I finally had my first after-OW class dive :-) It was in Pulau
Dayang, Malaysia - I had 5 dives.
I thought that the first 4 dives were quite good - got to see things for
the first time - 3 Clownfish (all babies), 1 big Batfish, a Nudibranch.
However, after going for the 5th (and last) dive where the location had
several batfish, several species of clownfish, a school of barracuda (my
first also), 2 big bumphead parrotfish (again a first for me), large
schools of fish, colorful nudibranch, soft and hard corals etc. - all the 4
earlier dive sites paled by comparison. There was a part where I even swam
straight through a school of fish - it was a great feeling seeing them
swimming all around you :-) .... But for me, the school of barracuda
and the 2 huge parrotfish was the highlight of the dive trip. Too bad my
girlfriend decided not to go for the last dive since she was tired ... so I
had to buddy with some other guy - a teacher of mine when I was in college
who I only met on the dive trip (small world).
Anyway, there were some minor 'bumps' during the dive trip - one was my
mask kept on fogging. I used a supposedly new kind of defogger (TR-17) - a
silicone-based one that you drop on the mask, spread out with fingers,
buffed with a cloth and then rinsed. I think I did too much buffing with
the cloth ... anyway, I'll just buy another defogger for my next trip.
The second problem was my air consumption - I was going in with about
200 bar and coming out with only 40-60 bar while the others still had 150
bar left !! Well I have some ideas on why this is happening to me (shallow
and rapid breathing, kept on adjusting my buoyancy using the BCD). Anyway,
can you guys comment on this suggestion from Rodale's Scuba Diving :
http://www.scubadiving.com/training/instruction/saveair.shtml
The first suggestion was for a breathing pattern of exhale, inhale, hold,
exhale, inhale, hold .... I know I asked something similar like this before
: Is this ok - to hold the breath ? I mean since I'm not rising or anything
I assume it's okay - I just want to hear your opinions before I consider
trying this on my next dive trip.
I also want to ask the maximum amount of air that a 3000 psi air tank
can really hold. The tanks we were using were always filled to only 200 bar
(about 2000 psi). So I ask the guy who was filling our tanks to give me a
tank with about 250 bar but he did not want to saying the last time he did
it - the tank 'exploded' or something (he injured his hand which he prooved
by showing me a nasty scar). And if I remember correctly, during our OW
class this was also the case - tanks were filled up to only 180 - 200 bar.
Is this true ? Do dive shops really stop at 200 bar ? Or are they just too
paranoid / stingy ?
- Angelo
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