Last weekend three Sheephaven divers had the opportunity to complete their Advanced Nitrox Course when they conducted their practical in-water test on Saturday morning. The dive was planned and executed for a 37 metres decompression profile with two deep stops at 23 and 15 metres, using EAN 28 for bottom gas and EAN 40 for deco gas respectively.

The dive benefitted from a beautiful spring morning but with a forecast of a strong southerly wind due later in the day. The run up Mulroy Bay on board dive boat Deirdre was under the helm of Dry Coxswain Ryan Ward, who kindly offered up his dive on the morning to allow his fellow divers to complete their test.

Prior to conducting the dive time was spent placing a shot line at the 37 metre mark, which the divers used to descend to the seabed and demonstrate their in-water drills of following out a reel line, removing their mask and reeling back into the shot line again. Once all three divers had completed this drill they had entered decompression mode and then began their ascent with the first deep stop at 23m for 3 minutes at which time they conducted their gas change, where they successfully moved over from EAN 28 to EAN 40.

The divers then ascend to the 15m level where they conducted their second deep stop, this time for 2 minutes and after that they moved to the 6m mark where they finished out their decompression schedule prior to completing the dive. Having finished this test dive the three Sheephaven divers, Kevin Boylan, Doug Fox and Dearn Mc Clintock , are now qualified to conduct decompression  Nitrox dives to a depth of 45m for decompression times of up to 10 minutes and using Nitrox mix of up to 80% O₂.

On the recovery of the three test divers Kieran Fox and Ethel Mc Granghan took the opportunity to conduct their own dive as a second stick no-decompression dive getting the best out of the good in-water visibility of over five metres in the upper reaches of the water column and the increasingly warming water that recorded up to 8 degrees Celsius during the dive.

During the week Sheephaven divers were in water to train for the upcoming Tory snorkel, with a number of divers setting off from PortnaBlagh on Wednesday evening out past Rinnaraw Point and Otter Cove at the golf course and on for Killyhoey Beach

Last weekend three Sheephaven divers had the opportunity to complete their Advanced Nitrox Course when they conducted their practical in-water test on Saturday morning. The dive was planned and executed for a 37 metres decompression profile with two deep stops at 23 and 15 metres, using EAN 28 for bottom gas and EAN 40 for deco gas respectively. 

The dive benefitted from a beautiful spring morning but with a forecast of a strong southerly wind due later in the day. The run up Mulroy Bay on board dive boat Deirdre was under the helm of Dry Coxswain Ryan Ward, who kindly offered up his dive on the morning to allow his fellow divers to complete their test.

Prior to conducting the dive time was spent placing a shot line at the 37 metre mark, which the divers used to descend to the seabed and demonstrate their in-water drills of following out a reel line, removing their mask and reeling back into the shot line again. Once all three divers had completed this drill they had entered decompression mode and then began their ascent with the first deep stop at 23m for 3 minutes at which time they conducted their gas change, where they successfully moved over from EAN 28 to EAN 40.

The divers then ascend to the 15m level where they conducted their second deep stop, this time for 2 minutes and after that they moved to the 6m mark where they finished out their decompression schedule prior to completing the dive. Having finished this test dive the three Sheephaven divers, Kevin Boylan, Doug Fox and Dearn Mc Clintock , are now qualified to conduct decompression  Nitrox dives to a depth of 45m for decompression times of up to 10 minutes and using Nitrox mix of up to 80% O₂.

On the recovery of the three test divers Kieran Fox and Ethel Mc Granghan took the opportunity to conduct their own dive as a second stick no-decompression dive getting the best out of the good in-water visibility of over five metres in the upper reaches of the water column and the increasingly warming water that recorded up to 8 degrees Celsius during the dive.

During the week Sheephaven divers were in water to train for the upcoming Tory snorkel, with a number of divers setting off from PortnaBlagh on Wednesday evening out past Rinnaraw Point and Otter Cove at the golf course and on for Killyhoey Beach.

By Dearn Mc Clintock