Advanced scuba class.
Hello Wakulla
I had a great weekend teaching a few FSU students and Alumni their advanced scuba class.
We started in Morrison Springs by showing them how to do light salvage by using different size lift bags along with using their reels to secure the lift bags around the big tree across the main spring sink. I will say that this is the first advanced class to get it correct on the first attempt. If you have never used a lift bag set up then you would see how difficult it is to do safely and properly. When the students finished rolling up the bags and securing their reels we surfaced and did the safety sausage deployment and then we rolled up those then we went back to the pavilion.
There was one little detail of this training that I didn’t mention was while we where under the water we kept hearing a loud noise that sounded like a jet going overhead. When we surfaced we saw lightning storm moving our direction. After the last shill we hurriedly got out of the water and under the pavilion for safety.
While we where waiting for the storm to pass I went over the next skill underwater compass reading. I went over the parts of the UW compass that is a little different than a land base compass. One of the compasses we used was the first compass I got back in the 80’s, A Dacor compass. It’s nothing fancy but it works well enough.
We then met at the boat in Panama City at 3pm that afternoon for a (3) tank dive that is a deep water dive (80 feet - 100 feet) then we do a wreck observation and then we finish with a night dive.
The first dive on the Black Bart in 80 feet of water went well. The surface was calm with very small swells. So entry and exit was very easy. The visibility was another issue, at best we had 10-15 foot vis. The jellyfish have made it back to PCB in full. Several folks where nervous because of so many jellyfish that you could see on the surface. We still stepped off the platform to make our way to the anchor chain then we descended to the Bart. The boat captain placed the anchor where it suspended the chain directly over the pilot house so when you got near the boat you just let go of the chain and you where right there.
Everyone had to really stay close to the Bart and had to really look for the very diverse sea life that makes the Bart its home. We then ascended back to the boat and moved to the next dive site.
I’ll finish the rest of the dives on the next article.
Until next week keep making bubbles
– Russell Miller, NAUI instructor #59999