January in Marianna -- Brrrr
Tuesday, January 15
I eagerly anticipated my trip to Florida to attend Edd Sorenson’s award ceremony, and the diving I tacked on it, as well as my first leisurely trip out of town for the first time in what seems forever! The day started a little off, when my car reported 12°F . . . Wait, what? SE Arizona does NOT do -teens!!!! Dismayingly, the temp sank to 10° before I got to Tucson.
Fortunately, I was wearing my long underwear and my boat coat, so transferring from the parking lot to the terminal wasn’t so bad. Bad was being told my flight was canceled, because it was snowing in Dallas . . . Seriously? Were the Mayans off a bit? The coup de grace was when American Airlines booked me onto Delta. I got into Pensacola only an hour and a half later than expected.
Quite wonderfully, it was nearing 80° in Marianna. I got into Cave Adventurers, rented my tanks for the week, and was ready for the next morning’s dive with OC Diver.
Wednesday, January 16.
We met up at Cave Adventurers this morning, and I was thrilled to meet Steve Lewis. Both Steve and OC Diver were diving rebreathers that gave me a fascinating look at a different way of diving. I casually mentioned that I knew little of them, except for the myriad of questions I asked “when I saw a Poseidon rebreather class” . . . LOL, you should have heard the wisecracks fly! It was almost as bad as backmount versus sidemount . . . . or Ford versus Chevy. *snicker* These very intelligent and witty gentlemen had us all laughing!
Jackson Blue Springs was the prescription of the day, and a beautiful morning for it. Since OC likes to run a line and leave it in JB, he ran the primary – moving fluidly as if one with the water, and knowing well all the places to place the line – I was quite bemused. OC has the coolest markers attached to a clip that announce he is in the cave; everyone that dives JB seems to know him and his line. Also, while I knew my air consumption would be quite high – my first cave dive in three months and boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, I was diving with OC Diver! I was still chagrined to find I was turning the dive at the bottom of the chimney . . . Damnme! I asked for and quite kindly received very helpful feedback, thank you very much! I am immensely grateful for the number of highly skilled and experienced divers that take the time to dive with we Intro-to-Cave divers.
We had a bit of a surface interval where the gathering clouds and breeze made it uncomfortably cold; I was quite happy to head back into the water! We did our checks and headed to the entrance for our bubble check. There, I executed a helicopter turn and observed OC hovering, looking at his light. He finally backed up to stand up – his brand new HID light would not light! He was quite disappointed . . . but had “some spares” in his truck! Wow . . . his toy box is to die for! Back under we went, and soon were smoothing heading down the cavern.
This time, I paid attention to my breathing, and . . . well, honestly, quit fighting my lack of trim. For some reason, I was foot heavy even though I moved my bands down. However, I wasn’t going to let it frustrate me or blow off a lot of gas trying to get it completely flat. My 1/6th limit allowed only 500psi per tank, and I wasn’t going to squander the meager amount. I watched OC’s fin strokes, and tried to mirror his timing. This time, we reached the bottom of the chimney, and I was able to signal I had 300psi left . . . we made it to the first breakdown – whoo-hoo!
One action I took which was quite rightfully pointed out as “not a good idea” was diving under the gold line at the bottom of the chimney so I could turn around and watch OC drift down. He looked totally effortless, didn’t brush a single rock . . . however, I was taking a risk of entanglement and was properly admonished.
In this afternoon, I was fortunate to meet HammerheadFerrari, hereafter referred to as HF . . . I was told by my delightful host to expect him to come into the area. My first thought was, “what a cute young man!” However, a few comments on his grandchildren made me rethink. HF is a lovely diver who dives back-mount. My back began sympathy pains just watching him lug those big tanks! Very, very funny – the incredibly helpful young men at CA dragged their feet at pulling them out for HF . . . knowing he would do so, and they wanted nothing to do with that load!
Sol and Petel announced 70F in JB, with very light flow. On Tuesday, it began to get cold, as the temperature dropped into the upper 50’s with cloud cover and a brisk, COLD wind. It was not so nice out of the water. I was more than happy to get out of my gear and into some warm fresh layers after a shower!
Friday, January 18th – Dive with Superman!
I was really excited about diving with Edd Sorenson! Stacy gave me the duty of “keep him occupied as long as you can, so I can get stuff done!” Somehow I didn’t think that would be a problem, because I was having a terrible time keeping trim – I thought I had it all figured out, but now I’m diving with rental tanks and I seem stuck into a 30 degree head up. Damn it.
Through the week, as HammerheadFerrari was fighting with his huge doubles, everyone around Edd’s shop and Mike and Kevin were beating him up about ‘trying sidemount’. Finally, as I promised to support him *from* buying anything (after all, he could always order later! J ), he agreed to help me keep Edd occupied.
We chatted a bit in the shop, and after a bit of (me) frustrated trying to summarize the problem I wanted solved, the mission was: “I want to come away with understanding why I cannot trim out my own $%^&ing tanks, and with a list of things to work on to fine-tune my skills.” HF’s job was to try out sidemount. Edd looked at my gear, made a couple of suggestions for finessing it, discussed a bit on breathing and such, and then we were on our way to JB!
