First Class Diver Part 2

The First Class Diver award from the British Sub Aqua Club is the highest amateur diving level awarded anywhere in the world. You need the highest level of theoretical knowledge and practical ability you can get. You have to push the envelope and be able to achieve something worthwhile in your diving. I am proud to be one of the examiners for this.

I spent this weekend on the Clyde on a FCD Prep weekend. It is interesting to work with people who are emerging FCDs as well as the other instructors, all experienced FCDs and National Instructors. This is the second prep weekend I've been on this year. An earlier one was held at Lochaline on the Sound of Mull using a hard boat. This weekend we used RHIB's.

On both weekends I was struck by the range of skills presented by the divers. They can all clearly dive well and have extended knowledge in gases and gas supply systems. Rebreathers and large twinsets abounded with various valve setups from separate twins to hog rigs. Well personally I still normally use a single 10 or 12 on air with a 3 litre pony so I feel outgunned.  But at least I can lift it.

The knowledge that seems to be in shorter supply is how to find things and how to get on them when you do. In past years divers were all brought up looking for the marks and honing their navigation skills in small inflatables. Nowadays there seems to be more use of skippers in hard boats doing the work with the divers having more theory than practice. But you can see the trainees coming on in leaps and bounds as you get them actually using this theory in a practical way.  From finding wrecks to putting a shot in improvements are noticeable over the two weekends. And I had some really good dives on both weekends.




bagging the shot

There is always much discussion about what makes a good First Class diver. It is not only the skills as these are just the tools a FCD employs. These are the parts that are tested in the exam. All of this is transparent and can be found on the BSAC website under First Class Diver. There are 12 criteria the practical examination concentrates on:

• Personal diving skills
• Dive Leading Underwater on both assessment days
• Attitude of the candidate
• Safe, effective dive management
• Contribution to leadership
• Contribution to teamwork
• Practical position fixing
• Response to emergency
• Achievement of dive operation objectives
• Seamanship skills
• Practical diving knowledge

But in my opinion there is one major element that needs more than the skills you can learn on a course. The attitude of the candidate. Why are they doing it and what are they getting out of it?  The very best FCDs I've seen are hungry. Hungry for new sites. Hungry for new wrecks. Hungry for new cliffs. Hungry for new dives and new experiences. And when they get them...... they want another. And another. They are always hungry. It is not the getting it that matters to them, it is the finding it, the proving they can do it to themselves, the achieving something someone else hasn't, couldn't or wouldn't. And the skills they acquire along the way are the tools they use to satisfy that hunger.

This does not just apply to divers though. In all areas of life I meet hungry people who are satisfying that craving in different ways. Climbers, sailors, skydivers and entrepreneurs to mention a few. You notice when they switch to a new area or sport they take that hunger with them and it drives them on to achieve. They are the people on the bleeding edge. Long may it continue as we need them to keep moving forward and avoid species stagnation. Get hungry and go feed.

Practice or Dangerous Practice

I've recently had a great long weekend at Oban. I was with a University Club, helping them take their new trainees in. It was hectic. We had 13 new trainees, some lingering trainees from past years and some qualified divers as well. We averaged 30 divers per day. We only had a few instructors there ranging from 3 to 7 so we were heavily loaded for training dives. I did 3 on the first day, four on the second, only surface work on the third and 2 on the last as we wanted to get home. All trainees got in the water more than once and we got lots of skills signed off. Altogether a really successful weekend and a lot of fun. Feeding everyone and keeping bottles filled were both big challenges. Puffin have a useful air system but they really need to do something about their A clamp bottle fittings. We blew quite a few O rings and talking to other divers there we were not the only ones. Each time cost us a fill at £4 plus an O ring. We don't get this problem using our own compressor.

Loch Creran where we spent one day training

 

But it was good fun except we had two bends. Now I've been diving for 32 years and have seen more bends this year than I've ever seen in the rest of my diving career. Is the air changing? In this case both bends involved ascent problems. One was a trainee lifting a victim for a rescue test at Loch Creran. The victim was indeed as he got the bend when the ascent was too fast and then repeated again, too fast. We put them all on the naughty step and monitored them and after 15 minutes the victim started to get hand problems. We put him straight on oxygen and contacted Aberdeen:

 

Diving emergencies and medical advice in Scotland: call 0845 408 6008 and ask for the on-call hyperbaric consultant.

