Final days in the deep

Location: Mexico

Date: October 13th, 2012

Day 5 & 6

On day 5 we started preparing the "big dive" . Today was also the day the concept of ratio deco was thoroughly explained to me. The coolest thing was that i understood it. We also looked at the various digital planners that exist in the deco world and they sometimes give you outputs that are difficult to remember so basically I learned a little bit of Kelvin, deco planners and ratio deco. Put that in a mixer et voila! our deco plan is born. The plan needs to be simple because remember this is all in my head no slates or wetnotes what so ever. And even at depth where you have lots of shit going on in that teeny bit narced out brain of mine i need to be able to focus and most important remember.

The dive today was all about putting the line in so once again i tied into the tree at 27m ( i am beginning to talk to the tree now cuz he has been involved in my course so much hahahaha) then to the 1st nipple ( actually for me it would be a penis) and the 2nd penis...uh nipple. We basically call it that because the 2 stalacmites are well.. sticking out on a formation ;). his time however we did not stop at the second nipple we actually went through and connected to the cave line at 48M. COOL!

On our way back we actually had some real things happening. Franks tank clip of his oxygen tank broke and off course Kelvin took the opportunity to take the tank away from him which basically menat we only had 1 deco tank (mine) between the 2 of us. On top of that He also decided to run out of air ( this was simulated don;t worry). So we started our ascend which I know had to adapt slightly because we had only 1 deco tank.

In the evening I had homework and I had to plan the dive for the next day to 60m in the cave of Cenote the pit. This is slightly tricky cuz remember this is not just a dive that goes down and then up. Lots of thinking about how to attack the dive and lots of math!! guess what ... i liked it :)

here is the proof:

Day 6

Today is the big day. THE dive.... EXCITING!!! So first I had to present my plan. Kelvin drew it out on the board and guess what.... IT MADE SENSE. happy me. So today I would be diving on a proper helium mix. for the ones who understand it my mix was 18/45.

so slightly nervous (well me) we headed to the Pit one more time. Today would be the dive to 60m and I would finally be able to go into the cave. I mean I had been teased for 5 days now and finally I could get in. 

We set-up our gear and I briefed Frank at the beginning of the dive what our dive plan was. So we were both clear on the hows, what and when's. Well me being the students you are actually never sure what they are going to do to you (every time I see kelvin go behind me i prepare myself for the worst. Which cable will leak now or what is he signalling to Frank e.g. out of air or whatever. Once we were both clear on the plan we descended to ... guess what.... my tree :) we followed the line, dropped our deco bottles and FINALLY went into the cave. The cave was a bit blurry in the beginning as lots of bacteria had formed over the last couple of weeks. The bacteria was orange and looked like little tear drops in the water. Really cool effect. I cleaned up after we penetrated the cave deeper. Our turn around point was either pressure, depth or time. In this case it was depth, the line was going deeper than 60m so unfortunately we had to turn around. Narcosis was affecting my awareness ... by  me being super aware and constantly looking for Frank behind me. haha 

Back at the reel I now had to reel in the primary reel and we picked up our deco tanks. Once we arrived at the my tree we were perfectly on schedule and we ascended. We completed our deco plan  , which basically means that you hang mid water whilst going up level by level ( shallower depths). 

This course has been unbelievable ( i know i say that after every course) and I learned tons! I actually have realised that that little brain of mine is capable of remembering more than i thought. So after I gained some more experienced I will definitely go on to Hypoxic Trimix. For now I am happy being a normoxic trimix diver (or tecnical cave diver whatever you fancy calling it). 

Thanks to a great Kiwi instructor and a great Guate buddy, who for some reason always seems to be running out of air ;) 

AYO XOXO

Day 4: First dive on helium

Location: Mexico

Date: October 9th, 2012

Whoop, Whoop. Today is going to be my first dive on Helium! oh yeah. so questions is do you think my voice will go squeaky? I'll give you the answer later.

So first Theory. Today it is all about OXYGEN! The toxicity of it, the narcosis effect it has and how dangerous it can be. But also what good it can do. Medical background people that read this will understand vaso-dilation and vaso-construction. Which in short basically means the closing and opening of cells. Like your lungs. With breathing oxygen the little "trees" that grow on you lungs increase. water fills the sides of your lungs making them smaller. So the longer you are on oxygen the smaller they get. So smaller lungs means bad off gassing ( the whole purpose of decompression). So we have oxygen gaps in our decompression dives to open up the lungs again for a optimum off gassing situation. Still following? Well i barely was!!!!! hahaha however it all clicked today and that was a wicked feeling. I actually get it! I get the science behind it and I understand why we are doing all of this!!! YEY.

We also talked about emergency procedures like what happens if someone drops a deco tank ( besides the fact you think your buddy is stupid you do kinda want to help him). Well you have to start sharing gasses etc etc. 

