LEARNINGCURVE
Plenty of time was dedicated to the dry practical sessions . It ’ s really important to get that muscle memory going in nice safe conditions which can then be consolidated on the dive . I think we all found this beneficial .
We practised lining-out , both in sighted ( you can see ) and in blackout ( you can ’ t see ) conditions , practising comms and primary and secondary tie-offs and lost line drills . This is a bit of a giggle and a bit like playing a child ’ s party game when you were 6 ! At every opportunity I had the guys practising the skills , by the pool , in the street when we broke down , on the boat , in the water !
Back in black
Our first dive was on the Elpida , a scuttled wreck in 30m . A very open deck and a mixture of partial , overhead and full overhead environments . It gave us a fabulous opportunity to get some skills and drills out of the way and introduced line work in simulated blackout conditions with touch signals .
The second dive was on an old oil platform , where line work could be practised with no overhead environment in blackout conditions , including lost line drills .
For the rest of the week , we were on the Zenobia , where we could develop the skills learned in deeper and darker conditions . It ’ s a very different experience doing a horizontal CBL in amazing conditions , to then having to do it inside a wreck with a silt-out !
During the third dive we kicked off with long hose deployment while following a line . You really know why you bought that long hose when you are one in front of the other . For CCR divers this also involved cylinder handoff .
By the end of the week , our final dives were a matter of just getting out there and having a proper dive , reeling out in a deep dark engine room and getting home safely . We kept practising skills to ensure the students had consolidated their training . Our last dive was a full black-to-black dive into some very undisturbed areas , absolutely fascinating . The term blue- to-black refers to coming in from the blue , or sea with external visual references , but we were building up to black-to-black penetrations . This means going through different areas of the internals of the wreck with absolutely no immediate reference to the outside .
Luckily , there were two of us qualified to teach the course – myself ( Tash ) and my husband George Scott , which helped spread the load . George is also a MOD3 CCR diver , so that really helped with Tom and ensured the instructor was carrying the correct bailouts for the student .
Tom practises horizontal CBL on Steve
Tom and Chris practise their silt-out comms
39