That evening I had a check-out dive planned with Alan Johnson to practice stage bottle skills. In keeping with my philosophy of learning things before I need them to get used to them early, I figured getting a stage was a good idea.
For one thing, it would be good prep for the tools required for technical diving, it builds skill capacity and it allows you to bring more gas on remote location dives.
We went to Whytecliff and did some preliminary skills at the surface. It was very humbling. Just adding one piece of gear like this really taxed me. There seemed to be a never-ending series of drills and skills that I had to learn.
The dive went ok at the beginning but I had to cut it off after half an hour. My calves cramped up very badly from all the backfinning I was doing. I'm sure I was doing too much of that. Also the fact that I had a full morning of diving contributed to fatigue. I had a lot of sleep and was well hydrated, but all the new skills were too much.
So another checkout dive would be planned and I'd make sure to go over the skill steps so I wouldn't have to concentrate so much on keeping them straight.
I learned a lot, and know that once I get this down I'll have progressed very far in my diving skills!
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