Paul Kidson

A fairly uneventful trip from Inverness to Scrabster,  Rob did get us lost again but that’s such a regular occurrence now that it’s become the normal!

We started our TDI advanced wreck course today.   Mark Powell teaching us (poor sod!) as we were so impressed with him in Malta when he did our AN&DP course.

Dive one was on the Dresden, we dropped down the shot after a s-drill and swam towards the bow, round the bow and through a swim through in the hull.  Mark then made us take it in turns to hover in a confined environment but chucked a shutdown drill at me when it was my turn!  Managed not to move vertically but did drift forwards a little bit so room for improvement there.  Mark then took us into a coal bunker which involved squeezing through a narrowish gap, once we were through he stirred the silt up to show us just how quickly it goes from ten metres viz down to zero -  scarily quickly was the answer!

More swimming along the hull before he gave Rob a shutdown in a confined space.  Not so good for Rob as he immediately dropped his head and feet before bouncing off everything in sight!  Annoying thing is he knows he can do it as we spent thirty minutes practicing them last week with no problems

Rob then bagged up and a fairly uneventful deco to the surface began, though Rob did get handcuffed by Mark because he wouldn’t stop playing with his valves, I swear he gets target fixation…

Dive two involved some line laying skills on the outside of the wreck.  I went first and thought I was doing ok but rapid flashing from Rob showed he had managed to get himself caught up in the line.  Freed him and carried on but he then “managed” to get line caught round his manifold which I freed.   We then had to reel in while Rob was on my primary reg which went ok once we had been corrected by Mark and Rob had gone in the lead.

Rob then laid line the other way but I soon got a fin buckle caught in the line, he didn’t notice my flashing and carried on laying line.  As soon as I had freed myself my primary torch failed and I had to stop and get my backup out, Rob was still laying line and was two ties up the wreck.  Mark spotted this and immediately put him out of air and in his rapid swim back for my air he bird nested the reel.  We sorted this latest problem and reeled back in before starting our deco plan.  Thirteen minutes at 6m flies by when your trying to learn to backfin!

Lessons learnt so far… Keep the line taught and at arms length, at the moment I’m holding it to close which is causing me to get tangled up easily.  Also the reel man is always at the back on the way out, even if his buddy is out of air! Oops

Roll on day two!