Skills, Take Two

This is another one of those posts that I never got around to writing so now I am writing something short, several months after the fact :) After the not so successful attempt to do some skills before T2, Part 2 the previous week, we had more work to do. So we decided to go out and get the skills done, and maybe do a second dive later if we felt like it. We decided to just kick out to a deep enough spot, and leave the scooters behind. This was mainly motivated by the fact that scootering with three bottles sometimes bothers my back (a problem which I have since resolved, by moving some weight around). Kicking out on the surface was a pain, but once we dropped around the worm patch, it was not too bad. Actually I think it was good practice to do a nice long kick with the three bottles on -- I felt much more comfortable in them after swimming them around for a few minutes! We got out sufficiently deep (70'-ish), and did a practice ascent, with the bottles switches and moves. Things went pretty well, and everyone was in much better spirits. Then we went back to the bottom and we each shot a bag on a reel, and reeled up together. As we rolled into the 40' stop, I locked down my reel, or so I thought, and promptly let go of the reel (I thought it was locked down!). And then I watched it unravel, very slowly, down to 70 feet. I decided to just let it unwind and fall so I wouldn't get tangled in line as I tried to retrieve it mid-flight. When I realized the eternity it would take for it to make it to the bottom, I wished I had just grabbed it when it was nearly in arms' reach! I will definitely never live that one down with the boys :P The drills were otherwise uneventful. After we were done with the ascent stuff, we dropped back down and swam in to around 40 feet, and I laid a little line, and then cleaned it up and we headed in. Big fun. We decided to pass on a second dive.