I did my first "post class" dive with Ken, Howard, and Jackie last Tuesday. They were all on OC, a mix of doubles and single tank-with large pony bottle configs. These are all dive buddies that I literally trust my life with, mind you, but I was actually kinda nervous, and I found myself wishing Calvin was there to share the anxiety with me. We were doing the good old "boundary line -to- I beams" dive that I bet I've done 100 times or more by now- I remember taking Howard down the boundary line for his first time, less than a year ago, as a matter of fact. As we swam out to the traditional "3rd yellow buoy" on the boundary, we discussed the dive profile. I kind of blurted out that I didn't want to lead, and would be more than happy to follow some one! Anyway, after we did a last minute buddy check, we dropped down into 40 fsw and checked each other out again with OK signals on the bottom.....my HUD had somehow become detached during the descent, and I fumbled around for a few minutes getting it squared away.....after signalling "OK" back to the others, we started to head down the line....but I was really not too OK. My trim was waaaaay off, and I could not, for the life of me, figure out why! I kept swimming in a "head up, feet low" position, and to make matters worse, every time I went to add diluent or 02 to my loop, the controls- 02 add button and automatic Diluent valve- were NOT in the right place....(any Meg diver with any experience to speak of is probably chuckling by now!) So, anyway, after about 20 minutes of feeling like a "special needs" CCR diver, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to secure my counterlungs to my crotch strap, and they were floating up around my ears like a spinal trauma head brace! ](*,) It only took me a minute to secure them, and from that moment on, it was a whole new world!
We ended up having a great dive- everybody asked me if I was OK more than usual, and I actually appreciated the attention. Jackie's suit had a minor flood in the right arm, and we called the dive early, but still had about 45 -50 minutes of down time. Thanks for a great dive, you all!
On another note- I just prepped my Meg for a possible dive tomorrow (weather depending....it's snowing like crazy here, at the moment!) and I've discovered that I really like doing the pre-dive checklist- I find it very relaxing to go through the checklist item by item, methodically making sure that everything is in place and working properly.
