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***jasondbaker*** · 05-05-2002, 02:14 PM,

Anyone dive this weekend and where did you go?

LKunze · 05-05-2002, 03:52 PM,

Yeah...Jose, brucev, and I dove Christmas Lake on Saturday afternoon. Not a particularly impressive dive. The water access really sucks and the bottom is so muddy you can hardly walk through it, especially with fins on. The water is real shallow until you get quite aways off of shore so it's a bit of a surface swim out to deep water. We ended up diving down to a depth of 51 ft. The viz was only about 8 ft. and the water temp was 46 deg. The silt bottom is extremely fine so you really need to stay off of it or we're talking major black out. I don't think I'll be going back to that lake anytime soon. Nothing cool to see other than plain old mud. Oh well it was dive I guess.

JoelW · 05-05-2002, 04:06 PM,

Did the DIR Fundamentals course this weekend with 8 others. Those were the hardest dives I have ever done. The instructors were amazing, in an out of the water. JoelW

***jasondbaker*** · 05-06-2002, 02:15 PM,

Joel, Where did you guys do the dives? What made the dives so difficult?

JoelW · 05-06-2002, 05:06 PM,

We did all of the dives at Square in less than 20'. They were difficult because we were asked to do things that we do not normally do. Such as maintain depth and trim (no touching the bottom or any platform) and perform an out of air drill. Not just a "hey, here is my octopus" air share drill. It went something like, Diver out of air 2nd diver hands OOA diver primary regulator, unwraps and deploys long hose 2nd diver switches to backup regulator Take 2 breathes to settle situation down. Give OK signal OOA diver clips off his primary regulator to harness d-ring 2nd diver unclips pressure gauge and shows pressure to OOA diver. 2nd diver clips off pressure gauge. 2nd diver diver points in direction, up or horizontal. OOA diver repeats the signal. OOA diver leads in specified direction with 2nd diver in touch contact. Stop. OOA diver takes out 2nd diver's primary regulator and hands it back. OOA diver goes to his backup regulator while unclipping his primary regulator and then goes to the primary regulator. 2nd diver reroutes his primary regulator and switches to it. This should be done in not much longer than it took to read this. The roles are then switched. There was also point where we got stable in the water at about 18', closed our eyes, took off our mask and handed it to the instructor. There were pretty much two conclusions to this, diver at the surface or diver in the mud. Trying to maintain depth without the visual reference is tough, especially in 46F water. Having a mask kicked off is not an out of the question occurance. I almost had mine kicked off by someone this weekend. These dives were tough due to lack of familiarity and lack of some basic skills. By the end of this summer I intend to be able to them without missing a beat. JoelW

Derrick · 05-06-2002, 05:06 PM,

Jason, I also did the class with Joel. We did the class at Square Lake. The deepest I got to was 22'. That was because I ended up in the muck a couple of times. It was hard because they wouldn't let you cheat. You couldn't hold onto, kneel, lay, or touch the platform. At one time I had to be neutrally buoyant, in a horizontal position about a foot of the muck doing basic skills. Very hard. You know you screwed up when the vis went to zero. They video tapes us underwater and we got to see how we screwed up. It was by far the hardest and funniest class that I ever took. It was a bargain. Another hard thing was clipping equipment to your d-rings wearing thick cold water diving gloves, one handed, without looking. Takes lots of practice. Derrick

***jasondbaker*** · 05-06-2002, 09:11 PM,

Wow, it sounds like you had an awesome time guys. I definitely want to be part of the next class. I ordered the DIR book today to learn more. My impression of DIR has changed quite a bit. I plan to be out at square on friday or saturday.