"Clare and Howard pushed us out of our comfort zone and our diving greatly improved as a result. We ended being completely comfortable with complex failures and our skill levels greatly improved. What is more is that we have both taken away things to work on and continually improve and we all gained three new potential dive buddies! I would like to thank both Clare and Howard for an excellent week, it was thoroughly enjoyable."

Olly Simmonds writes about his Normoxic Trimix class in Malta....

I wanted to write this in order to share what an absolutely fantastic time we had out in Malta with Clare and Howard undertaking an IANTD Normoxic Trimix Course. I haven’t dwelled too much on the specifics of what skills/drills we did on each dive, but more on the challenges and laughs we had along the way! Though some of these were in fact skills (or attempted skills!) related.

Day 1 – Friday 6th May (Travel) After a very early start and a bit of car shuffling Clare and I arrived at Gatwick airport and met up with Butch by the Air Malta check-in desk. Butch was a little worried about the amount of luggage he had, but then he had decided to bring an Ali40 with him. This resulted in a bit of last minute re-packing and as my bag was a good 5 kgs under the weight limit I took Butch’s argon bottle and towel.

Somehow both Clare’s bags were well under despite the fact she seemed to be taking more stuff than us (Heavy 6mm backplate and a spare Drysuit), but we put it down to filling the waterproof bags with Helium!

After a fairly uneventful flight we landed in Malta and were met by Viv from Divewise to take us to the dive centre to sort out cylinders and our kit. HP had not been able to change his flight details and was getting a later fl ight so we would be seeing him in the morning for breakfast (Clare would be seeing him about 2am!). The plan all along for this course as we had agreed and signed up for was it would be run as an IANTD course but with a GUE/DIR flavour (due to both Clare & HPs personal preferred methods of team diving). We were therefore going to be held to a high standard and pushed hard throughout the course (no not like that even though HP was instructing!).

Once we had dropped off our kit at Divewise and checked in at the hotel, we headed out for dinner and spent the evening discussing the rough plan for the week (as Howard had emailed through a schedule to us) and general gas planning strategies (Minimum Gas/Turn Pressures – 1/2s and 1/3s). Though strangely at this stage the soon to become infamous 5/3rds gas planning strategy did not come up!

Day 2 – Saturday 7th May (Course Intro & Equipment Config) We started the day with an intro to the course and ran through equipment configuration including general setup, gas analysis and stage marking. We would be using two stage/deco cylinders on this course which was a bit new for me so we ran through the various options and the advantages and disadvantages of different cylinder sizes – and decided a 3l Pony bottle was pretty much useless! We discussed both the GUE and IANTD way of prepping for the dive and carrying out pre-dive checks (both pretty much the same), though in Howard’s pre-dive check ‘H’ apparently does not stand for ‘Hope’!

Dive 1 The plan for the first dive was to jump in on the house reef with one Deco bottle just as a bit of a refresher which personally I liked the idea of as I had not done that much diving with a stage/deco cylinder in the past year. We would also practice valve Drills, OOG drills, Stage handling and some fin techniques. We jumped in and kitted up in the shallows clipping on our stage bottles and not forgetting to do a bubble check (!) before following HP out to a part of the house reef where Clare could lay a line for us to swim along practicing valve drills, OOG and fin kicks.

For the most part of this dive it was quite similar to a Fundies course (for those that have done one) and we were videoed to review later. There were a few little clumsy moments (mainly around doing things in the wrong order) but we managed to sort them out and all went reasonably well.

Then we moved onto stage bottle handling and coping with the sudden loss and addition of weight (i.e. the stage cylinder), and we also practiced handing off a stage and clipping it to a line with a double wrap to stop it moving along the line. I found myself donating gas a couple of times during this as I tended to get a bit absorbed in what I was doing rather than focusing on my team (fair enough I suppose!).

In fact there tended to be quite a common theme in our team that I always tended to be slightly lower in the water (‘Loving the Bottom’ as HP put it!), whilst Butch would rise up slightly higher than me. This was something we worked on for the week and actually realised that our gauges were reading slightly differently (by about 0.5m) which may have had something to do with it – HP put it down to bedroom power games….

To finish the dive we sent up an DSMB and then (again!) I ended up donating gas to Butch and we did an OOG ascent with a stop at 3m before tidying away and ending the drill before surfacing. Dive 2 For this dive we were taking two stage/deco cylinders in, which was going to be very new for me (and apparently upset my trim – though I am not sure it was that good to start with!). The plan was to just have a little swim about to get used to two cylinders and then we were planning to practice unconscious diver lifts (CBLs). We swam out on the house reef whilst HP tided an SMB to a fixed tie off so we had an ascent line for reference whilst we practiced unconscious diver lifts.

HP demoed a lift on me to start with (we had previously discussed the different methods and hold techniques for the lift) and then Butch did a very controlled lift on me. That meant it was now my turn to lift Butch and the first attempt did not go swimmingly! We ended up cutting the drill at 4m with me hanging onto an inverted Butch, this was possibly due to him having too much gas in his Drysuit, though also partly due to me not sorting it out before the start of the lift – anyway lesson learnt and after a 2 minute breather to lower the stress levels I had another go and this time it went pretty well!

