Whytecliff 22/03/2015

I went out with Evan Soukas to do a full skills dive. It had been a long time since I had a dive focused solely on skills, and Evan was preparing for Tech 1 in the summer, so it seemed like a good idea!

We decided on Whytecliff because we wanted predictable conditions, and knew we wouldn't be looking for wildlife. That meant that we could go out at any time, and we picked a more sedate afternoon dive. It wasn't raining, and it wasn't too busy. There were about four or five other dive groups out that day. Ocean Quest for example was doing some open water work.

Evan and I geared up and went over our dive plan. We would find the best visibility we could around 30 or 40 feet, and deploy an SMB. Then we'd tie that off, and run a length of line to act as a reference point. Then we'd do the Basic 5 GUE skills, s-drills, valve drills, and gas switches, then recover the line and do a standard 3 meter per minute ascent to the surface. All this went very well.

There were a ton of dungeness crabs out, and the visibility was pretty good too. I was quite happy to be able to see Evan 20 feet away. On the way back in, I found a piece of camera gear in the shallows. Later, I posted it on Facebook. If someone could describe what they lost, and approximately where, I would be happy to reunite it with its rightful owner.

Here is a video sequence of me doing my part of the skills.