Diving on Ascension: Sport Diver Training, Leading.

Living on Ascension with its clear and warm waters it makes sense to dive. I have completed my ocean diver BSAC course and currently nearing the end of my sports diver. I thought I would start blogging about dives. This one is a training dive, others will be leisure dives and will focus on the marine life, wrecks, landscape etc.

The sea had been angry all week. Waves were rolling in across the Atlantic and pounding our shores. We had a warning of bad sea conditions and heard the ocean diver course didn't go in this morning. But we would. There was a swell, but nothing we hadn't encountered before. I filled my cylinder and our instructors arrived at the club house. We ran through the objectives for the day and created a dive plan. Basically how long we could dive for with the amount of air in our cylinders. We needed to take into account the rule of thirds (third of tank for the dive, a third to return on and a third on the surface). Times calculated, routes planned and buddy pairs decided on we rolled out to English Bay.

On the drive down I was worrying about taking my mask off underwater and clearing it, something I hadn't done since ocean diver training. Same for removing my regulator and using an octopus. As we arrived at English bay we saw fresh turtle tracks signalling the beginning of turtle season. We hoped to see one in the bay. There was a swell and we could see why the ocean divers hadn't gone in, but for us it wasn't that bad.

Me on a dive

Watching the sea for a while just to make sure we kitted up and ran through our buddy checks. A quick recap of the plan and we headed to Wigan Pier. Timing the leap off with the swell we leapt in one at a time, giving the ok symbol once in. We all lined up to watch Bills famous forward roll in.  I use baby shampoo to avoid fogging up of my mask and had been a bit over the top with its application today. Even though it said “no more tears” my eyes were burning. A quick dunk of my face into the sea to wash the shampoo off and we swam to the buoy.

We noted our air levels, 210 bar for me, so we could calculate our consumption later, and we descended down the chain to the sea bed. For the last few weeks my mask has leaked on the initial drop and I have had to resurface to adjust it. I thought it was my moustache I was growing for Movember preventing a seal. So this morning I had cleared a strip below my nose and it worked. No mask leak today.

On reaching the bottom I was to lead our group to start with for 10 minutes along the route we had planned at the dive club. I took my first compass bearing and was off. The visibility wasn't great so I had to keep looking over my shoulder to check the group was still together. Occasionally I would look around to see one diver disappearing into the haze of sand created by the swell. I waited for them to catch up, give the OK signal and waited for a reply and carried on. I soon hit the reef I was aiming for and took the next compass bearing. All ok I carried on and saw a beautiful fish. Seems it was a file fish, but it had markings like a peacock. My 10 minutes of leading came to an end and the next leader took over. Then the next.

After we had all had a go we found a patch of open sand in amongst the rocks and sat on the bottom in a circle. The time to clear our masks at depth had come. A quick run through of technique in my head and I was ready. Eliza was first and I hopped to watch her just to make sure but the Bill signalled myself to go at the same time. This was it. Eyes closed, mask off completely, then placed back on. I remembered a tip someone had told me about looking down to start with so did that. I sealed my mask against my forehead, breathed out through my nose and raised my head. Another breath and my mask was completely free of water. I had cleared it no problem and felt proud of myself. In the drift of the swell I noticed I had come very close to sitting on a sea urchin.

Masks clear we simulated an out of air scenario. I was first of our buddy pair. I signalled I was out of air, removed my reg and swam over to grab my buddies octopus. Right, do it right! So I put the ocky in, purged and took a breath. Simple. We did a short AS ascent to 6m and dropped back down. I took my reg back and we switched roles. No problems for my buddy either.

Training over we took a bearing and headed to shore. We seemed to have timed it perfectly, aside from the odd wave we all walked up the beach without any issues. I checked my air and had 90 bar left, more than a third. A quick debrief on the beach due to other commitments of certain divers and we were done. We dekitted and drove back to the club to chat, clean kit and relax.

One more lecture then the big test and Im a Sports Diver.

I plan on keeping this blog up to date on dives in the future. Hopefully, sea conditions allowing, to get in at least once a week so stay tuned.

The famous blackfish of Ascension



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