Utila – Week 5, Day 7: Sidemount Struggles
UTILA
Week 5
Day 7: Sidemount Struggles
December 17, 2022
Still scarred a bit from the previous day’s wounds and the sidemount equipment set-up, I felt a bit apprehensive about the rest of the course. Clive, on the other hand, was perfectly confident and incredibly excited about it.
To start off, Noah took us to the dock where he showed us how to set up our gear. We grabbed the tanks and harnesses we had prepped the day before, and he walked us through how to put everything together – a major feat for me, a minor inconvenience for Clive. We had to walk to the stairs, clip both tanks to the D-rings on the harness, and then, starting with the left tank (the one with the short hose), put the regulator in our mouths, hook the bungee around the valve, wrap the hose around our necks, and wear the necklace attached to the reg. Then rinse and repeat for the right tank with the longer hose.
It took me a good ten minutes to get all geared up and finally head into the water – at which point the whole thing just felt uncomfortable. While Clive got into his gear, I was busy trying to get used to everything at the surface.
The Descent Disaster
Once we were both ready, we swam to the tarp to do our five-point descent – or at least try to. I couldn’t, for the life of me, find the dump valve to deflate the bladder, so while Noah and Clive descended, I floated helplessly on the surface trying to locate the damn thing. Needless to say, Noah had to come back up and help me. Excellent start.
When I finally started my descent, I was so negatively buoyant that I slammed right onto the tarp. It took me a while to find the LPI and inflate a bit until I was neutrally buoyant. And when I struck the perfect balance, it felt like something had shifted – I realised this felt way easier than diving with the equipment I was used to . I had decent buoyancy control right from the get-go. I could hover and maintain a horizontal trim for however long I wanted – something that took me ages to learn with a regular BCD (and even then, I was nowhere close to mastering it!). If that weren’t enough, there was also the added bonus of feeling like a complete and total badass with two tanks by my side!
Then came the skills. During reg switching, I couldn’t untangle the mess I’d made with the hoses. In the malfunctioning reg skill, I shut off the wrong tank. And when we moved on to the air-sharing exercise, I handed Clive the wrong regulator. I felt like a such a mess… until the part where we just swam around. That’s when I felt like a god – free, powerful, cool.
Just Jump
Back at the surface, all I could remember were the failures. How long it took me to gear up. Not being able to descend. Screwing up every skill.
To this, Noah had the perfect reply: “Learning sidemount is like learning to dive all over again,” he said, clearly having heard this story from many students before me. He let us take a cigarette break to calm our nerves before the second confined session. For this, we’d be jumping off the dock. We’d carry all our gear, and then – with everything unclipped and hanging free, a fully inflated bladder, and the short hose in our mouths – we’d just jump. I could already picture myself losing both tanks in the water the second I hit it. I knew I was gonna mess it all up.
But with Noah nudging us along, I had to take the leap. So I grabbed the tanks and jumped. At the surface, I was just relieved I was still holding onto them. I took a deep breath and clipped both tanks onto my harness before getting fully geared up. Surprisingly, this way felt easier – not having to bear the tanks’ weight while clipping everything in.
We swam back to the tarp and descended again. Once more, I couldn’t find my dump valve and couldn’t go down – only this time, it wasn’t my fault. The bladder had detached itself from the underside of the harness and floated up behind me. I looked like some kind of underwater spider – the “abdomen” being the fully inflated bladder behind me. I could see Noah giggling underwater as I struggled – eventually needing to surface so he could help me (again).
Once back on the tarp, we repeated most of the skills. This time, my performance was way better – though still not where I wanted it to be. But man, it felt so much better diving this way. So, so fun. I simply couldn’t wait for the open water dives the following day…
Stay wild,
Marius
Post-Scriptum
With Amelia, Levi, Ava, Adah, Corys, and I nearly done with our divemaster training programme, we decided to set the graduation date for the following week. Still, with all the failures from the week piling up, I felt like the only one undeserving of it – even though I had (almost) completed all the requirements satisfactorily.
Philippe – a French guy – would also be joining us for our graduation. He’d been coming to Utila for a week at a time over the previous three summers to finish his course.