Dive Phase

Dive phase is done. The past 4 weeks were spent at the Fleet Diving Unit (Pacific) at the Navy base in Victoria, BC. I was not looking forward to this phase. Having already done the Ship's Team Diver course when I was in the Navy I had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like. Thankfully the SAR Tech dive course was not run like the STD course even though it is a very similar course. The PT was a little harder on this course but the days weren't as long and there wasn't anywhere near as much cock. That had to do with the calibre of the guys. These guys are all fast learners and we're used to strict timings so that helped keep the staff off of our ass as much as possible.

We learned the basics of military diving and getting comfortable in the water and using the kit. We spent some time getting familiar with the burpee as well as the dreaded morning swim. There is a tradition at FDU that every course in house has to race the clearance diver course. The race consists of a 2400m run followed by a 1000m swim. If you get below 8 minutes on the run or 14 minutes on the swim your name goes on a plaque in the training building. Myself, Jeff and Giles managed to get under the 8 minutes for the run and we weren't able to get anyone under 14 on the swim although Zuko and Christophe came close. Since the times are taken as a team average and we have 16 guys whereas the CD's only have 9 it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that we were going to lose the race which is exactly what happened. The CD's have wetsuits that are much quicker to put on and they've been on course for 6 months so they've had a lot of practice. I was the first guy into the changeroom to get into my wetsuit but 7 clearance divers were in the water before me. Their entire course was in the water and swimming by the time Auger was but he managed to pass all of them on the swim for a first place finish. It's the first time I've ever heard of someone other than a clearance diver winning the race.

The rest of the course consisted of deep diving, towed diver searches and crab fishing. The towed diver search is when the diver gets on a sled that looks like a plane and is towed behind a boat. It has wings and you can go up, down do barrel rolls or whatever. It's fun but it's pretty tiring since you have to hang on while being towed underwater. The crab fishing was a blast. I've never done it before and it was pretty fun to find them buried in the ocean floor and then catch them as they run away or try and pinch you.

Next week we go back up to Comox to start Over Turned Vessel Extraction. That's the bread and butter of SAR Tech diving. What we've been doing up until now is getting proficient with the gear. OTV will have us penetrating capsized vessels and pulling survivors out. I'm super pumped about the idea of going inside a sinking ship, finding people and bringing them out. Should be a blast.