Monday, July 23, 2007

Saturday Diving at Dutch Springs

Diving with Hans was great. I dove in my wet suit so I could easily reach my valves and perform the required drills. I’m buying a new dry suit as one of the problems I have is that my old suit is too short in the body to allow my arms enough reach to get my hands on my valves. I practiced lost mask, moving my sling bottle around (fixed ‘D’ rings make this so easy). Hans dives on a rebreather and so we were able to practice the out of air drills I’d do with Charlie – who also dives rebreather. I’d never really seen a rebreather in action either. It’s weird to see someone diving with no bubbles. Hans spent time working on his buoyancy. I watched him working at keeping his buoyancy level during the slow gradual ascents we made throughout our dive. He did pretty well but I think the dive was a useful practice for him too. Last stop on the dive was a student platform where I practiced responding to the actual drills Charlie uses on his training dives. All went well and I felt very relieved. Hans gave me some good feedback and some nuggets from his instructor which I liked.

Jeff Bollinger (long time friend and dive buddy) was at the quarry teaching an Advanced Open Water class and Michele Carvale (another close dive based friend) was teaching Open Water, with her new man, Bill, assisting her. Pat Iapicca, the original owner of Hoboken Dive Center , was there with his two sons (one taking OW the other taking AOW). It was kind of nice being there and not teaching for a change. It reminded me of how much of a breeze assisting as a Dive Master had been, without the responsibilities/ stresses of instructing. Did a final dive with Michele’s class and worked just on valve management. Michele threw some well needed compliments in my direction and added that her dry suit (DUI as is the one I have on order) is as easy to work in as her wet suit, so I can’t wait to get mine.


1 comment:

Alex B. said...

Do you know the whereabouts of Jeff Bollinger ?