We called it a day after that and leisurely swam back and I even managed to point out a Cuttlefish to Clare and Butch.

Day 3 – Sunday 8th May (Line Laying & Failures on HMS Maori) We had a morning of surface drills around line laying and following, including a rather amusing (for Howard and Clare) session following the line with a blacked out mask. Once we had had a good few hours trying not to tie ourselves up we jumpe d in the van and headed down to Valetta harbour to dive the HMS Maori.

After a run though of all the possible failures of a standard twinset we kitted up with the plan for the two dives to take it in turns laying line whilst Clare and Howard took it in turns to fail various items of our kit as we swam around.

Dive 3 On this dive I would be laying the line, and we were briefed that the failures would all be fixable. After a slight detour (HP’s navigation error) we arrived at the wreck and I found a decent (closed) primary tie-off with a nice secondary close by. We set off (with me as No. 1, Butch and No. 2 and HP bringing up the rear – behave!!) and I was pleased with progress and felt I made some good tie-offs along the way.

However the first mistake came when the sadist in me decided it would be a good idea to lay the line through a narrow gap with a slight overhead – I could almost hear HP cry “Don’t give her that!” (considering I had avoided the nice open deck of a 5000 tonne ship), and low and behold suddenly Butch lost his right post. This caused a little bit of confusion as in one hand I had the reel, and was struggling to turn round to help him in the narrow gap.

Eventually I managed to get to him, sort out the post and we went to continue, though I had to do the first bit out of the gap backwards with the reel! We carried on and just as I was making a tie-off I lost my left post so shutdown and signalled behind. Howard and Butch closed up around me and we sorted the problem and went to carry on. However whilst sorting the problem we had all moved around a bit and so now Butch was ahead of me but I had the reel!

The next thing I knew he had lost his mask and so I rushed over to help out and provide a steady hand whilst Butch put on his backup mask. At this point we thumbed the dive and so headed back along the line with Butch reeling in the line, myself in No. 2 now and Howard leading us out.

All was going well until HP went OOG and I rushed in to donate gas and we carried on to the ‘exit’ (our starting point and the imaginary shot). I helped Butch undo the secondary and primary tie-offs and then noticed my O2 bottle was missing! We weren’t using it on this dive, just carrying them for practice, however I realised I must have not been very aware of my kit and surroundings for Clare to have stolen it.

I signalled to Butch this was the case and we tried to signal to Howard but he was a bit too far ahead of us and our light signals were not very effective in the very light conditions and good vis! We swam after him and it was at this stage Clare let me know she had it (to be honest up until now I thought I had lost it – how could Clare be so mean?!). It was a good lesson in awareness especially when in close proximity to the wreck and with other problems going on.

Dive 4 After lunch and a good de-brief it was Butch’s turn to lay the line and the failures would start to become ‘dive-ending’ permanent failures (though either Howard or Clare would fix it behind the scenes so we weren’t swimming around with valves shut off for safety reasons).

Clare and HP used a good technique of de-briefing the dives whereby Butch and I took it in turns to talk through the dive and what happened – the only issue was that it was scary how easy it was with everything going on to forgot some of the details.

We swam back to the wreck and Butch found a good primary tie-off point but struggled however to find a decent secondary, though as No. 2 I could have probably been a bit more helpful in looking for one. We set off and I stepped up as No. 2 in helping to secure the line with placements as we went about the wreck in order to try to keep the line out of the way and avoid any potential areas for entanglement. We had a few minor failures on this dive (left/right posts and stage bottle failures were introduced – which at first confused me so I ended having to get Butch to fix something right in front of my face!) and then got to the turn point and Butch’s right post failed permanently so he went onto his backup reg and we moved him to the front of the team leading out (I was No.2 and HP was reeling in the line).

Then Butch’s left post failed and so he went OOG and I donated and he shutdown – another permanent failure.

We were still ok and had plenty of gas so carried on. Then my right post went and I instinctively went to shut it down, however a sharp tap on the head reminded me that it was the post Butch was breathing from - Sorry!

I then turned to HP and tried to signal that he should donate to Butch, but just managed to confuse the issue and he went to donate to me so I passed his reg to Butch and then shutdown my right post. At this point we cut the drill and everyone went back onto their own gas and headed back to the ‘exit’ with Butch reeling in the line.

The next drill was that I as No. 2 went OOG so signalled ahead to HP whilst turning round to get gas from Butch. However in my preoccupation with trying to signal to HP, I ended up forgetting to actually signal OOG to Butch and so he looked at be blankly for a few moments before I remembered! Butch put down the reel whilst he completed the donation and HP then came round to get the reel whilst the two of us swam out.

Unfortunately the reel had bird nested spectacularly to the point that Clare was just considering cutting the line, but in the end managed to sort it and we swam back to the exit and ended the dive.