After extensive consultation they instructed us to take him to Oban A&E where they called in a diving doctor. 5 hours on oxygen and the problem resolved and he was discharged. At midnight we took him back as the symptoms came back and he spent the night in the pot at Dunstaffnage. He is still waiting to start diving again. The doctor looked at his computer and said immediately the problem was the ascents.

The next day at The Slates three qualified divers were diving together when one ascended too fast. The most experienced grabbed her to slow her down and was pulled to the surface. He has had a bend before caused by a shunt (like a PFO) and therefore went through his own checks to see if he was ok. I never knew about this till later otherwise I would have put them all on the naughty step for monitoring. He thought he was ok but the next morning woke feeling poorly and reported into A&E in Edinburgh. They sent him to Aberdeen who treated him in the pot too. He now needs to consider his long term diving future.

Diving The Slates last year. One person on this trip ended up with a bend for a fast ascent. that was the first I saw from this cluster. It didn't emerge until the next day.

 

Within the club we have been discussing the problems that have occurred and trying to work out the causes and how to avoid them in the future. In the past year there have been three bends in the club all involving ascents. Partly this is caused by the trainees in the university swopping kit and changing weightbelts by guesswork. Different suits, underclothes, stabs, weightbelts every dive, not always fitting correctly is bound to cause buoyancy problems. But one of these was the exercise to lift someone for a rescue exercise involving people all diving with their own kit. No excuses here. Do we now consider this too risky? During treatment of both of the bends discussed the doctors were appalled to hear we still practice lifts. They consider it too high a risk for possible future gain. Is it?

As both BSAC and SSAC require lifts for qualifications this is a political argument that needs to be fought. However within the club we can reduce the risk a bit more by using a dummy instead of a real person as the victim. We do not have one but will rig it from a stab jacket, bottle, DV and weight belt. If they can lift that ok as though it was a person then we will switch on the surface to a real person. I'll let you know how we get on with this method.

Research on the subject of bends has led me into the area of non-symptomatic DCS. Dr Richard Pyle's work on this has been very illuminating. But that takes us further into deep diving and decompression and is for another time.

Lobsters, Lines and Litter.

I got out diving today for the first time this month. Jo and I had a week in Skye earlier this month where I saw lots of dive sites and the viz looked amazing. But I stayed firmly on the shore for a change. I've been in the pool training most Fridays and we have most of the trainees at Stirling Uni ready for their first outing in 2 weeks. But today we were all qualified and it was deep dive training.

We went to the CM Barrier site on Loch Long as it was high tide about 11. I need high tide at some of these sites now to be able to get out at the end. Why make it hard? Alex and I dived together but his ears proved to be against us so we spent most of the dive at 6 metres. Viz was only about 2 anyway as it was pretty stirred up with the wind. But good to get wet. Near the end of the dive we managed to get a bit deeper on the cliff there and found a good sized lobster out in the open - well Alex did as I was just swimming over it. I was surprised at how it remained still when we shone the torches on it but then realised it had some fishing line caught round it. As I looked closer I realised it was caught in about 20 different fishing lines and must have been spinning because it seemed to have a big mess of line going into its mouth. It took me a few minutes to cut it free but I couldn't remove all the line from around the legs where it gets caught so decided to bring it up. We started to ascend and realised how much line was hanging about on the cliff. We promptly found a crab in as bad a predicament as the lobster and Alex cut it free as my hands were full already. It had a metal trace running to hooks that proved to be very difficult to cut so we need to rethink what we carry for cutting. Alex brought the crab up and then set about freeing them both from the remaining lines with a Swiss Army knife.

 

 

 As you can see it is a good sized lobster but it was pretty tired. When I cut it free there was a big twist of about 20 monofilament lines going into its mouth but these we either pulled clear as we unravelled its legs or it must have swallowed. Hopefully its gut will not be blocked and it will be able to feed again.

The number of worm casts means it has had this shell for a while.

 

 

So that was the lobster freed up - Tank returned it to the sea. Now work started on the crab.

 

You can see by the colours here it is multiple lines and at least one metal trace.

The last few lines had to be unwrapped from the joints.

And here it is ready to be returned to the sea. It was an edible crab as you can see from the "pie crust" shell.

