Chanb77's Weblog

July, 2014 ~

The next couple of weeks brought GUE courses, to the front line. Steve was teaching a Primer, a DPV-1, as well as some Fundies Goodness, and hours of in-water time.

Congratulations, to all of the students!

A small glimpse of the new under water statues, at Centeen Park…

Between all of this goodness, Eric B and I went out for a skillz dive, in preparation for our upcoming Tech 2 course. We each brought three bottles, so that we could practice our rotations, at the quarry. At 20′, we dropped our bottles, to do valve drills, s-drills, finning techniques, blowing smbs, and all of the usual skills. Then, it was rotation time. I seemed to be having quite an issue, getting my last bottle’s butt clipped to my hip D-ring. I was getting quite frustrated, and my silly, slightly injured wrist was really bothering me. Ok. Deep breath… Let’s try this again… I took off the bottles, laid them on the bottom, and tried again. Yes, the clip that I was using, was a little bit tough, but nothing that should be giving me such an issue. Here I go, again…

Same thing… just couldn’t reach that darn D-Ring… wtf??? I put the bottles down, again, and decided to switch them around, just to test the theory. That’s when I noticed that the bottom clip had been left, wrapped around the hose of the stage bottle. Well, duhhhhh… no wonder I couldn’t reach the inside, with that clip.

I unwrapped it, then had at it, again. This time, success. *Phew* Eric’s went a fair bit smoother than mine did.

*Notes to self*
1) Check to see if bottoms of stage bottle clips are wrapped behind the tubing, before doing bottle rotations.
2) Bottle rotations with full bottles of 32% suck. Yes, I was already aware of this, but now, I am extra aware.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 6 mins.
Max. Depth: 19′
Water Temp.: 66F
Frustration Level: Varying, but at least I was persistent 🙂