Day 4 – Monday 9th May (Line Laying & Ascents Practice at Cirkewwa) After a good night’s sleep we went through some decompression theory, looking at traditional Buhlmann and Haldane models, bubble formation, deep stops and the various decompression dive planning programs – though we settled on using Decoplanner for most of our dive planning on the course.

We head headed to Cirkewwa where we were going to have another go at line laying (as we both wanted a bit of practice being No. 1 and No. 2) and then move on to ascents. Which for me was the bit I wasn’t looking forward to as frankly hitting 9m/min was a little daunting!

To date most of my ascents were probably closer to 6m/min. Dive 5 The first dive was in the shallows to practice some more line laying and deal with more failures. Butch was No. 1 and so laying the line and I was No. 2. We swam out and Butch did a good job of laying the line, to be honest I could probably have been more help as No. 2 but it is hard to know when to step in to help during training. In a real situation I think I would have been more active in the line laying.

We turned the dive after about 20mins laying out line and started to reel it in. I began to help out Butch by removing some of the tie offs as we went along so he didn’t have to stop and faff about too much removing the tie offs. It was hard to judge which ones were best to help out with and which ones were best to leave, and I got a few wrong – though it is all a learning experience.

During reeling in the line we have a number of failures presented to us (mainly post failures – bubbles from Mr Squirty) but it culminated in Howard failing my mask just as I had removed a tie off so had a length of excess line in my hands to stop the line going slack. I was less than impressed shall we say but removed my mask and signalled to Butch that I had a problem.

Butch came over and helped me to steady me whilst getting my backup mask out of my pocket and switching to it. During this event, our primary reel had bird nested again with line everywhere (cue a session over lunch in reel management and the importance of keeping the line tight and under tension when reeling in), so Clare stepped in to help tidy it up whilst Howard demoed SMB deployment using a suit inflation bottle – something I wanted a bit of help with and some practice.

Considering the fact that we were only in about 5m of water the SMB deployment went pretty well, though I felt my suit inflation hose was a little short (in fact it was 2” shorter than everyone else’s so I may need to get a longer one!)

Dive 6 On this dive we were heading back in but going to head down deep in order to practice ascents and gas switching. Clare had run through the procedure during lunch/surface interval and we would have a dummy run in 6m with a floor so we couldn’t mess up. We had a cylinder of 50% and 100% O2 so as HP liked to say “The guns were loaded!”, i.e. we were carrying a gas that if we switched to incorrectly it would kill us – bit of a morbid statement but completely true and something we had to bare in mind.

The ‘trial run’ went reasonably well, we both identified our bottles and got our buddy to check and switch us. Stowing the reg takes a little faff but we both managed to unclip our bottles’ rear bolt snap, swing it round and sort out the reg stowage as and when required. After signalling ok we proceeded to drop down over the wall in order to get down to depth so we could practice an ascent. The plan was we would ascend to 21m at 9m/min (or as close as we could manage) and switch to 50%, then proceed up the stops (in 3m increments – 30 second stop and 30 second move) to 6m and switch to 100% O2.

We had been briefed that at any stage if we were to drop too far we would find our reg knocked out our mouth to avoid us breathing too high a ppO2 (Note: this was something that we both completely agreed with and signed up for). We descended down and found ourselves in about 26m of water and so Clare called the first stop to be 18m for the gas switch (not 21m) in order to give us a little more room to practice the fast ascent.

For me the first attempt at the ascent provided lots of learning opportunities (we were banned from saying things were sh*t and being too hard on ourselves!). HP sent up an SMB and attached the spool to a plaque on the sea bed so we had a reference to ascend with. The ‘dive’ was thumbed and we started the ascent, however I was a bit slower than the others leaving and managed to drift sideways which caused me to worry I was ascending under someone and so I stopped my ascent, though I dumped a bit too much gas and ended up pretty much where I started, whilst the rest of the team was at about 18m!

I then swam round (whilst looking up) as I was still worried about smacking into someone, and after what felt like ages joined them at 18m for the gas switch. The switch itself when ok, though I had allowed the low level stress to develop and so was not very comfortable for the whole ascent. It turned out there was a little bit of current which meant ascending together whilst staying around the small SMB line was an impossible task (well it felt like it). At the 9m stop we switched back to back gas and stowed our 50% reg hoses – it was at this stage that HP called for us to descend and have another go (which was pleasing for me as I felt it couldn’t possibly be any worse the second time!).

This time we didn’t use a fixed line and instead Butch was to send an SMB up from the 18m stop after the gas switch and we could drift with the SMB slightly rather than fighting the current to stay in one point. This time I didn’t hesitate and ascended (roughly) with the team up to 18m where we switched to our 50% bottle and Butch sent up the SMB – I felt it had gone much better this time (still probably some room for improvement but I was happier).

We carried on through the stops taking it in turns with the SMB whilst the other switched, and then got to the 6m stop. After a moment to make sure our buoyancy was spot on we switched to our 100% O2 bottles (a first for me as I had never dived with pure O2 before). I don’t know what I was expecting but it didn’t seem any different to the 50% bottle – some people say they can ‘taste’ the difference but I am not convinced – which I guess is the danger and why the need for a strict routine for switching is a must have!

