First dive of 2022

We started diving last year for around this time Masha’s birthday. With one year and 21 dives, 2021 taught us a lot. Looking forward to exploring more of the world and publishing more dive related content this year.

Hmm I guess that means we need to make 22 dives in 2022??

Reef of Mourtias North Side

Dive Center: Triton Dive Center Alonissos

I’ve written an introduction to diving in Alonissos, here. This was our first dive of the vacation. An easy mellow one to get things going.

masha dawning wetsuit

good to be back in the water

Sinus issues:

If you’ve even dove in a swimming pool you know as you go deeper you start to feel pressure in your ears. It is the same scuba diving. One should equalize, blow softly into there sinus with the nose held shut, ever few meters as you descend. Keeping the are cavity in your inner ear the same pressure as the surrounding air/water is important.

On this day there were serval challenges to keeping my sinuses from bing clear and easily equalizing:

• I’m allergic to wheat so all gluten baked products cause my nose to run / sinuses to fill. I had stopped eating wheat products entirely some days before but I think there was some residual effect.
• I have seasonal allergies from late spring to mid summer that also cause a runny nose.
• I had been nursing a cold since a few days before the vacation.

Despite all that on the morning of the dive I was feeling decent. I could breath smoothly from both nostrils. That day we were diving with two instructors and one other diver so I felt comfortable if I had an issue we could split the group and make a controlled ascent.

During the dive I experienced some headache coming from my sinus and one ear would not equalize well but overall it was not that bad. Upon reaching the surface I could see on others face that something was a bit off. Turns out mask had blood in it. Then I took the mask off and my nose was bleeding. Embarrassed I rinsed with sea water and it eventually stopped.

Take away for me is wait one more day after sinus issues before diving.

underwater couple

finning

First dive with hoods:

Masha and I are no stranger to cold water. We took or PADI Open Water diving course, dive log, in Croatia with water temperatures down to 15 deg. This experience has built an appreciation for being warm on dives. So as our new piece of gear for this trip we got two Seac Sub Tekno Hoods.

hood

Using the new hoods was not entirely straight forward. For me I was already having trouble with my ears and jumping into the water with the hood on meant my ears were not actually in contact with the water. At least at first. I’m not sure if this was effecting my equalization but I felt better after sticking my finger between the hook and cheek and letting some water reach my ears.

The second thing was getting the hood to go over your mask. You want the rim of the hood to either be slightly offset from the mask or over it. No mask on hood leaky action. I saw Masha doing a technique of tracing the edge of her mask with her finger. Following that I had no more issues with water leaking in.

The new hoods plus our 7mm wet suits kept us plenty warm here in the Aegean Sea. The coldest temperature I recorded was 17 deg C. I’m really happy with this setup and only possible improvement I could think of is someday drysuits. But as I understand they come with some drawbacks.

where are the sharks

flying

Björn:

Speaking of drysuits, where are drysuits used? The other diver this day, Björn, was familiar with a place. He taught us a lot about the diving scene in Norway. Diving there is, surprising to me, popular. Our of the other instructors also had good experience there. I’m not sure what exactly but apparently there is a lot to see. Masha and I are adding it to the diving bucket list.

torch equipped

selfie

Burn the wetsuit!:

All this talk of drysuits but at this point we are still committed to our 7mm wetsuits. We even learned one wetsuit related trick this dive.

It’s quite easy for the stitching on the neoprene to become loose and start to unravel. Cutting it with a scissors does nothing but shortly delay the unraveling. There is a way to stop it. The trick is to start the thread alight and let it burn down until its ~0.5cm from the neoprene then smoosh it with your finger. It sort of melts the stitch together preventing further problems.

As for the small tears Masha and I both have near the ankles of our suits. Still trying working on solution for that.

fish cloud

Even with the sinus issues this was a great first dive.