In the afternoon I did my first proper deco dive on Helium. Max depth was 40m today and i did some line laying at 40m just to see how my narcotic level was. Awesome i did not act too stupid so all good. Today my buddy was Kelvin as Frank did not join the dive. So after fooling around for 20m at 40mtr we did a little no vis exit exercise and reeled in the reel and started ascending. Once we were at 21mtr we switched gases and this time i actually remembered to send up the sausage.  Once we started ascending to the next level, surprise surprise, Kelvin ran out of deco gas. So i had to give him mine and now we were sharing my tank and i had to divert to our back up deco plan. Ok peeps just to let you know. All these plans are in my had I have no slates or anything like that to help me remember it. So plans, times, what exercises we do etc etc. So give me a break for forgetting the sausage hahah

 Tomorrow is the setup dive for the big big dive the day after. SO EXCITING! Sorry mom I know you hate it! don't look down tomorrow or  the day after.... you won't like what you see hahaha

AYO, XOXO

Day 3: that bloody sausage!

Location: Mexico

Date: October 8th, 2012

The morning of day 3. I am physically and mentally tired. Trying to cope with all the information i am getting. And me being tired means i get a little emo(tional), so yesterday all I could wish for is mommy dear tucking me in my bed and just giving you that i-will-always-love-you reassurance. So this morning I was all refreshed after a nice long sleep and left emo-me in bed just where she belongs ;)

surprise surprise... more theory. Today we talked about lots and lots. It was the first day where I actually could not register everything, my brain could not catch up with the info Kelvin was giving me. So I had a bit of a slow start. 

in the afternoon we went yet again to the pit. We dud some skills again and this time we went down with 2 deco bottles. I wish I could take a picture of it underwater but sorry not possible. I won't go into detail of the skills cuz it will only be so boring for you guys. Basically we had a max depth of 30M. we stayed down for about 25 minutes which actually doesn't mean you are in deco however we simulated a deco ascend up. this means we had a ascend time of about 28 minutes where you just float midwater. At 21 meters where you do you gas switch i had to send the sausage up..... fuck me i am ad at that! ahaha bloody reel always get stuck in my short little big fingers ;) so funny how both frank and kelvin are always ready with their knifes just in case i do decide to launch myself to the surface. So far i managed to maintain the problem but not yet to do it perfect. I'll get there.

Our plan looked like this:

Depth	time
3	5
6	5	Gas switch to 100% oxygen
9	2
12	2
15	2
18	2
21	5	Gas switch to 50% oxygen
24	1

This plan is all based on the big deco dive we are doing on the 12th which is a dive to 60m.

I am starting to understand the whole theory behind the deco planning and why. It is pretty cool theory and i am really enjoying it. It is pretty hardcore but i am gaining so much information it is crazy.

AYO,
XOXO

Day 2: counting the minutes

Location: Mexico

Date: October 7th, 2012

Day 2

Like yesterday we started in the classroom. We talked about descend rates, ascend rates and deep stops. I now know how to calculate the needed gas however before you can accurately calculate that we need to know how much my SAC rate is. A SAC rate means Surface Air Consumption rate So basically how many liters you breath at the surface. How do you do that I hear you thinking? Well basically you swim around for 10 minutes at a certain depth and you check how much you breath. Guess what I had to do in the dive that afternoon?

Once the theory session was over ( yet another 5 hours however they fly by because the information is so interesting), we analysed the tanks and got the car ready.

Today we went to the pit. the pit is basically a sink hole ( 110m deep) but there is a deep cave line as well. The upcoming days are all to prepare me for my first 60meter deco dive ( last day of course). At the moment the vis in the pit is not great the first 12m. They have been paving the road and the white limestone sand has been washed into the cenote by all the rain we have had lately. 

On the practise dive of today we will only go a max of 30m. The goal of this dive was to see how my stops are. To see if i can maintain a certain depth whilst doing a simulated decompression. Once we jumped in the water we got down to 30M where kelvin layed a line for me to practise taking my deco tanks off. We did a little swim and i ow know that my sac rate is 9 to 10 liters a minute. Which is important for the gas planning of decompression diving. Once we were done with the skills, Kelvin asked me to reel in the primary reel and off course just when i was done and trying to clip the reel to my tail D-ring, Frank had a catastrophic gas failure and signalled out of air. SO here I am desperately trying not to drop the $200 dollar reel and giving Frank my regulator asap. Well I managed. PFFFF. Off course this meant the end of the dive and we started ascending. At 21m we did a gas switch to 50% and continued upwards. The shallower you get the more challenging the buoyoncy control gets. I think i did fairly well. At the surface we debriefed and discussed my ascend rate which i kind of adapted a little but because of a misunderstanding. I now know how to do it properly. Hey I am here to learn right? I also forgot to send up my sausage at 21M. for some reason sending a sausage in a cenote just does not register with me ;). So we descended and did a second shallower dive where i shot up the balloon/sausage ( ok so i did it with precious 50% gas but i did it hahahahahah) and 
continued a shorter deco plan up. Pfff first day done which equals me being knackered and ending up in bed by 9.30. 


Tomorrow is another day!

Ayo XOXO,