Gozo was the destination last week with Module 3 Inspiration Trimix TDI qualification the goal. The good news was that travelling with Air Malta makes all the difference in terms of sports luggage. On previous trips to the Maltese islands I have felt like a victim of the Ryan Air rudeness and unhelpfullness campaign. Air Malta were brilliant with an additional sports baggage allowance for divers of 32kg. In short this meant the Rebreather plus enough sofnolime for the week could all be flown without fuss or hassle. Air Malta you deserve the plug.The course has been coming for some time and in the end it worked out more economical to go to Gozo than to ge to Stoney Cove for the weekend. Perhaps a touch warmer too with both air and water temperature at 20C.
The three years that I have had the Rebreather seem to have shot past though there were still some nerves as I headed to the airport to meet up with the others. Getting over to Gozo was a bit of a trek but fortunately all five units arrived in one piece and with just a bit of setting up it was on with the course in earnest.
Our first dive after some theory on Monday morning was to be on air diluent down to 50m. Expecting to be narked and ready to go
with our two side slung stage tanks we all
entered the water at the Inland Sea. By the time we had swum through the opening in the cliffs on down to 50m there is no doubt that me and the others were truly narked. Kaf had a fit of the giggles and
I almost made a complete mess of one of the rebreather drills.
On Tuesday after yet more theory we changed gasses this time introducing some helium and
headed off to a site called middle finger. Another shore dive with some serious deep diving possibilities. Unfortunately Paul discovered a leak in his drysuit and much to his frustration but good judgement he called his dive. It was down to Kaf and eye together with Andy and Pete which gave us one on one supervision. On our way to 72m we stopped at the previous days maximum depth. The difference was amazing. I had always been told this was the case, though even I had not
expected it to be so noticeable. We carried on to our bottom depth at 72m and my head remained totally clear and the whole dive was very comfortable.
Then Andy started throwing 'what if' problems at us to test our understanding and ability to cope with problems. Things like what do you do if you run out of O2 at 100m and what do you do if your computer packs up at 100m? Very daunting as you realise that if these things happened at the end of the dive you wouldn't have sufficient gas to get to the surface if you opted to switch to open circuit. I am pleased to say there are answers but it really does make you think as well as recognise the need to understand what your kit can do and how to run it.
On Wednesday the plan was to dive both HMS Stubborn and the Imperial Eagle. The S class British submarine lies in 55m and is intact albeit that a number of fittings were removed before she was sunk in 1946 as part of sonar training. The Imperial is somewhat shallower but looked like a good option for a second dive to enable us to practice skills.
Having got kitted up it was too late when we realised that our skipper, Tony was next to clueless.
Hanging around as he looked for the wreck was painful. Eventually Andy got in to go and have a look. On his direction we followed him down when he put his SMB up. As instructed I raced down the line to check my cells function. Worked a treat too.
Trouble was we had missed the wreck, the shot line was dragging in the sand and despite 25m viz there was no sign of the submarine. Feeling pretty disappointed we surfaced and realised that the skippers faffing about had also cost us the second dive. Not a memorable day.
On Thursday we went back to Middle Finger with gasses suitable to go to 100m and an intention
of going to 85m first and seeing
how we felt. The day was much calmer and this time we all got in the water as per the plan. At 85m the decision to press on to 100m was an easy one. This took us to the bottom of the impressive middle finger pinnacle. At 20m we did a diluent flush to change gases to a 36% nitrox mix and it was fascinating to watch the decompression obligation tumble by 17 minutes.
The decompression stop at 6m was long enough. Paul encountered another challenge as he lost some buoyancy and had to wedge himself into the rocks. As he lay face down he was ceremonially decorated in a covering of seaweed. Such a shame the camera can't come with me on these dives as it would have made a great shot.
That was it, a great week, excellent company and lots of learning. Next season it starts to get serious with the first dive planned for the mighty Moldavia. Can't wait!
Meanwhile watch out for some Technical courses coming to Orca in the new year.
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