Monday, August 13, 2007

Practice Dive - 11 Aug 2007


Some new friends took me to Pattaya for a quick training session in the milky green waters just off the mainland. Pattaya is not great diving, but it is close, only a couple of hours drive, and it is reasonably predictable. Sort of like McDonalds, you are not going to have a great meal there but you can count on it being acceptable most of the time.

My training is yielding benefits. I am more and more comfortable in the water so I am more relaxed. I am breathing better and using less air, although I have a long way to go before I am proficient at air usage.

I am also controlling my bouyancy better and I think I am about ready to drop a couple of pounds off my kit. I have been diving with a 6 lb backplate (the thing my tanks strap to) and a 6 lb lead weight on the tank adaptor, and another 2 lb weight on the upper tank strap for a total of 14 lbs of weight on the kit. All this weight is necessary to overcome the bouyancy of my wetsuit and my body, but also to compensate for poor breathing practices that I have been trying to eliminate. I think I have just about conquered the worst part of my breathing. We'll see next trip when I try to reduce my weight to 12 lb.

The highlight of this trip was the scooter ride. One of the group has two Diver Propulsion Vehicles (DPV or Scooter.) He broke them out and let us all try them. Some fun. Unfortunatly, the visability was very poor Saturday so this pic is not of our trip, but is of the owner of the DPVs. Jim, the owner also has a website that has some dive video of his trips if you want to see some of the stuff we see on our dives go to Jim's Web Site


oVo

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