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Dive Report: 5/09/99 - Shiprock.

Jason finally comes to his Sensors.

16m for 45mins

Divers - Scott (CCR), Jason(CCR), Ralf(OC)

Dived with Jason on his inaugural CCR dive today. Yes he has finally added the sensors after many years of diving manual! After seeing his rebreather I would expect him to die soon. The wires for the sensors protrude from the scrubber and are just waiting to get banged off or caught up. His battery pod is held on the back with some elastic bands and I thought of popping the latches during the dive more than once ;)

Sydney is still the home built capital of the world after meeting two new RB divers before the dive today. John Riley (one of the country's most experienced maritime archeologists and wreck discoverers/pilferers) came to meet us with his partially built rb, and it was surprisingly good considering he has only built it based on a few things from the net and a few conversations with us. It was embarrasing how good his 'first attempt' looked compared to how ours had looked. It almost looks like a bought one. He is using a snorkelers bcd which fits neatly over your head. His mouthpiece was very impressive, like a pvc version of the one Rod has with circlips and such. He had even manufactured his own flapper valve seats.

We also dived with Ralf who brought his bits for an RB. It came complete with half inch thick milspec stainless bag clamps that looked like they could take a bullet and also negated the need for a weight belt ;)
He dived OC with us (only his 10th oc dive ever) but he is an experienced free diver and was very comfortable in the water, embarasing us once again.

My dive was uneventful which was almost scary. The rb worked flawlessly which could end up making me complacent if it keeps doing that. Jasons dive was successful, the electronics worked with only one sensor being .1 lower than the other two. He ran a setpoint of 1.1 for most of the dive. however, the whole dive he was 'panting' even when he wasn't working. We traced this to a kinked hose which had driven the WOB through the roof.

The water was really clear and there were heaps of fish which is usuall at this marine reserve. At the end of the dive Jason signalled he wanted to get out because he was cold. He had been anchored to the bottom the whole dive because he had not been able to inflate his drysuit. He didn't have the correct hose end and did the dive vacume sealed into his suit. I wanted to get to the bottle dump at the end of the wall so signalled to Jason I would catch back up to them in 10 mins. He signalled we should stay together so I took off in the strong current that was present. I lost Ralf and Jason instantly and had a quick look for some bottles. On the way back I fought the current for about 5 mins. I was working really hard and noticed after a short while that the gas became hotter and noticably more moist. I considered the possibility of condensation on the sensors. I also thought about CO2 build up but the scrubber worked flawlessly and I didn't notice any.

I caught up with Jason and Ralf and got amongst a huge school of various fish, more like a number of small schools combined. Towards the end of the dive I thought I'd test Rich's statement of how long it would take to breathe 1 down to .2. I didnt add any gas for the last 5 mins as I slowly ascended. The po2 never dropped below 4.5. It was great diving with another CCR and when Jason and I got some distance from Ralf we got quite close to the fish.

At the end of the dive we had a chat and Ralf got some more ideas for his RB.

Ask the Backyard Boys