I woke up abruptly in Parksville from a dream that I was going diving today! And luckily around the time that I was going to get up, not like other times, right in the middle of much needed rest, and can’t get back to sleep. Almost like a kid on christmas morning. That must be why most people have stockings, to keep the kids entertained at random hours in the morning before daybreak.<\/p>\n
Had a quick breakfast of eggs and toast with a tired Granny, and headed down the highway towards Victoria to Wilson Diving.<\/p>\n
Met up with Liz, and got some formalities and reviews out of the way, and looked at my gear. Things were mostly on the up and up, a few quick adjustments in a few spots, a new pair of boots and weight pockets and we were underway to Saxe Point (http:\/\/www.greatervancouverparks.com\/SaxePoint01.html)<\/p>\n
A short swim in just the drysuit to get used to what a squeeze is, and go over some basic propulsion, we headed back and grabbed the rest of our gear for the dive.<\/p>\n
We brought a steel 100 and an AL80. I hadn’t dove a Steel tank before, so we opted to try out the 80 first. With more weight than I’ve ever worn on a dive, we descended down into the very cold waters off of Esquamalt.<\/p>\n
We looked at frog kicks, helicopter turns, back kicks, and holding stops while ascending.<\/p>\n
Frog kicks were pretty good, for being self taught, just remember to keep my legs closer together, and use my ankles more.<\/p>\n
The stops were a bit of a different story. Usually the first stop, I could ascend to, and keep, but on the first attempt, I couldn’t keep the other two. Floating out of trim towards the surface I went.<\/p>\n
A short debrief and we were at it again. Starting off with a stop on the descent. I blew that one too. Somewhere I have too much air near the surface, and I vent a little too much, and I sink down, down, down, down. Trying my best to get air back into my BC and my suit to get rid of the squeeze.<\/p>\n
Kicks were getting better, but thinking too hard on which foot does what for the helicopter turns. I think that I use too much brain juice thinking about the foot that goes backwards, I can’t remember how to kick forwards.<\/p>\n
And back to the ascent.<\/p>\n
Again, the bubble moves towards my feet, and up I go. I only blew off 1 stop this time and held the other two fairly well.<\/p>\n
A hike back up to the cars to swap tanks, and work on getting rid of some lead with the Steel tank.<\/p>\n
This time we swam out further in the small bay. At one point Liz pointed out, she seeing a seal, and me seeing some floaty things, and then a bunch of silt that the seal left as he flew by. I didn’t find out until we went up after doing another ascent with stops.<\/p>\n
The steel tank made me feet heavy, and I was stirring up the bottom, and on the second part of the second dive, I could feel my feet getting pulled up, which lead to getting some air in, and floating up again. Not as bad as earlier, but twice I had to duck around to get my shoulder up and my feet down.<\/p>\n
Also I was better at keeping myself facing the line, using the various kicks.<\/p>\n
On the way to Annettes and Rons, I stopped into Walmart and picked up some tubs and a rubber backed mat for transporting the wet gear and a nice place to sit\/stand while gearing up.<\/p>\n
The evening consisted of a very nice soup, and a piece of pie. Followed by changing out a bolt snap for a slightly larger one on my primary reg, and some practice clipping that boltsnap on and off \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 for about 45 minutes, then my hand and thumb were hurting quite a bit from being still fairly waterlogged, and the stiffer spring of the larger bolt snap.<\/p>\n
Weighting wise: we calculated that 36-38lbs would be a good starting point for weight. Normally I take 6-8lbs depending if I’m wearing a wetsuit or not.<\/p>\n
With the SS plate, we dropped it down to 30 lbs: 20 lbs in pockets, and 10 lbs on a belt, with the 80 tank.<\/p>\n
That seemed to work out pretty well.<\/p>\n
The second dive, with the steel tank, we took 6 lbs off the belt.<\/p>\n
I need to swap out some weight, since mine is smaller and thicker, and won’t fit into the pocket. The teachers at wilson had their eyes on my 1 lb weights for teaching, and I need some more 5 lb weights for my pockets.<\/p>\n
Overall 2 more dives done, and over and hour blowing bubbles with no nuclear missile launches. Victoria BC, Saxe Point<\/em> I woke up abruptly in Parksville from a dream that I was going diving today! And luckily around the time[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bradharris.ca\/UnderwaterAdventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nVictoria BC, Saxe Point<\/em>
\nDate: January 25, 2014<\/em>
\nBottom Time: 36 minutes<\/em>
\nMax Depth: 7.7m<\/em>
\nWater Temp: 7.8C<\/em>
\nVis: 20 feet<\/em>
\nNotes: Drysuit dive 1<\/em>
\nRunning Time: 42:56<\/em><\/p>\n
\nDate: January 25, 2014<\/em>
\nBottom Time: 31 minutes<\/em>
\nMax Depth: 7.7m<\/em>
\nWater Temp: 7.8C<\/em>
\nVis: 20 feet<\/em>
\nNotes: Drysuit dive 2<\/em>
\nRunning Time: 43:27<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"