Back in the 613 and did a few shore local shore "dives with a pro" thru KDS. This was my first real experience diving in the St Lawrence and it was certainly an eye opener. Up until this point, I had only dove in the clear and warm waters of a pool and then down south. Neither of which provided poor visibility OR the awkward feeling of donning a thick wetsuit.
But I lacked that awareness and was not ready for my first dive experience in the glorious St Lawrence. First dive real open water dive was on the Rothesay and it was not a good one. I struggled with equipment setup, faulty O- rings, putting a wetsuit on backwards and watching everyone around me appear to know what they were doing.
It was a hosted dive day from KDS, so there were a few dive masters floating around helping folks out. I got buddied up, geared up and off we went. My dive buddy and I had zero clue where we were going, but we followed the pack out. I remember thinking, wow this sucks ! Water was cold, my 7mm rented wetsuit was just awful and visibility was sh*t ! I had a new Perdix Teric dive computer that I had no idea how to use. But we kept following the pack and eventually made it to the Rothesay. I didnt realize at the moment but my buddy and I were both blowing thru air at an alarming rate and within minutes of being on the wreck we were lost. My buddy felt the need to surface a few times and on the last descent back down..He was getting low on air and we needed to find the exit. But I had no clue where that was. But I knew the shore was north. Thankfully DM Dan came along and guided us back to the line and we managed to follow it back and end this dive.
Overall I realized a few things here.
#1 - St Lawrence diving is tough, current, low viz and cold water add to the challenge.
#2 - Humbled, I was not ready for this dive, either dive skill wise OR physically in terms of conditioning.
#3 - Dive plan and dive awareness was severly lacking.
#4 - I hated the fact that I did not know where I was going and had to rely on someone else to help me.
#5 - Most importantly I realized that the St Lawrence could make me a competent diver if I put the work in.
It was a long drive home, humbled but with alot of takeaways. Unfortunately most of the above observations I decided to ignore for the time being and thought the best path forward was to jump into Advanced Open Water course. Figuring the the skills learned in that course would push me to be a better diver. Not sure if it was the right decision, but it certainly pushed me. As the AOW course is where I realized I needed to make a few changes.
DC242
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