 

 

One of the things I've learnt over the years is to ensure my exit from the water. In this case to make it easier we deployed some straps to help us get back up.

 

 

It does make a big difference I've found and is easy to carry in the dive bag or the back of the car. We also carry some bags to clean up some of the rubbish we find. In this case we bagged the line we removed from the lobster and crab and some other line lying that Jo found. This stuff is deadly to birds yet still gets left around. We gave up on the huge number of bottles and cans lying around this dive site and the one just south of here. Why do people come out to a beautiful area and feel they can leave their rubbish there? Do they ever think what it will be like the next time they come back or is that too much for their tiny brains? Other people think the barrier is there for throwing their rubbish over. Which is obvious from these photos I took at a dive site on Loch Fyne last year.

 

A beautiful dive site but just over the barrier from the layby was this lot

And building rubbish is not left by fishermen or divers usually.

 

So that's my rant against all the rubbish I find at dive sites, in dive sites and in the creatures I see at dive sites. For those of you interested in the fuller effects of plastics on the creatures we find in the sea please go and look at the blog of Natural(ist) Blonde. She is working on the plastic in the guts of Langoustine and is passionate about her subject. She is also a good writer and well worth reading.

Oh yes. If you want a big secure storage cart of the type used by supermarkets to move their cigarettes about in there is one just over the barrier at CM Barrier but it is empty. Perhaps someone brought their beer along in it?

Bends and aging.

Heard yesterday that one of the trainees on the Glasgow Uni trip got a bend. Took a day or two to materialise but by the Tuesday she had a rash on both arms and was aching badly. She had to sit in the hospital waiting area for 3 hours until the diving doctor from Aberdeen finally got through to them, when they sprang into action realising the seriousness of it. Off to Millport chamber, thank heaven it is still there, and 4 treatments later she got the all clear on the Friday with advice to have a check for a PFO. We have worked through the dives and they were all shallow and non-provocative as far as we can see. Which goes to show it can happen anytime to anyone.

My birthday cake from 2 years ago. I also like sailing.

It is my birthday this week. Having reached the ripe age of 62 I find the possibility of a diving problem looming larger in my thinking. Older people are more likely to have a problem whether diving related or just through being older, less fit and generally falling apart. So I have become less aggresive in my dive profiles, taking more time on ascents and stopping more often. I'm starting to think the dive won't go away so I can always come back. I also carry oxygen now, especially as my son Alex dives with me a lot. I feel even more responsible. Yet we still do some good diving.

I was in the pool last Thursday and Friday, training with Stirling Uni on the latter. They have a lot of trainees this year so we are lucky to have a lot of helpers coming in from other clubs and two of the regional coaches also helping. Thanks everyone. I'll miss tomorrow as I'm going to Skye for a week and for once not diving. I'll be passing lots of good dive sites and be aching to get in. Ahh well.

Anyway for visuals this week I have a video. When we held a "come and try it" session last year I set the GoPro up in the corner and created a timelapse video of the event. So have a look and enjoy.

First Class Diver Part 1

This week I've been spending time organising BSAC First Class Diver events. There are two prep events in Scotland as well as the exam and I am helping on all of them at the moment. I did my First Class back in 1985, four years after I started diving. I was lucky to be in a club that encouraged everyone to higher qualifications and to be diving with some of the foremost explorers of Scotland at that time so the diving I was doing was incredibly adventurous and challenging. Nowadays I feel the diving available is more packaged.

The Charna when she was still a dive boat

For an expedition to St Kilda in the early 80s we hired the Charna (now a dive site rather than a dive boat) run then by Jim Kilcullen now of the Kylebahn. We vittled the expedition ourselves, took our own compressor and our own inflatable. We researched and planned the dives we wanted to do and ran them ourselves. I took my wife Jo and my mum (she was the only one who could stand up in the galley without banging her head) as they both wanted to see St Kilda.

Here is a photo of St Kilda from the bay.

The Charna in Village Bay at St Kilda

The hard boat dives I've been on in the last few years seem to rely more on the skipper to choose the dive sites and run the dives. Not always to the best effect for the divers I sometimes feel. Is this because we have gravitated to the easy option? Are we not teaching up and coming divers the skills they need to organise these dives? Are we setting young divers a poor example so they think the norm is let the skipper choose? I think we are doing all of these things but "market forces" have also played a part. As skippers have offered a better product so they have improved their planning and control to make it easier for the divers. The PADI concept of being taken diving I feel has also had an effect.