We completed our simulated 5minutes at 6m and then slowly ascended to the surface – think of it almost as a 30 second stop and 30 second move at every meter up to the surface. We had a bit of a surface swim back to the exit point as we had drifted a little, however I was pleased to have had a second attempt at the ascent though was a little down about how the first one had gone and didn’t feel the second was perfect – though as I told myself we are on a course and here to learn so we will damn well just had to give it another go and crack it later in the week!

Day 5 – Tuesday 10th May (Bottom Stage Dive on MV Karwela, Gozo) The plan today was to catch the ferry over to Gozo to go and dive the MV Karwela in about 40m of water (max depth). As a bit of a change and for practice we would be taking a bottom stage and a 50% deco bottle, so we could practice descending on the bottom stage and then switching to back gas prior to ascending up for the 50% switch at 21m and then carrying out deco back up the reef.

This would also give us another chance to practice ascents and this time we would have a nice big reef to use as a visual reference for our stops and switches (if we remembered it was there…!)

Dive 7 Due to the time taken to get to and from Gozo and the in-depth briefing from HP & Clare and following discussion we had prior to the dive we actually only got one dive in today, but it was a cracker! The 50m long MV Karwela, originally a passenger ferry for 800 people, but was purposefully sunk as an artificial reef for divers.

We had a bottom stage and twinset of our back-gas (25/25 Trimix) and then a deco bottle of 50%, and the aim of this dive was to explore a different configuration within the course limits of two stage/deco cylinders. We had spent part of the morning having a run through gas planning and deco strategies to see the benefit to be had on some dives of taking a bottom stage on the dive in order to save back-gas and therefore maximise the dive time before hitting Minimum Gas.

Minimum Gas for those that haven’t heard of it is the minimum amount of back-gas you need to keep in reserve in order to get you and your buddy (at a stressed, and higher, breathing rate) up to your next source of gas if you have a problem. On some dives this may be the surface, but for us it was 21m and our 50% bottle.

Taking a bottom stage meant for the first 15-20 mins of our dive we didn’t even touch our backgas, thereby keeping the maximum amount possible in reserve at all times. The MV Karwela was a short swim from the shore over the shallow reef going from 4m down to 10m, then with a drop off to 25m gently sloping down to about 40m where the MV Karwela sat. We planned to spend most of the dive around the top decks (with an average depth of about 33m)

On the swim out at about 6m Butch’s HID decided to not turn on and so rather than continue on his backup, Clare lent him her EOS, so a bit of faff ensured swapping over light canisters and checking long hoses could still be deployed following the swap. Once this was done we proceeded to follow Howard on the swim out at about 20m to the wreck and then dropped down to the top deck.

Having discussed and agreed on the surface we headed into the wreck (though I should point out as a passenger ferry it had huge windows every 3 feet meaning we had plenty of exits should any real problems arise) which gave us the opportunity to test our trim and buoyancy control and make use of various fin kicks to move around inside the structure – a great learning opportunity. The only downside of being inside the wreck is that it gave Clare plenty of places to hide (including up in the ceiling with her fins planted on the roof) and then allow Mr Squirty (the infamous bubble gun) to pounce!

We managed to deal with a number of (fixable) post failures within the confined spaces and I had to laugh when Clare asked Butch for his mask but either out of confusion or denial he just checked it was seated ok and swam off as he had thought she was indicating his hood was caught under his mask!

After swimming around inside for a while we headed up onto the top deck in the open and had a good learning lesson trying to swim with two stages through a narrow ferry doorway without getting stuck! Out of the wreck we hit 30bar in our bottom stages and so both switched onto our backgas for the swim back over the wreck to the reef wall and started our ascent to the 21m 50% gas switch.

Now despite having a nice wall on one side of us to use as reference we both forgot about this and so focused on each other for reference during the switch – this meant when I came to do my switch I was about 1.5m higher than I should have been, though a ‘gentle’ signal from Clare made me realise and I quickly got myself together and we had a good ascent up to 6m.

On reaching the 6m stop, Butch signalled to me something was wrong with his wing dump so I went to have a look and saw that the entire dump valve was missing. My first thought was how on earth could that have happened on the dive, then I told myself to stop being so naive – HP had taken it to simulate a complete loss of Butch’s primary buoyancy!

Butch put a bit of gas in his suit and controlled it, maintaining a good stop just over the reef. We had about 15minutes of deco to do so passed the time looking into nooks and crannies on the reef whilst avoiding Clare and HP trying to steal things (backup lights, stages, etc!), however after a while they gave up and switched to failing Butch’s mask (I just think Clare was cross after Butch didn’t give it to her earlier on the dive) which we smoothly dealt with – I came in and held his arm for support and to provide a reference whilst he retrieved his backup and sorted things out. In fact Clare and HP both said after the dive we have come along a long way since Dive 1 as now when items are failed we just dealt with it and then gave them the finger as if to say ‘Bring it then!’.