One there – and loving the sunshine day! Whoot! – We put ourselves together and once again, I expressed chagrin that we would probably would not even get to the breakdown, due to self-induced pressure. I was kindly chastised for ‘worrying about it, but telling you not to worry won’t do anything, anyway’ . . . yep . . . The acknowledgement was very helpful, though, and I could feel a little tension slipping. Mostly, Edd helped HF gear up and – for those who don’t know Edd, he has a myriad of stories to tell and in every one of them, a lesson. He began to talk about “handling” an out-of-air diver. . . Edd told us about how a person out-of-air is no longer George or John, but are now a panicked diver. They don’t think, they are at a base instinct level and YOU are between them and breathing. He showed us how to take our opposite hand to the diver’s arm, and turn Panicked Diver away from us even as we thrust the reg into his or her mouth. Training will make the Diver take the reg, but instinct will keep them flailing - being turned away will keep you out of harm’s way. The demonstration and walk-through was very helpful, and I picked up one more tidbit: “If you have the gas, don’t go anywhere. Panicked divers, no matter how many times they give you the “OK” are still Panicked or a hairsbreadth form going there again. Expect a good five minutes of just hovering before you go anywhere.”
We hit the water, and asked to lead through my equipment check for practice, and like everyone else, Edd was quite agreeable. He checked out the positioning of everything, and mentioned, “yeah, you don’t have much room there”. Everything was in the triangle, though, and we were good to go. Our initial job was to kick around the basin so Edd could muck with our gear. HF went under and immediately look beautiful. I can now confess that I hated you at that moment, HF! :p (Envy is an ugly thing!)
I hadn’t gotten very far when Edd signaled me to come back. He attempted to adjust something, but like those who worked with me before, found that you cannot jerk a strap loose or pull something tight because my little lightweight butt follows right along. He led me over to the ground and put a knee in my back . . . I was so LOL, because everyone eventually does that. I tried control it, thought – that was my precious gas I was dumping!!! :rollguy Edd also showed us a very graceful move to stand up in the water! That alone was worth the price of admission!
A few more swim-arounds, a few more tweaks, then back to swim-arounds and kick demos; then Edd signaled us to go into the cave. I could tell, though, that he wasn’t entirely pleased because I didn’t adjust out. Now, I must confess to a base feeling of relief. I had been feeling really inadequate because I could not balance my own gear, so if Edd wasn’t happy, then it was not just me. Whew!
We went into the cavern and did a few swim arounds and reverse kicks, turns, etc. I mostly did okay except I kept going head down so I could park the air at my tail. Somehow, we’d done a good hour by the time we thumbed.
Surface interval was SO much nicer when the sun is shining! Everyone got comfortable with a snack in their hand and then Edd came to look at my Nomad XT. Basically, since Edd reduced the taco effect at the tail, the air kept traveling to the shoulders and it doesn’t take much to knock this little lightweight out of balance. Unzipping the Nomad to check out the bladder, the thing was huge! Basically, it’s installed folded over to fit in the zippered area. After some hemming and hawing, and HF’s helpful comment of a need to restrict the expansion of the top of the bladder, my bladder was bungied to a smaller confined tube. Basically, with the wing tied tighter to me, there was less space for air at the tail and it was all gathering in all that space at the back of my neck. I was anxious to give it a try!
Ahhh, trimful bliss! I was happier than a pig in a mudhole! Everything was “right” once again. This time, we were to go in and I would be tasked with a few things for evaluation. We were to head out to my sixths, which were once again was around the 550’ mark. On the way in, I thought for a minute we’d lost Edd, but when I twisted back around, he was right there. I was a bit annoyed with myself not understanding how that could happen. I called the turn and we headed back. As I floated off the breakdown, once again, I couldn’t find Edd! This time, I made sure I wasn’t nuts, signaled HF, then once he turned, I covered my light to see if I could spot Edd’s. Edd turned his light on about 15’ away . . . HF had no idea, and I felt a bit stupid as I indicated OK, let’s go . . . .
As we cruised back to the chimney, I discover a benefit of being a lightweight in trim: I turned my fins to the flow, and I didn’t kick a bit to keep up with HF in the lead! I was hard-put to stop giggling. It should have been no surprise, but as we passed the cave sign, there was frantic flashing . . . I execute one heck of a u-turn, pulled my reg out of my mouth as I swam to the signaler. I was completely cognizant that I needed to grab his arm and turn him away from me. So WTF do I do, but miss my mouth with my backup reg?!?!? Really?!?!? I got one side of the mouth piece in, and was trying to get the whole thing in as I presented the long hose . . . I’m such a mess! But I DID get it in and the arm grabbed and ducked the flailing arms . . . graceless, but attentive and prepared. Sigh.
Back out in the gorgeous afternoon, we un-kitted and debriefed. The sun glowed a little warmer and the birds broke out in song as Edd complemented me on my attentiveness. I asked if he had also turned his light out at the top of the chimney – yes, so I was not imagining things! He also mentioned I needed to be a little quicker in controlling the panicked diver. I’m sure I was red as I confessed, “yeah, well, I missed my mouth with my bungeed reg.” He got that little sparkle in his eyes and quirky grin as he returned, “I saw that.” I came away with knowing I needed to practice more on ‘doing things’ in the one-foot window – which I recognized myself – and that I was exactly where I should be in my training given the dives I’ve done. I could have done a happy-dance!
HF chatted him up a bit more, about the applications of sidemount and comparing it to a Razor system he used in Mexico. All in all, we kept Edd occupied for a fair amount of the day.
Back at the Casa de Edd, I had to poke a little fun at the guys – everyone had been complaining this week about the fills, because the cold weather robbed us of 2-3 hundred psi overnight . . . I told Frank and John that they really needed to do a better job of taking care of their boss, because Edd’s light kept going out and he ran out of air! Frank rejoined with a cheeky grin, “Yeah, Edd’s a poor diver like that!” Edd barked with laughter!!! What a fabulicious day!