Because of this First Class is the time when divers really have to start understanding how to organise dives and expeditions. The First Class Diver definition (from Andy Hunt, First Class Chief Examiner):

"A First Class Diver is the highest diver grade available within the BSAC and is defined as a diver

who has:

• a high level of practical diving skills and knowledge beyond BSAC Advanced diver
• the ability to organise groups of divers and lead major diving expeditions to achieve specific aims or objectives
• the ability and knowledge to contribute to the BSAC at a branch, regional and national level."

On the exam diving skills are usually good especially now most candidates have done mixed gas and rebreather diving. The problems occur with the organising, leading and achieving. Finding a location for a wreck or other underwater feature eats time and shows who has done it before. There are usually lots of bits of laminated paper with great plans on but a lack of realism and achievement. So if at this level these skills are lacking are we missing out on teaching these in the branches? Hence why we now have First Calls prep events? BSAC has spent many years saying "If we examine it then surely we should first teach it?" Well I heard someone say it once.

So the prep events this year are a hard boat out of Lochaline and inflatables from Cumbrae. Both events are well subscribed which bodes well for the exam. I am looking forward to them all.

As well as BSAC I am also a member of ScotSAC, the scottish club. ScotSAC have taken a different approach to First Class. For a number of years they have not had anyone who could teach or examine First Class. This is understandable as the last I heard they have dwindled to under 1100 members (Board Meeting Minutes, 20th June 2012). First Class used to be similar to BSAC in that you had to prove yourself via both theoretical and practical exams. Now you prove that you have experience by having logged (in the correct format) over 500 dives, have completed several nationally accepted courses and your branch diving officer feels you are suitable (full details here). This is an interesting approach to this level but I am not sure it gives a First Class Diver an active position within the club. It gives bragging rights and shows you are a survivor. But are you qualified to do anything more than a Master Diver? Is it just a different definition of "pushing the envelope"?


On a totally different front a friend contacted me with details of a dive boat operating out of, but not restricted to, the Moray Firth. Details here. It is the Monadliath which has just had a complete refit and is almost ready to go.

Loch Creran with Glasgow Uni SAC

Alex and I are helping out with Glasgow Uni SAC (BSAC) this weekend so we set off for Loch Creran at 7:30 this morning. It was -2 nearly all the way across and we had snow, rain and dismal cloud. We met up with the uni and got started and the clouds cleared giving us a glorious day.

The first dive was at the steps. A nice site and easy to take trainees in. There is plenty of life around underwater even though it is cold.

Second dive was the drift under the bridge on the incoming tide. Sunny at this end so felt good. My group went in last and it was slowing by then but it allowed us to tuck into the lee of the bridge support and have a good look at the gigantic dead mens fingers there. Some of the largest I've seen and they were all feeding. We worked our way across the current towards the shore and came up as the current eased. This photo is how the loch looked as we exited.

We are staying at Corran House tonight and are diving again tomorrow. I'll sleep well.

Well I did sleep well and we spent the Sunday at Puffin harbour getting some of the drills for sports diver completed. It always seems successful when you get people progressing so well. They are a good crowd learning in the uni at present and enjoy the diving. Puffin harbour is not my favorite site but it is very suitable for training.

Weightbelts were a topic of conversation as many of the trainees were still trying to get their weight right. As ever early progression was leading to a reduction in weight. Interestingly all of the instructors wore harnesses instead of weightbelts. We also had some problems with weightbelts falling off or, in some cases, refusing to fall off. When the stab jacket is over the weightbelt it does hold it on rather well. I'll probably come back to weightbelts another time as it has become a big thnking point with me. Are we still looking at the problem as it was 60 years ago and not taking into account the changes in kit configuration?  Discuss.

Fixing the inflatables floor and Al's new stab

Two things so far today. Fixed the floor on Waspie. It needed glueing up again and I added some stainless screws to hold it together. The strain on the floor must be pretty high when you are motoring so it is not surprising there are problems. The paint is flaking as well so if I get time I'll try and give it another coat.

