WRECK AND DEEP

Wreck and Deep: Yesterday I went diving on the wreck to complete my Master Scuba Diver Instructor class for wreck diving. We did 2 dives and practiced the skills we are expected to teach. We did very well and I'm confident we could all teach the class. We mapped the wreck, laid a line outside for practice. The instructor laid the inside penetration line because we were running out of bottom time. The wreck is at 90 feet and bottom time is severely limited. We were diving on Nitrox however and that lengthens the time a bit. Anyway we pulled the line in while we completed the penetration. Of course I just did this same class as a student a few weeks ago so it was all fresh in my mind.

Today we did our deep specialty and used the wreck as our dive site again. We took down a coke bottle and bag of chips to watch them get crushed by the pressure. The chip bag gets to be a little ball and very hard. It all comes back when you surface but of course its mostly crumbs by then. This is a common demo used when teaching about deep diving. We also took several colored items down so we could see the colors disappear with the depth. Red is totally gone at about 35 feet or less. Green and blue are still pretty clear however even at 100 feet. We practiced a few other deep water skills and then surfaced. Since we were going down again we just stayed on the surface for 15 minutes rather than climbing back onto the boat. We were on a small speedboat with no ladder so getting on was a huge challenge for me. We did another dive just swimming around and then did a simulated decompression stop at 20 feet for 8 minutes while handing on to the mooring line. All of this was possible because we were using 32% Nitrox mix which allows longer bottom times and shorter surface intervals.

Someone from another school got bent yesterday and spent part of the night in the chamber. This really can be dangerous is you're not careful.