Took the rebreather down to Monterey on Sunday for some diving. I arrived an hour early to give me time to do a final check, get my pre-breath done and get everything organized before Dave arrived with the boat. This time I tried no water an hour before bed and no coffee in the morning, this was to try and avoid unnecessary bladder discomfort while diving in the drysuit.

Anyways, I started my pre-breathing and something seemed off, so I bailed out and recalibrated. Once I was convinced everything was good I restarted the pre-breathing making it through with nothing amiss and no “off” feelings. Once done, I got everything else ready to go and by that time Dave had arrived. Josh and I put our stuff in the boat while it was still in the parking lot. Dave launched the boat and we were off.

I need to track down the name of the site we were at but we dropped in and hit about 60 feet on the top of some rock formations. The bottom around the rocks was around 80-90 so we spent about a 1/2 hour poking around then started to make our way back up the rock formations.

Water temp was about 52f at depth, visibility wasn’t great at the surface but opened up at around 50ft. Saw a bunch of nudis, and a giant chunk of fiberglass sheeting wedged vertically in a rock with a bunch of life growing on it. Didn’t see any jellies but felt the burn on my face after the dive was over. Good Dive.

On the way back we motored past a dead sea lion that has been floating on the surface for a while. It was NOT a pleasant smell.

A few things I worked on for this dive:

  • I put in some cheater lenses into my mask so I could see the HUD more clearly, that really helped quite a bit. I’m curious to see how well they work while shooting video, because the image preview window has been blurry the last few years so sometimes my videos don’t come out. When I was washing gear at the end of the day one of the cheater lenses came off so I’ll need to put it back on.
  • I strapped on the ScubaPro g2 as a backup computer for this dive, set it for Close Circuit (CCR) mode and took it with me. By the end of the dive it was convinced I was dead so I need to see if I can get the algorithms/conservancy closer to the prism computer so I can use it as a backup. More research/work needed there.
  • I took a few pounds off because I sank like a stone last weekend. The weight loss over the last six months has been playing havoc with my weighting (in a good way). I am still heavy but it’s getting closer.
  • More buoyance work with the tri-lam, it’s getting better, but it’s not quite as mindless as I’d like it to be.
  • I tried strapping my bcd hose right along the loop on the outside, seems like a more natural position. Just a bit easier to locate and grab. Last time I had it inside of my loop and when I was stripping gear at the end of the dive the inflate button got wedged on for a few moments. Would prefer to avoid a similar situation at depth.

Before the next dive with the rebreather:

  • dig into the algorithms/profile settings on both the main computer and the backup computer
  • look at putting Oetiker clamps back on fitting that had previous clamp failure
  • put together some rigging (probably just a caribiner) for leaving the machine in the water while I get into the boat.
  • look into a shutoff valve for the OPV so I have a way to shut it off in the event that it fails

My next dive will probably be a skills dive, I need to spend some more time working on my deco procedures:

  • shooting bags
  • stop simuation with hangs
  • buoyancy with the rebreather.
  • perhaps do a dive with the camera to add some more multitasking load

Dive Profile

Dive Profile