2011-03-06: Dosthill Quarry

I went with Paul Anderson to Dosthill today for OD1 and OD2. The morning was overcast, the afternoon sunny; a pleasant spring day. The water temperature at 5deg was cold, but neither of us got cold. Visibility was about 8m near the surface, but only about 4m when deeper

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Dive #001

As OD1 is mainly about buoyancy control, after re-checking that the 18kg I wore in the pool also worked in open water, we spent time repeatedly going down from the 2m platform to the 5m platform and up again. I got quite good at that, though I did find that if I moved from horizontal to head-up he began to lose buoyancy control, but was always able to recover.

We went for a swim along the side of the quarry, and at the appropriate time turned round back to the platforms. No problems.

At the platform, the mask-clearing went well, especially as my mask re-flooded several times, until we found that the skirt had curled back in under itself. I was very pleased to note I took this in my stride and sorted out the problem calmly. I also found that I tended to tip forwards when kneeling, so mask-cleared standing up. The DV retrieval and dropping weightbelt was uneventful.

Dive #002

After a sausage sandwich and a cup of tea we chatted for an hour and a quarter, kitted up and wandered back to the water. Weirdly, at 13:37 we were the only pair still there.

The buoyancy control to be shown in OD2 is to hover mid-water. I did this spot-on between the 2m and 5m platforms. The recovery from being inverted and the "stuck-valve" drills went very well, as did the repeat of mask clearing and DV retrieval.

We went for a longer dive around the quarry, keeping close to the wall so we had a visual reference. Although the instructor notes state "approximately 10m" there is absolutely nothing of interest at that depth - I was judged to have sufficient buoyancy control, and to be at ease, so was taken to the fallen tree at 16m. On the way back we got to 6m and swam back at that level. Again no problems.

The AS drill went well both as donor and recipient. We then hovered just off the 5m platform watching a pike gazing at a school of small fish - sadly it did not make a move to catch its lunch, so we surfaced and got out.