Throughout all of this (what was probably about 10mins) I had completed missed the fact that my dump valve had also been removed by Clare around the same time as Butch’s went missing – I hadn’t even noticed which just goes to show how with a wing system and good horizontal trim a loss of your wing is not a big deal, especially not on the 6m stop. When I realised I closed my Drysuit valve a little in case I found I needed extra buoyancy at any time and we completed our deco stop.

When we finished our deco at 6m, Clare and HP replaced our dump valves – in order to provide lift on the surface and I finished by sending up an SMB for further practice and we slowly made our way to the surface. We surfaced with huge grins after what was a fantastic dive and rightly we were both pleased with our performance.

Despite unfortunately not being able to get a second dive in due to the time, we all enjoyed a strawberry milkshake at Huggins as a reward and felt it was a good day’s work!

Day 6 – Wednesday 11th May (Fun Dive on Um El Faroud) The original plan today had been to try to dive the HMS Stubborn however the weather (wind) was not with us and so we decided to go for a fun dive on the Um El Faroud. It was a fun dive as we were effectively allowed to just get on and enjoy the dive (off-course so to speak) however both Butch and I thought it would be a good idea to practice a few skills (line laying, bottle handling and team communications).

Dive 8 – the infamous (and non-course) 5/3rds dive! We got to the dive site only to discover HP had left his suit back at Divewise and so would not be joining us on the dive so just Clare, Butch and myself kitted up and carried our gear down to the waters edge for a briefing from HP as to the location and orientation of the wreck. We also went through the entry technique as it was a bit of a jump and so the plan was to clip on one of the deco bottles and then jump in holding our other deco bottle and fins putting all of these on in the water.

We were taking in both a 50% and an 100% O2 bottle but more for practice with two bottles and bottle handling underwater and so the plan was to only switch onto the 100% O2 bottle once we hit 6m.

We all got in, sorted ourselves out and Butch (as the only one that had done this dive before) led us out to the wreck past an old fashioned divers helmet that indicated we were on the right course. We got to the stern of the wreck first and had a quick look at the propeller and rudder before ascending up the stern to swim down one of the companion ways.

Clare followed us but as this was technically a non-course dive was leaving us alone to just enjoy the wreck. We swam to about mid ships and had a quick look in an opening that looked interesting but turned out to just be a slight overhang of shadow and so went up some stairs to the top deck. It was at this point I signalled to Butch that I had reached our turn pressure and indicated we should head back.

However (and this was Mistake No. 1) when I signalled for us to turn, he OK’d me back and I assumed he had understood – forgetting the golden rule that any signal given should be returned to demonstrate it has been understood. Butch had not understood the signal as became apparent shortly…!

At this point Clare indicated we should head to the Bow (as she has some sort of obsession with seeing the Bow of a wreck!) and I had assumed this was another way back (I thought the wreck was parallel to the shore so we could leave it from either end – to an extent it is but it is a much longer swim!).

Clare knew I had hit turn pressure and had seen that Butch had not understood the signal but was equally aware we had plenty of gas and as we were at 24m we were only 3m away from our next source (our 50% bottle) and hence our Minimum Gas was much lower than the figure we were running to – I however had not realised this!

We swam off to the Bow and I was happy as I thought we were already making our return to the shore. Nearly the Bow, Butch found two decent upright posts and signalled that this would be a good time to lay a line and practice bottle handling. I checked my gas and as we were much shallower and in my mind on our way back to I signalled ok as I felt we had plenty of gas for a quick stop.

I got a spool out of my pocket and laid a line between the two posts (my line laying was something that was commended during the debrief) and then Butch and I removed both of our stage bottles accurately compensating for the weight change each time. We then swam off from the line slightly so we could approach it and come and pick up out bottles, adding air to our wing to keep control of our buoyancy and avoid hitting the deck.

Butch then reeled in the line and Clare signalled we should head to the Bow area. We finally got to the Bow, which made Clare happy, and Clare then showed us both a page in her wetnotes asking ‘What was our turn pressure? 130bar?’.

At this point I nodded and signalled ok, because in my mind we had already turned and were heading back to the reef (I was on about 95bar now and we were at about 22m). Butch however (who was on about 110bar) signalled we should turn the dive and swim back. I questioned this at first as I thought we were already swimming back, however all of a sudden it dawned on me: He had missed my signal and we were at the wrong end of the wreck! Bugger!!

We were now left with the issue that if we swam back and returned the route we came we would breach minimum gas (as we had used about 2/3rds already!) and so a brief discussion started. One option we had was to send up a DSMB and ascend, however with a bit of wind we didn’t want to be left drifting in the Med without any boat cover – it had been a shore dive.

Luckily Clare stepped in at this point and pointed out that as the wreck was parallel to the reef we could swim off towards the reef at our current depth and then ascend up for our stops whilst swimming back to our exit point. We decided this was the best option and so left the wreck to swim to the reef. It is worth pointing out at this time that we did have a 50% bottle which we could have switched to about 1m above where we left the wreck (though our original plan was not to breath it – just to carry it for practice).

