Wednesday, September 22, 2010

21 minutes on the line

What can be more painfully boring than hanging onto a rope for 21 minutes. 
Well, you might find that watching grass grow, or paint drying is more tedious But holding onto a bhuoy's anchoring rope at between ten and five metres depth is just about as tedious as things can be.
The dive was a boat dive on the Imperial Eagle, off Qawra point. It was a great dive and after the Eagle, we stopped off at the Christ Statue, Kristu l-Bahar and then went for a saunter under the natural archway which is over there. Maximum depth was 42 metres.
We got back to the rope and the computer beeped. 21 minutes of mind-numbing tedium while hanging onto a rope. Needless to say, we got cold and my buddy Karl and I just hung on the line. Needless to say, as tanks got lighter, we switched to positive buoyancy and there was a good deal of fiddling with the BCD release valve. Every minute, we flashed the countdown and every time, we gave the OK. 
A long deco-session later, we slowly surfaced and got back on the luzzu. We were still cold when we got back to dry land. The dive was well worth it, but if you're planning a dive where deco is involved, it definitely time to dig your hoods out. Summer is over and it's inching towards October. The sea is still warm, but it's definitely cooling down. 
What's your longest decompression stop and where?

1 comment:

  1. Longest Deco Stop? Hmmmmmm something like 1 hour 15 minutes.

    The deco stop that seemed longest was one I did recently. It wasn't really that long, but we had, Bad viz, there was a bit of current and I was hanging on to the rope, with jellyfish coming my way ... and I was in a shorty.

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