So last weekend was my DSMB course, delayed surface marker buoy and for this there were two dives. It wasn’t the most challenging of courses but it’s one you need if you’re going to be diving in the sea and it did require having to be careful throughout.
So the way we were taught to arrange out DSMB and reel was with the DSMB tied using bungee to the bottom of the BCD so it sits on the small of your back. This keeps your trim good and reduces drag but it easy to access. The reel is then clipped onto a D ring on the BCD.
Dive one: we descended to about 9m, kneel down and using a stage to represent the Octo (to avoid any of our actual Octo’s free flowing on the training dive) we deployed the DSMB using this method. So a few bubbles from the Regulator we’re breathing from into the DSMB to make it stand up, then attached the DSMB to the reel and then use the Octo from the stage to fill it with enough air, so when we let go up it goes standing nicely firm at the surface. Feel free to add whatever innuendo’s come to mind at this point, there were a few jokes going around on the day!
Sounds simple this method. It’s not.
Well it is, but I was all fingers and thumbs with it being my first time attempting this. Having to hold a DSMB, a reel, an Octo and remembering to dump air from your BCD all together takes a little brain power! I couldn’t keep the DSMB open and I felt like I was taking an age to fill it. Practise will quicken me up I think. I was also wearing 5mm gloves as well, so feeling a little fingers and thumbs I think is fairly normally for a first attempt. But I did it and that’s what matters.
Next after the Divemaster has gone up, let the air out and we’ve reeled in the DSMB we do it again but this time instead of using the Octo, we use the bubbles from the regulator. This is much easier! No juggling necessary, just make sure to keep enough distance from DSMB and regulator to not get it caught on any of your gear. I liked that way, that way felt much easier even though the first way wasn’t particularly hard just had more ‘faffing’ to it.
Dive one over we enjoyed a cup of tea in the café and prepared for dive two. Using whatever method we preferred, Octo or bubbles, we were going to send the DSMB up whilst hovering and at a depth of about 14metres give or take. We were aiming to do it near a sunken plane.
My dive two started out with me falling, backwards, cylinder and head first over a ledge. I believe the technical term for the position in which your cylinder seems to have rolled you over is, “turtling”. I call I my accidental attempt more like “dying ant impression”. 😀 Not my most graceful of descents I will admit!
I had my buddy thoroughly amused and my core strength definitely needs building up after my sustained flailing didn’t help so much in turning me the right way up! All experience is good experience though, I did eventually manage to right myself once I’d paused, stopped squirming and thought through how to turn myself over. The rest of the descent happened much more gracefully I’m pleased to say.
We ended up kneeling on the wing of an aeroplane for the demonstration and I have to say, being able to say that I was sat on the wing of a plane is definitely a highlight of my diving. I was pretty taken with this part of the dive!
I chose to send my DSMB up using the bubbles method and I did do it whilst hovering, well, more or less, I did have to let out some air out from my BCD when I started floating up a bit but it was fairly successful. The line of the reel had wound itself just one turn around the reel so when I sent up the DSMB my first thought was, “oops”, my second thought didn’t even occur because I had gently flicked the line which immediately sorted everything out and the DSMB was deployed with no trouble. Excellent. If that hadn’t have worked, I would have been letting go of that reel when the DSMB went rocketing up. They go up so fast!
We finished that dive with a little bimble around, down and over the plane to get us all used to reeling in and letting out the line. I clocked 14m when I deployed it and I passed the course. Excellent. I then went back to the dive centre to hand in loaned gear and was roped into signing on for the rescue course!
Well I hadn’t contemplated doing this rescue course…. Ever. I don’t like “personal bubble invasion” especially with people I don’t know but diving seems to be pushing all my limits, social, physical, mental, everything and I suppose it is a good thing. I was told this rescue course will be hard but so much fun. And rewarding. My friend was signed up for it and I can jump on her course so I wouldn’t be with all strangers. Even better is that I know the instructor and she is brilliant so all my arguments for wanting to wait a while, seemed to go out of the window when 4 Instructors, 2 Divemasters and 2 other divers were all telling me this.
In the end, they got me signed up explaining the value of such a course. Self-rescue, preventing problems and being able to help your buddy are skills that you can’t really do without, especially since I intend to work up to being a cave diver. I need this course really and I understand the benefits of having it under my belt.
So, I passed one course and signed up for another and I’m now working my way through the manual for the rescue course. There are two theory and two pool sessions followed by open water dives to complete the course. All of this will be taking place over the course of three weekends so that should keep me busy!
I’m going to end by saying I’m so happy I’ve just bought a camera with an underwater case for it! In colloquial terms, “ten ton” of courses and a camera later, I am certainly feeling like I’ve been diving years, never mind 6 months!
Lil Scuba Diver
lilscubadiver 