The problem was at the joint where the floor changes colour. Hopefully the glue and screws will hold it together. She definitely needs repainting.

 

 

Waspie back on her trailer waiting for the floor.

The stab jacket we bought on EBay arrived today. Like anything you buy secondhand it needed a service so Al stripped it, cleaned the salt buildup from the valves using vinegar and regreased it lightly before assembly. It works great on the bench so we will try it in the pool tonight. This is a Mares Morphos Twin to replace his earlier Mares that I felt was a bit low on buoyancy.

It is fitted with an Air Trim like his old one rather than a corrugated hose. I think this is a better method as I regard the corrugated hose and mouthpiece to be a hangover from early designs and no longer needed. You spend a lot of time looking for it as it floats over your shoulder. This system works well and is neat. Oral inflation is by a small tube in the pocket that works ok.
This one also has the MRS integrated weights (the red knob) so it will be interesting to see how they work in our diving.

As I was taking the photos I see that Al has already put his new carabiners on the jacket. I use a pair I bought 30 years ago from Clive Rowlands in Inverness to make it easy to pull the straps tight and add torches and cameras to my kit. Mine are climbing ones made of alloy and I am amazed at how they have lasted. Al has bought stainless steel ones and they have a spring system I really like. The clip acts as the spring by using different length legs. It seems really strong so I'll be interested to see if they last 30 years like mine. If I'm still alive and diving in 30 years I'll be more than chuffed too.

Tonight is the club pool session so we'll test the stab there. Over the last year the council has let part of the pool for an aquarobics class which seems to think the louder the music and instructions the fitter you get. You have to go underwater to get some peace as you cannot hear anything on the surface. It makes it difficult to teach. It is a prime mover in my leaving this club as I no longer enjoy the pool sessions.

Fixing the Inflatable

Yesterday was warm and sunny so Alex and I decided it was time to fix the inflatable. This boat, Waspie, is a very old Avon probably once used to invade Mafeking. On the last boat dive last year I lost the tube connecting the pump to the boat tubes. This was probably why it was the last boat dive. It was an odd connector and we cannot get anything to use instead. So, as the valves were old anyway and none had covers, I decided to replace all the valves with Leafield C7s. I bought a kit from Rib Shop on the Internet and it arrived before Christmas and has sat in the study ever since.

Now I did read the instructions. One of them was to not glue if the temperature was below 10°C.
This is Scotland. It it goes above 10 in summer that day is summer. So we had to get the boat inside to somewhere warm. Many years ago I was working on another old inflatable when we lived on the Black Isle, North of Inverness. We were rebuilding a house (I seem to have been doing that in various locations since we got married 32 years ago) at the time and I managed to get the boat into the living room for a week or two before the living room was the living room. This house that would be difficult and anyway the whole house is cold during the day. Except the kitchen where the Aga warms it. A plan was hatched.

After Jo headed off to work we removed the ice from the deflated Waspie, brought her round to the back door and lifted/dragged/cajoled her in. And she settled in front of the Aga like a contented dog.

The instructions with the valves said to "Carefully closely cut around the current valve and remove." This did look like the easiest way to do the job but it meant that when you glued the new one in then the stresses would all be on the new doubler (the patch the new valve fitted in that you glued in place) and the glue. To make it stronger I decided to cut the old valve out by just making a cross to the size of the old valve (the same diameter as the new) and turn it sideways to remove the backing part. This would leave the old layer to be clamped shut by the new valve being screwed together as well as clamping the doubler on. Stronger I hope. Here you can see the old valve and the cross I cut.

 

 We then cleaned up the fabric around the valve holes ready for glueing. We also marked the patch area to keep the glue neat at the edges. A detail sander did a quick and easy job of the sanding.

 Once sanded we inserted the inner part of the valve and hoped it wouldn't roll too far away. Then we glued using two layers on the boat and one on the valve doubler which already had one. When the glue was ready we rolled it into place giving it as much pressure as possible.

and the patch in place. The valve inner is already in place.

 Now we just had to manipulate the inners into position and screw in the top side of the valve.

The job took less time than we expected. It took me nearly as long to clean up the kitchen afterwards.
Still we now have a happy Waspie back on her trailer. A repair to do to the floor, some new grab ropes round the side and we should be back in the water. Looking forward to it.