We arrived at the reef at about 21m and started our stops whilst slowly making our way along the reef back towards the exit. On arriving at 6m we made to switch to our 100% O2 bottles. I switched Butch first without incident, and then went to ID my 6m bottle.

I looked for the outside label (as the bottle was on the outside of the two) but couldn’t see it – it must have come off at some point on the dive. I therefore went to look for the inside bottle – gone – the gas analysis tape – also gone! I was now left with a completely unmarked bottle – how could that have happened – I knew I had labelled it three times.

I signalled to Butch that my 6m bottle was gone and must admit I then focused a bit too much on how it might have happened rather than looking to problem solve the issue at hand. About 3 minutes had gone by since Butch had switched and (with a bit of help from Clare) it became apparent I had three options. 1) I had a 50% bottle I could use (I must admit as we were only taking them for practice and being in the mindset we were on a course I hadn’t considered this – even when we were low-ish on gas on the wreck); 2) I could just deco out on back gas (we had 32%); or 3) We were at 6m and so on a Normoxic level course all gas was breathable at that depth.

Now Option 3 as we discussed later was not a great one, however if it was a case of breath seawater or an unmarked bottle at 6m would have been available as an option. In the end I went for Option 2 and switched to my 50% bottle as by now my back gas was getting low (about 30bar). For info: It turned out Clare and HP had removed all the marking tape from my O2 bottle before the dive as a drill in order to see how we would respond in that situation. It was good practice and gave a great learning opportunity to the team.

We finished our 6m stop (only about 5 minutes) whilst gently swimming back to the exit, however we soon found ourselves in a little inlet, but not the one we entered in so we took the decision to surface and find out where we were. Basically we hadn’t gone far enough and so were in the next inlet along, about a 50m swim from our exit.

Finally arriving at our exit point and looking forward to getting out of the water, all of a sudden I noticed Clare was floating at 5m upside down having simulated having an O2 tox – cue another chance to practice an unconscious diver lift and then we finally surfaced in the right place to a waiting HP who’s first question (after taking a photo!) was ‘So, where have you been for 84 minutes?!’.

The de-brief for this dive was full of ‘learning experiences’ shall we say! It can be summarised best by the following two sets of quotes:

Olly: Sorry for that

Butch: For what exactly

Olly: All of it!!

Clare to HP: On that dive there were a few times I thought these are fantastic divers and we have done our job

Olly: Unfortunately it was only for 15 seconds and purely accidental….

Howard: A bit like getting monkeys to write Shakespeare - if you give them enough time it all works out!

Day 7 – Thursday 12th May (Build-Up Dive on HMS Stubborn) We spent the morning going through the final part of dive planning and planning this afternoon’s dive on the HMS Stubborn. We discussed the various options available ranging from plans on a wrist slate or in Wetnotes through to the use of Ratio Deco (as this was something we were both interested in). In the end we settled on a written plan checked with Decoplanner but we both had an idea of how much deco we would be doing. In order to add a slight safety margin we planned to deco as if we spent the whole of the dive on the seabed at 57m, but to conserve gas would be exploring the wreck at either a 51 or 54m average.

One of the most interesting parts of this course for me has been looking at the various decompression models that are used and why they put stops where they do. I am not going to go into it here and try and explain it but if you haven’t read it I would definitely recommend Mark Powell’s book ‘Deco for Divers’ as a good read.

Dive 9 We loaded up our gear onto a large RHIB that I think is now owned by Divewise (or Techwise) and found we were to be joined by two rebreather divers completing a MOD2 course (effectively the same course as ours but on rebreathers).

Once we had loaded up our gear and changed into our drysuits we set off for the short journey out to the site of the HMS Stubborn. It was still a bit windy which meant the journey out was not the most comfortable and when we got the site it was a little lumpy kitting up. We were letting the rebreather divers get in first, which I don’t think helped matters and by the time we were ready to get in I was feeling a little queasy to say the least!

Clare, Butch and I were on one side of the boat and HP was on the other so when the skipper gave the signal we staggered our roll in and the plan was to get to the shot and down to 5m for a regroup and bubble check – the waves on the surface would have made it uncomfortable to hang around for long. I watched Clare and Butch roll in and then I was given the signal, by now I was feeling pretty rough and on the verge of being sick and so when I got the signal I was so relieved, and slightly preoccupied with holding my deco cylinders to stop them smacking my head on the roll in that I forgot to put a hand on my reg and mask. The reg was ok (as it was in my mouth) however my mask went as soon as I hit the water and I inhaled a fair bit of seawater.

By now Clare and Butch has reached the shot line and were being buffeted about by the waves so made there way under (where it was a lot nicer) and I couldn’t see HP. I heard a shout from the boat to ask if I had a backup mask (which luckily I did) and so signalled ok whilst reaching for my pocket and swimming to the shot.

