Finn and Jerry make their 3rd and 4th Open Water dives

I popped my knee cap yesterday morning and it was swollen by the time I got home. It got stiff and weak over night and I was having some trouble walking on it. Should be fun getting out of the surf. Getting in was fine, there were some slow rollers that were breaking at the sand bar, but getting out was easy. Getting the guys to swim to the Ledge was more of a challenge.

Probably took more than 30 minutes to swim out to the Ledge. Finn complained the entire time we swam out. We finally got there and the sun was still up, so it was okay. We descended to 30 feet and I took Finn up on an alternate air source ascent. He was breathing up, sort of as we had discussed, but he was going much too slowly. We descended and I took Jerry up. He may have been trying to breathe up, but he wasn't going up at all. If I dropped him, he went down. I got him to kick, but his kick was more like shuffling his feet. We eventually made it to the surface.

We went back down and I did a CESA with Finn. This time, he moved right along. Finally, Jerry and I went up and this time, he, too, moved right along. Got some warnings on my computer, but the Suunto is set for 30 ft/min and not PADI's 60 ft/minute.  Once they had each made the ascents, we swam back to Tower 15 along the bottom. I had trouble getting out and Finn came back to lend me a hand.

Water temperature was 69 degrees; consumption at an average depth of 18 feet was 40.86 psi/minute; SAC rate was 26.44 psi/minute on an aluminum 80.


The guys took their final exams during our surface interval, which stretched out to well over 2 hours. Finn passed and Jerry did not. Jerry missed the hierarchy of ascents question and most of the buoyancy questions. Finally, we got back in the water around 2 pm and headed for the Little Coral Knoll.

We found the Big Rock, but missed the smaller rock. I spotted the knee-high coral and got back on track. Went to the sea rods, across the sand sea to the bigger sea rods, the counter-weight and the knoll. Not bad, though I doubt that either Finn or Jerry appreciated the difficulty in trying to navigate.

We swam around looking at fish until Finn got down to 1000 psi, so I turned the dive and we came back. Missed the dead rods and just crossed the sand sea to the Big Rock. From there it was easy to get to the beach. Came up in 4 ft of water near the beach, but I had trouble getting out. I fell and twisted my knee. Jerry and Finn could not pick me up and I couldn't put weight on the knee, so I crawled out and managed to stand up on my own, slowly.

Water temperature was 69 degrees; Dive Time was 31 minutes; consumption was 27.55 psi/minute at an average depth of 17 ft; SAC rate was 18.18 on an aluminum 80.