In the hopes of exploring down under

Admittedly it has been a long while since Larry and I have made any posts to our blog. It seems that the art of being busy has taken over. But, at last we return to the blog and can provide a little update on our most recent adventure - training for an arctic dive.

As many can appreciate, the water up here is, to say the least, cool. It is currently mid-August and the temperature in the Bay is -2c at 40ft. A regular wetsuit isn't going to cut it if Larry and I are to check-off an Arctic dive. We must get our drysuit training. Back in April a notice was posted on Iqaluit Public Service notifications page on Facebook outlining there was a group that wanted to start a diving club. Larry and I were both exited, so we went to the meeting to find out their plan. The meeting went well and we expressed our interest in following through.

Photo credits to Ron Wassink

Quite a bit of time passed and we fast forward to August - the group is ready to start diving. Larry and I have been offered the drysuit certification course and we make arrangements to attend our first session. The group forming the diving club have gone to great lengths to construct and position a training platform in what is known as Upper Base Lake. Upper Base in a small confined lake with it's deepest depth between 20-30' - perfect for training and introduction to scuba events. The week leading up to our first session meant we had to be outfitted with drysuits. Our instructor was very supportive and met with us so that we may try on suits for size.


It's now August 9, 2014 and Larry and I are heading out to the lake for our drysuit orientation and skills check. Skill checks can include: buddy checklist, hand signals (communication signals, flooding/removal and clearing your mask, removing and replacing your regulator, buoyancy checks (fin pivot) and hovering checks. This is a small list but for every diver, skills that should be maintained and practiced often.

Preparing for a dive is important. You take your time readying your equipment and communicate with your buddies/group. This being our first experience with wearing a drysuit, we took a little longer getting ourselves ready. When all equipment is set-up, we have our pre-dive briefing and we have our drysuits on - it's now time to get in the water. What we weren't quite expecting is the entry. What we didn't notice was the "rock garden" we would have to navigate before getting to a depth where we could put on our BC's etc... Needless to say, we discovered a risk that Larry and I would not repeat as the risk of injury for us is assessed too high.

You can see in the above picture the rocks we were facing. We made our way to a depth that was good to put on our BC's, masks, fins and gloves.

It's now time to head out to the platform to do our check out and drysuit skill sets. This is when I realize, my drysuit is not as snug a fit as it should be, water is coming in at my neck-line. I new the drysuit was a little big (in the feet and lots of space), however I wasn't quite ready for the water. I made a conscious decision that I would not go on with the dive, but rather would return to shore.  Larry continued on with our Instructor and I'm happy to report that he had a very successful dive session. Although I cut my session short, Larry and I hope to continue in our pursuit of drysuit certification and look forward to checking off a Frobisher Bay (Arctic) dive.