Advanced Diver Completed! PDF Print E-mail
Written by Daniel Hienzsch   
Thursday, 09 July 2009
Despite the original difficulties that arose with the massive swell and wave conditions on that first attempt out on the Spectre, I was able to finish up my Advanced dives a few weeks later on that same boat again.  We had to scrap doing a deep dive, unfortunately, as the swell conditions at that site on the NE "face" of Anacapa proved to be far to choppy to set the mooring lines.  So we tried the other side, what is usually the windward side and found a place to do a quick dive. The first certification dive was a Fish ID dive, whereby you bring a slate with you are required to identify a certain quantity of species of fish and a certain quantity of invertebrates in order to pass.  That's not that hard with the ocean as plentiful with life in the California kelp beds.  After Garibaldis, Kelpfish, Sheepsheads, Spanish Shawls, Purple Sea Urchins and Red Spiny Stars, it's not hard to pick up the last three or four items you need.

The second cert dive was a search and recovery dive, which I greatly enjoyed.  We had to execute three different search patterns using two different methods: square pattern using kick cycles, square pattern using hand spans, and an expanding square using kick cycles.  We searched for a weightbelt that had about 40 pounds loaded on it, then we'd attach a lift bag, inflate to neutral buoyancy, and float it back to the instructor.  Good times!

In between the second dive and the third dive, we watched the Rescue Diver candidates perform their beach rescue work: recovery of tired and unconcsious divers to safety on dry sand.  It looked like pretty strenuous work and that was coupled with having to do a surface swim to a beach from the boat and then swimming back.  The rescue candidates looked pretty exhausted, but obviously pretty happy when they got back.

Our final dive was a just a fun dive, as we now had our full five dives completed (Night, Deep and Nav done via shore diving weeks prior).  And that was it!  It's Advanced Diver Dan!

Actually, it's Rescue Diver Dan.  I signed up for the Rescue class almost immediately and passed it within a month!
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 January 2010 )
 

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