The next thing I knew I had managed to get to the shot, remove my backup mask from my pocket (and even tidy away the other contents and check nothing was left dangling out), so I had the shot line in one hand and my mask in the other. I quickly put my mask on whilst dumping gas from my wing and cleared my mask on the way down to 5m – all in all I was quite impressed with myself as all had gone quite smoothly all things considered. However, what impressed me even more was that when I joined the team at 5m and started to explain what had happened I saw (just! - out of my steamed up backup) HP swimming over to the shot line carrying my primary mask – it turned out he saw it go and fall off my head and then managed to catch it on his way to 5m – I don’t think you could do that if you tried! We spent a few minutes at 5m for me to swap masks back to my better primary (top tip here from Clare – don’t have a primary/backup arrangement, just have two masks and interchange them so they are in effect both primary masks!) and just have a moment chilling out to get my breathing back under control as it had all been a little stressful!

We descended down the expertly placed shot line and soon saw the sight of an intact 1000 tonne submarine sitting there upright on the sea bed!

The shot was by the conning tower and we headed to the bow to see the 6 forward torpedo tubes and the foreplanes. We then doubled back towards the conning tower and HP pointed out an open hatch where you could see down inside of the submarine. We explored the gun placement, though the gun was missing, and unfortunately I signalled to Butch that I was getting a little low on gas and so we should ascend up to look at the top of the conning tower.

After a brief look I hit minimum gas and thumbed the dive and we started our ascent up the shot line (you can’t just bag off when diving in Malta, unless a proper emergency and you have to).

After practicing all week I was pleased with the ascent as I think it went pretty well. We shot up to 39m and then we slowed our ascent up to 30m where we started 1 minute stops (30 seconds stop, 30 seconds move) up to 21m for the 50% switch and a 3 minute stop.

The rest of the ascent up to 9m went well and at 9m we switched back to back-gas and stowed our 50% reg prior to getting to 6m and onto 100% O2.

Unfortunately the two rebreather divers were still on the shot at 6m and so we made the decision to let go and move away, gently fining to hold station near to the shot (luckily the current was very mild). We switched to 100% and waited out our deco prior to making a nice slow ascent to the surface.

This was a great dive (despite the hiccup at the beginning) and we felt left us in good stead for tomorrows’ qualifying dive.

Day 8 – Friday 13th May (Deep Qualifying Dive on SS Polynesian) This was it, the big 60! I was both slightly nervous and exited – though part of that may have been Clare pointing out whilst we analysed gas that it was Friday the 13th and HP making spooky noises!

In all seriousness we both felt more than ready and were looking forward to seeing what has been described as one of the best wreck dives in the Normoxic range. And I mean: ‘What could possibly go wrong?!’ – You as the reader may have twigged by now that this became somewhat of a catch phrase between Butch and I as members of Team 5/3rds!

We checked fill pressures and analysed gas and found our fill pressure a little low (190bar) so look them back for a top off. As a bit of an aside this was a bit of a shame as up until then Divewise had been brilliant and we had good fills.

Anyway the situation was quickly resolved and we headed off to load the boat. Unlike yesterday out on the RHIB we were on what can only be described as a leisure boat with a ladder and strange lift contraption on the back – it even had cushions on the seats that we had to put our kit on!

Dive 10 We were again joined by a couple of rebreather divers and despite the boat being a little smaller still had plenty of space. The boat was comfortable for the short ride out and the wind had all but completed dropped which made kitting up nice (no seasickness today!). We let the rebreathers jump in first again, this time giving them a little longer so as to avoid them on the shot line, and despite a slight hiccup when Butch’s twinset fell over after one of the guys had rolled off the side got ready with no issues.

The only downside of no wind was that I got rather hot so had to ask for a bucket of water to be thrown over me so getting in the water was very much a relief. Clare, Butch and I jumped in (remembering to hold my mask today!) to allow HP to make use of the kitting up space but soon found that there was a little surface current and so we made the decision to head down to 5m to carryout out our bubble check. Clare gave the signal to descend and HP joined us.

This was the deepest dive I had done to date and the descent felt long, but soon (at about 30m) the wreck loomed out of the darkness – the vis was great (if anything not quite as good as yesterday on the Stubborn but still impressive).

My first thoughts were ‘Wow this is a big ship!’, quickly followed by getting to the bottom of the shot and doing a quick flow check before signalling to the team ok and finding that Butch’s HID had failed again (or he forgot to charge it) and so was swapping to his backup.

We got that all together and set off towards the bow (Clare and her bow obsession!). We hadn’t swum past much of the wreckage when I realised I had almost hit the turn pressure and so I signalled to the team that we should turn around. I was a bit worried about this as Clare had joked that our course pass was dependant on her reaching the bow!

But in all seriousness we had agreed a turn pressure and so we headed back towards the shot. No sooner had we got to it that I hit minimum gas and so signalled to the team and thumbed the dive and we started our ascent up to the slowdown at 42m ready to start minute stops at 33m up to the 50% gas switch at 21m.

Pleasingly, on our final ascent of the week, I felt we had nailed it and it must have been good as to raise the bar just that little bit more Clare went OOG to Butch at about 39m – though it turned out that it was more to teach him a lesson for not stowing his light cord properly after he packed it away at the start of the dive (though Clare and HP did confirm our ascent was good as well!).

