Dry Suit Certified!

This weekend I earned my dry suit certificate. Dry suit diving proved to be quite a challenge, and I definitely need more practice. There seemed to be so many things going on! Marius and I took the course together out in an area slightly west of Bergen city center called Laksevåg (Salmon Bay) with Nemo Classic Diving. The course consisted of:

A couple hours of theory: our instructor went through the manual with us and showed us the different exposure suits.

Then 2 dives. The first dive was on Saturday, and the primary purpose was to get us used to diving in the dry suit. I was given a dry suit that turned out to be one size too big! I was getting air leaking out of my neck and water seeping in towards my chest. Every time I would add air into my suit it would escape through my head and then suddenly I found myself either rapidly sinking or shooting up to the surface! Marius and the other girl in our group had a great dive, meanwhile I was bobbing from 10 m depth to the surface. Wasn't the best dive.

The second dive I got into a suit that was a much better fit! However, this time, I descended a little too quick and had a little trouble equalizing. I must have really gave my last equalizing push a little too much force because I ended up getting severe mask squeeze! I have never had this happen before, but my instructor didn't seem too worried. We dove for 30 minutes before we surfaced, and I felt fine during the dive and hopefully took some nice video with my GoPro. But once I got to the surface and got my mask off, I felt how puffy my eyes were, and Marius looked terrified! I quickly got my hood and the neck of my dry suit off. I have popped blood vessels in both of my eyes and some bruising so I look like I got punched in the face. No pain, but I can feel the pressure.

[Preparing the GoPro]
[L to R: Instructor Mary-Ann, me and Megan]

[Jumpin' in]

[Mask squeeze aftermath = zombie]

I get one dive on the house in a couple of weeks since Marius wasn't allowed to dive today (he's flying over to Oslo tonight), so I can give this another go. I'm definitely going to take things even slower on the descent to make sure I equalize properly without forcing extreme pressure on my face and getting mask squeeze. Just not a pretty sight!

In terms of the marine life I saw on this dive: lots of little wrasse fishes, one sølvkveite, urchins, sea stars, and plenty of sea squirts (Tunicates)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Smalahove

Image
Many Norwegian traditions are distinctly regional. Even recipes are variable by region to go along with dialects that can be different by town separated by just 50 kilometers. This tradition, that both Marius and I were new to trying, was from a town just about an hour and a half east of Bergen called Voss....smalahove, or half of a sheep's head that is cooked in a broth for several hours. Smalahove comes from two Norwegian words: smale = sheep, and hove = head. It is served before Christmas with potatoes, mashed rutabaga, and red cabbage. Many of my friends were telling me that the cheek is supposed to be the best part, and others were saying that they wouldn't dare eat it. So I can now say that I have done something that many other Norwegians haven't dared try. I actually really enjoyed it! It had a texture like corned beef and had a very nice flavor. Marius went as far as to try the tongue, and thought that eating the eye was a normal thing, so tried that as well...bu...
Read more

FIFA 2010 South Africa

Image
FIFA 2010 kicked off on June 11 and today, New Zealand will today make a return to the world’s greatest football stage exactly 28 years to the day since their FIFA World Cup debut. The All Whites will take on Slovakia at 11PM (New Zealand time). It is hard to say whether it will be a good game or not; however, the fact that NZ is in the world cup for the first time in so long is enough of a reason to stay up so late. Saturday morning was the big USA vs. England match. The Americans are so happy with a tie that the New York Post had this as its front page: The time difference makes it a bit hard to keep up with seeing the games, but it's always fun to rub in the fact that the British tied the US in their first World Cup game this year to some British friends. Next exam is Saturday for Invertebrate Diversity. And only 20 days to go til Thailand!!
Read more

In case you missed it, I moved back to Bergen

Image
But only temporarily, as of yet. In the beginning of the month I took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a beautiful trip cross-country ascending to over 1000m above sea level and back down again. My friend Knut said that I could stay at his place until an apartment was available to rent. I picked up the key from his mom, dropped off my things, and went back downtown to go to my Norwegian course. He was out of town for the week for work, and my first day of work was not until the following Monday. So I used the next five days reacquainting myself with Bergen....mainly by running around my old neighborhood. On Monday (Nov 10) I started my new (tempoary) part time job at UniResarch Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology...UniSars for short. Technically I am called a "research technician", but I'm more like a glorified dishwasher at the moment. I made sure to tell the researchers that I am more than capable to help them if they need an extra pa...
Read more