all round, both Mark and I hadn't thought we'd do anything like we'd done today, Sam Kirby had a great day just mucking around and seemed to find the love again, Anne-Marie had some earlier mental issues but managed to find the love again at the end, and Sofus our Danish mate just had a good time helping us and got a decent Constant Weight dive in again. Smiles all round! As we rode back into town in the Jeep we all had a bit of a collapse and everyone now is really knackered. A quiet evening tonight and records day tomorrow....
5 comments:
Interesting to read your blog.
Keep it up :)
Read you use oxygen after dives.. but never before right ?
Cheers Martin.
I'm in Germany of all places at the moment and don't have my diary with me so the updates will have to wait until 2008. Before you ask it's the Black Forest at the moment, then Salzburg then Munich for NYE. Brilliant country you have here!
Yep Oxygen was used on all dives over 50m, but not on record days until the end of play. Just a safety thing for decompression.
Cheerio,
Ben
Hi Ben, Martin H is a friendly Norwegian guy. Confusing, I know... ;)
Please regard the fact that Salzburg is not in Germany. They speak the same funny language and you can pay withe the same money. No problem there.
But those hill billy people living there call themself "Austrians" and they hate it when they are mistaken for Germans or Australians.
Hope to talk to you soon about the comp in Berlin.
And if we dont speak till then... HAPPY NEW YEAR...
Message send by Martin, the German spending NYE in Norway... confused?
I could be mistaken, but I thought that riding a bag of air back to the surface was only used in No limits or emergencies, and that in Variable weight you still have to swim up, even though you're pretty buoyant...
Good depths though.
When are you going tell us your record results, eh???
Oops, wrong Martin - sorry! To be honest I wasn't expecting more than about 4 people to be reading this blog ;-)
Salzberg is confusing - one second you're in Austria and 2 minutes out of town your back in Germany. But I understand the resentment - I get called Austrian all the time, though maybe it's because I look like I enjoy beer and pork too much....
Kathryn in all the training dives we had to ride the sled down and then send it back up first so the next person could use it, then swim up after we inflated the balloon. Otherwise we'd have to leave it at the bottom and pull the rope up 70'ish metres everytime we'd do a dive which wasn't possible (sled weighed a tonne!), it took 3 of us about 5-10min to pull the rope up on the record days.
I think all of us did 1 or 2 shallow no limits dives on the first day then everyone was doing Variable after that. I figured that the Variable training would be the same as my No-Limits training anyway seeing as equalising was my limiting factor.
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