Instructor Spyros Kollas.

Showing posts with label sidemount. Show all posts

Healing mineral springs 30' from the center of Athens...

The Athens Vouliagmeni Lake!!!

Vouliagmeni means sunken and it is a small brackish water lagoon, that water comes from the mountain of Hymmetus.
After an earthquake the cavern collapsed probably during the middle age.
It continuous deep to the mountain in an underwater cave that it is very difficult to trace even by sonar.

The water temperature is 23 - 24 degrees Celsius 12 months a year and increases as far as you go further into the caverns and the cave.

For now the entrance to the cave is prohibited.

With the comfortable water temperature and the fish-spa, the lake functions as a year round spa too.

More about the lagoon here

You can also see more pictures here

Cavern Mapping Project

The lagoon has 4 big and deep caverns with crystal clear water and the maximum depth of each is 35 - 40m.

We will start the mapping of all the four caverns on Saturday 07/02/2015 and we will be conducting dives until the end of April.

This is an official invitation to anyone who is interested in cavern diving and who would like to join us and participate to this project.

This a great opportunity to dive the most unique place in Europe. Different kind of anemones, soft corals, fish-spa, warm water and amazing caverns are just some of the things you will enjoy in this place.

Read more information about this endemic kind of paranemonia which can be found only to Vouliagmeni Lagoon Attiki Paranemonia Vouliagmenisis

During the dives the participants will be supported with video debriefings, webinars, notes and seminars in order to help them to improve their existing knowledge and skills and to become even better, safe and thinking team divers.

For those who want to participate but have not yet certified as cavern divers, i will conduct two cavern classes, one in the beginning of the project 14/02/15 and another one on the 7th of April.

Sea Breaze will support the teams with cylinders, gases, sofnolime and additional equipment that maybe need.

The cost per dive is 30.00 euro

Included:

Insurance
Tanks
Survey and Mapping Handbook
Survey and Mapping Instructions
Cavern diver manual & additional notes

Not included:

Entrance fees to the lake 35.00 euro
Gases
Transportations

NOTE 1: Participants can attend the project with equipment that are certified to use, such as single or double cylinders, sidemount and rebreather.

NOTE 2: If not yet certified as cavern diver and the dates for the programmed classes do not fit to your schedule, you have the option to go for at least 6 dives in the project in order to apply for your cavern diver certification with 50% discount.

For your accommodation you can take a look here

For more details contact me here or leave your comment bellow.

Supported by

During decompression stop

I generally like diving deep.

I was already Trimix instructor when I get involved with sidemount diving and one of my curiosities was if I will be able to do deep sidemount diving.

After I finished my training I started conducting most of my courses on sidemount configuration from the Open Water up to Tec 50.

The idea of going deeper with this configuration was already in my mind.

I started doing more fitness and more practice trying different cylinders, different configurations and of course different emergency scenarios.

I worked a lot on my SAC rate by doing more fitness so to have the ability to avoid using large capacity cylinders.

I tested the configuration with five cylinders in several depths simulating several emergency procedures.

The next Trimix course was a very nice opportunity.

We started the training dives starting from the assessment dive, going to the first training dive at 10m, 27m at the 2^nd one and the others at 45m, 55m, 65m, 75m. The last two dives were the most important. 80m and the certification dive at 90m!!

The plan was to go to 90m for 15 minutes.

The student divers used their 15 liters twinset with three S80s.

My setup was two steel 12s long at 230bar, two S80 with a 50% NX and the travel gas in the other one and an S40 with 190bar of Oxygen.

As you will see in the video, the aluminums were placed on top of the main cylinders with the bottom gas. This is now old school because the deco cylinders must be under the main cylinders with the bottom gas. The third cylinder with the oxygen was on a leash (DIR method).

A set of deco gases was waiting for us in case of an emergency with our safety diver.

We were about to go on the shipwreck Monrosa but as you will see, because of the bad weather the down line ''went'' a few meters further. That is why you are seeing the three of us in the middle of nowhere.

Some conclusions

There are many people out there saying that sidemount for deep diving is not ideal because the regulator exchange during the dive is ‘’Task Loading’’.

For sure this is not an issue for a well trained sidemount diver that has done many dives before with a technical setup, especially when the second stages are correct placed in front of the diver and the rig is absolute balanced.

Your choice must have to do with the safety and not the task loading. Task loading is something that has to do with the brain. This is why a well trained diver in combination with the practice, has no task loading issues. ‘’Task Loading’’ is the nature of diving. We are diving by using the brain and not the muscles.

Really…

What about the V-Drill in case of emergency???

We have seen many divers that are not able to reach their valves and they open the buckle of the BCD to push the cylinders up so to reach the valves. Isn ‘t it ‘’Task Loading’’???

The next deeper sidemount dive will be soon

Stay tuned

Thanks for watching and reading

Special thanks to my friend Mike...

Remember that in case of you are interesting in Technical and Sidemount training, just drop me an email at spyros@is-expl.com