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Dive Logs for Vance Stevens PADI open water scuba instructor #64181 Dive 410-411 September 20, 2001 Ras Gurab and Sheraton Shorefront

Diving with: Marine Divers
Dive buddies: Spencer Pugh and Bob Campbell on the first dive, Flor Pesigan on the second
Others in dive party: Wayne driving, 3 local guys, a kid with green hair, Karen and hubby
Conditions: warm, pleasant
Visibility: not so good, 4 meters
Wetsuit combo: Scuba Pro .5 mm neoprene skin
Weight: 6 kg
Diving from:Marina Divers boat

My 410th Logged Dive since 1991

Dive site: Ras Gurab
Training conducted: Spencer's Open Water Dive #1; Bob Campbell's Advanced Underwater Navigation

Data from dive computer:

Time down on dive computer: 10:13
Max depth: 5.7 meters
Time started up from chart: 46 min.
Dive time from computer: 44 min
Min Temp: 32° C
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

PSI/Bar in: 130
PSI/Bar out: 30 bar

Pressure group out, from tables or wheel: H

Description of dive:

As I often do at Ras Gurab, I had an open water student on his first dive follow Bob Campbell and I on Bob's advanced Underwater Navigation dive. We got off to a hectic start since I told my divers to be at the pier at 9, and 20 after 8 they were calling wondering where the hell we were. Turns out there was a boatload ready to leave the doc at 8, but they kindly agreed to wait for us, and we were at the patrol boat at the harbor by 9 a.m.

At the site, Bob and Spencer took their time kitting up, which was fine. In that process I had each of the guys walk down the ladder with a weight belt on and check that they could float at eye level and then sink, and Bob adjusted weight accordingly. I had Bob demo for Spencer the backward roll and he executed his first brilliantly, following instructions to a T. The water was warm and pretty calm though a breeze had stirred things up enough to give us worse than average vis. We went down the anchor line with Spencer and I both holding on, and Spencer got there fine, no problems. At the bottom I had to give him some weight in the pocket of his BCD and later on in the dive I gave him a second brick. Fortunately I was carrying enough.

We tied the reel on a rock near the anchor and played it out 30 meters to approximately NW and Bob tracked the time, roughly 1.5 minutes. We left the reel in the sea grass (I had planned to tie it off and send up the sausage, but there was no place to tie to at that point). We then followed the line back to base counting fin kicks, which appeared to be about 23 for me. Bob then led us north 30 meters and I didn't mark the spot accurately but noticed we were right beneath the boat. He then led us back pretty much on target, passing underneath the anchor line.

We then started Bob's square pattern to the west. First try Bob was veering a bit to the left and when he started to go out of sight in the gloom I clacked him back. We returned to base and tried again, both of us working independently, me to confirm his accuracy. Next leg was north, and here we passed over the reel in the sea grass. I guess we should actually have been beyond it (I'd been insisting we would cross it, but that's where we must have gone off - still both of us doing the compass work, our heading was accurate; it must have been the slightly east-flowing current pushing us that was a bit each time). We stopped and made our easterly turn, and at the end of that leg I didn't see the boat overhead as I thought we should have. We were however under the anchor line, so it was an easy matter to follow the line south and pass right over the base point.

Thing was though, we reached it after only about 10 kicks, so Bob, who was again a bit to my left, carried on. He told me later he knew it had to be near the anchor but he carried on because I'd told him to trust his navigation and we'd find it by turning circles around a reel (I was carrying a spare) In any event, I'm sure it was the current pushing us a bit to the east each time, and Bob's headings and kicks were just fine.

At this point Spencer was getting down near 50 bar, so I had Bob lead us off the anchor line apprx 30 meters on visual reference, pointing out landmark objects, and then back again, which he did fine. At that point we took Spencer to the surface and Bob and I returned down the anchor line to retrieve my reel and line. I was down to around 30 bar because I had started out with a short tank, one of the ones allocated to us having only 130 bar to start with.

All divers did well, meeting their goals for the dive according to their capabilities.

Surface interval: 3:10
Pressure Group in: A

On return to Marina Divers, Spencer and I took a lunch break and then we met Flor back at the Dive Center at 2:00 for confined water session 2. Here is the data for that session:

Data from dive computer:

After some surface exercises and mask clearing in shallow water:which didn't register on the computer
Time down on dive computer: 16:10
Max depth: 4.6 meters
Time started up from chart: 13 min
Dive time from computer: 13 min.
Min Temp: 33° C
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

The vis was so bad here, you could see the suspensions before your mask. We went down and did our exercises but found it impossible to swim without losing track of each other, which we did when I led us off the swim platform to try and find better vis further from shore. We lost Flor, but found her after a minute at the surface.

After this, Flor and I took the two tanks with the most air and went for a dive: We decided to check underneath the boats (no traffic that time of day) and then head North which would angle us out past the swim area.

Surface Interval: 17 min.

My 411th Logged Dive since 1991

Dive site: Sheraton Hotel Shorefront
Training conducted: Flor Pesigan's Open Water Dive #1

Data from dive computer:

Time down on dive computer: 16:48
Max depth: 9.6 meters
Time started up from chart: 47 min
Dive time from computer: 47 min.
Min Temp: 33° C
Nitrox 21% (normal air), no deco

PSI/Bar in: 150
PSI/Bar out: 60 bar

Pressure group out: Flor can calculate it

Description of dive:

We started at the jetty leading to the Sheraton Dive Center and worked around to where they park the boats since Wayne had told me there were fish there. There were, snappers, but the vis was pretty bad. Flor was sticking close and doing fine, so I headed on a northerly heading and soon encountered two landmarks: First a concrete block with a red buoy on it which I know to mark the swim/boar area, and then a block with a rope angled up it which I knew to be the start of the buoyied area, so I knew exactly where we'd got to. We continued north until we hit irregular terrain and here I started following gullies to the north and west, getting down to 4 meters. Not much in the way of sea life, though I did point out a sponge and had Flor touch it. Lots of trash out there. Eventually we came on a surprise, a dropoff. We popped over and found a trench going down to nine meters. We were in the dredged channel it turned out but at least there was something to see, with snappers scurrying about under ledges. Flor had ear problems at depth and was by then down to 70 bar so I decided to head back. I guessed at at 150 degree heading and followed it up to the shallows. At 2 minutes on my watch we encountered a buoy with an agressive crab splayed out beneath it. Continuing another couple of minutes took us right to the dive center, perfect.

Flor did very well but I'm a little worried about her ear which she didn't think felt normal. Hope it's ok.