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September
September
DSAT Tec-Rec Diving, not a good day of it.
No comments Posted in: UncategorizedTagged with boracay, diving, Uncategorized, weather
DSAT TecRec diving, or Tec Deep Diver, or DSAT, or Tec I…. or whatever you prefer…. I learned something, that’s actually tough!
All other PADI courses are generally designed so that it’s impossible to fail unless you simply cannot ‘get it’. Even the numbers, if you get them wrong on the test, no probs – just a lil review. But if you can work the equipment and not drown, then you pass. Some courses (like rescue and nitrox) obviously don’t fall into this category.
But not Tec Deep Diver, certainly not. This isnt a matter of learning new equip, which is easy, this is a whole different matter. And I finally found something in diving that I’ll have to actually work for. This isn’t recreational diving anymore. Here was my day:
- Dive briefing and skills testing list. uh-oh, I cant remember the skills steps all of a sudden, gotta write those down and try memorizing.
- Break for lunch…mine sits very poorly in my stomach
- put on the gear, which is massively heavier than a single tank rig, I don’t need any extra weight at all for this.
- in the water heading to the boat…jeeze these waves are kickin’! Crap, cant get the fins on right, have to put on the mask just to see, high waves.
- getting on the boat is a pain in the ass, I’m the last one on and dude looks at me and walks away, I was about to throw my fins at him when another guy walks up. Oh hell… this is not what I had in mind, huge wave surge and my first time with a heavy doubles set. Have a lot of trouble getting up the ladder and into the boat—which for some reason, does not have anything like an entryway next to the ladder. Dude keeps telling me to go sit in the front but wont get the fuck outta my way.
- travel: waves are pretty damn big. even with 4 of us and one on the bow, we still crest the front 3rd of the boat over some waves. very slow going. I don’t trust myself to not flip over the side so sitting on the floor is the decision.
- entry: since I’m sitting flat on the bottom, I cant stand directly up or even lean over with all this weight on–I will have to twist/roll to the side and onto knees before standing. And with this rocking action, standing is gonna be a bitch. Boatman tries helping me up but will NOT get the fuck away from me. I told him over and over to get away from me so I could turn (didn’t want my face in his nuts) but this fucknut just keeps lifting up on my tanks, as if that accomplishes a damn thing.
- now I’m thoroughly in a foul mood. This is not a good way to start a dive.
- water: I get in and learn something crucial, it fucking hurts to backroll with doubles tanks off a high boat in killer waves.
- the boat is smashing up and down and what do I hear? “Get away from the boat! You’ll get fucking smashed!” or something really close. I was gonna yell that I couldn’t get away because there were 3 other people in front of me, blocking my way, including the person yelling at me. As soon as I pulled the reg out, I caught a mouthful of wave…. screw it. Why we would ever NOT do a negative entry in those waves is beyond me – but hey, I’m the student.
- skills: I learned that I have horrible buoyancy with doubles. Everyone was easily hovering and fine tuning their buoyancy, but I keep flipping upside down. FUCK! its so goddamn frustrating to not be able do what should be easy as fuck. Upside down? WTF? I haven’t done that since my first dives?!?! The bladder was a donut so of course, any slight tilt down instantly inverted me again. And because of this, I cant do some of the skills.
- We took deco bottles but apparently had a skill to do on them… everyone else remembered the instruction, all I remembered was being told they were going with us that morning. So now I’m underwater and supposed to do a clip/usage skill on a deco bottle, but I have no clue what. Its not like a blackout event…. I remember clearly the bottles coming out and what was said about them… but nothing about a skill on them.
- return: getting on the boat was just as hard. It sucked and the waves were even larger. at stationary, water was still getting into the boat. I thought Dan might have smashed his head on a pontoon cross member, but missed it barely. During the trip back, I couldn’t stop thinking how much easier it would have been if they just towed me by a rope rather than getting back in the boat.
- Back in the shop: my ass explodes from a bad lunch.
It’s a lot of complaining, I know…But I keep telling myself this type of diving isnt for everyone; it’s supposed to be hard. The weather on Boracay was bad that day and got worse over the next 2 days.
3 Responses
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Now that had me cracking up dude. I can see your ass just rolling over in the water with those tanks on hahahahaha. Oh man I hope to hell someone took video of this.
Sep 30, 2008 at 6:13 AM -
DAMN! Where was the video of this day! hahaha!
I love the doubles man. Getting back into it whenever I get a chance. Are you going to finish the course?
Sep 29, 2008 at 9:18 PM
naw, no video thankfully. I was underwater tilting left, right, backward, and forward. Everytime I tried hovering, I would just tilt forward and hang upside down as all the air in the bladder moved to the rear. But after todays absence, I’m 2 dives behind the others now. but yea, I’m definitely gonna finish it.
Sep 30, 2008 at 3:47 PM