There was a bit of a faff for Butch to fully deploy his long hose, but we managed to keep the ascent going to 33m when we had a slight breather to sort things out properly and get the team reorganised.

Once we got to 21m we switched Clare first (as she was OOG) and then Butch could stow his long hose whilst I switched and then I could switch him. Now came a bit of discussion over deco and how much we were going to do – the root cause of which was that I had worked out my average depth at 57m whereas Butch had 54m in his mind (though I had been a little lower than him throughout the dive).

Out came the wetnotes and the situation was written out, though it did end up continuing to the 18m stop as well despite having 5 minutes at 21m! In the end we agreed and Clare & HP seemed happy with our call – although if anything it was a little conservative, but then that is never really a bad thing!

We got to the 9m stop and I remembered that we would need to donate gas to Clare (the problems on the bottom come up with you on the ascent!) so tried to signal that we would do 2 minutes (out of 5) on 50% and then I would switch to back-gas first and stow my 50% reg, then donate gas to Clare (as Butch had already donated I would have more sharable gas left) so she could tidy up, and finally Butch could switch before all moving up to 6m. However there was a little confusion and Butch donated to Clare whilst I was switching back to back-gas. It wasn’t a major issue as he had plenty of gas but was highlighted as something to think about if you ever had a problem in the future.

The move to 6m and switch to 100% O2 went smoothly and I called 17 minutes on O2, Butch had thought 15 minutes, but was happy with 17 and so that is what we did.

As we had let the rebreathers get in first (and actually passed them coming up as we went down) we had the shot to ourselves which was nice as the current was a little stronger than the day before and we wanted to avoid too much exertion on the 6m stop especially when on 100% O2 at 1.6ppO2.

With about 5 minutes to go HP and Clare swam over in front of us and made the signal NT and shook our hands – we had done it (subject to passing the exam)! It was a nice feeling, we had had a great week, done a fantastic 2 dives to finish off with and had a laugh with two brilliant instructors!

It was on this dive that I paid the price with my bottom hugging diving style as I was slightly deeper than Butch and so going through gas faster. It was also meaning it was taking slightly longer than it should to signal me as I was lower with my head down looking at the wreck. In fact I realised what I had missed by being lower when going back up the shot as just 5m or so off the wreck means you can take more of it in and get a much better view – it really does help to put it all in perspective. I can forgive myself on this occasion (and as could my team) as it was my deepest dive to date and the whole experience was a little awe-inspiring, but I have definitely learnt my lesson and will endeavour to keep up a little higher in future, and more importantly stay level with my team for quicker communications even if just to prevent me from having to drag them through 5 minutes extra deco that they probably didn’t need to do! The beers were on me that evening!

It had still been a great dive and all enjoyed it – we will just have to go back at some point to see the Bow – Clare and HP were talking about taking a bottom stage and scooters, though I think that might be another course…!

Day 9 – Saturday 14th May (Exam & Travel Home) We were up at the crack of dawn to get a lift to the airport, although HP had gone on ahead as he had an earlier flight, so after a coffee and breakfast discussing any final areas of course material we weren’t 100% confident with we cracked on with the course exam on the flight home. The day after getting home we had an email from HP to say congratulations – we had officially passed the course and were now Normoxic Trimix certified!

Lessons Learnt In fact there were a lot of lessons learnt on this course, as it was a very good course all round, however for me personally there were a few things that I wanted to share.

When on a course, and in that mindset, it is very easy to fall into the trap of not thinking outside the box so to speak. this is especially true when something goes wrong and you forget to ask yourself the question well what would I do in the 'real' world. The best example of this for me was when I lost my 100% O2 bottle at 6m and didn't even consider using my 50% bottle as the brief had been for us not to use that jsut to carry it for practice. In fact if it's there it can be used!

If and when something does go wrong try not to zone out working out why it went wrong - just deal with it. The surface is the place to ask why!

When diving deep wrecks (especially) on Trimix get into the habit of staying shallower. It not only gives you a better sense of scale and allows you to take in the whole wreck, but you use less gas (giving you more time) and avoid racking up as much deco (meaning you are out of the water quicker).

Finally, and on a lighter note, a 5/3rds gas strategy does not work! But then you all knew that anyway....

Final Thoughts It was a fantastic course and I would definitely recommend both the course and our two instructors (though I would try to avoid that Mr Squirty!). In all honesty I had previously looked at IANTD instruction as the easy way out and I think at one stage (compared to say GUE’s Tech1) it was. However the bar has been well and truly raised thanks to both the new IANTD UK management and Training Director and especially our two instructors, which resulted in Butch and I getting high class training out of the week which has greatly improved our diving skills (well we like to think so anyway!).

Clare and Howard pushed us out of our comfort zone and our diving greatly improved as a result. We ended being completely comfortable with complex failures and our skill levels greatly improved. What is more is that we have both taken away things to work on and continually improve and we all gained three new potential dive buddies! I would like to thank both Clare and Howard for an excellent week, it was thoroughly enjoyable.