My dives have been getting longer. Not by a huge amount but enough that the need to pee towards the tail end of the dive is starting to get more urgent and more uncomfortable. I've already gotten dehydration headaches a few times on dive days and I'm now chugging water pretty much all day, starting during the drive down. And with a move to diving double tanks imminent, a P-valve was a no-brainer.
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| P-valve kit |
Technically, it's Halcyon's balanced overboard discharge valve. All this means is that the pee goes straight out the valve into the ocean but the ocean can't go back in the other way. Anywater had it installed in record time and Rochester Medical Supplies sent a surprisingly large quantity of sampler condom catheters and, uh, measuring tools to get me started off.
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| Crotch shot of the installed P-valve |
With the regular dive buddies out or sick, I joined Anywater's monthly fun dive at the Breakwater. It ended up being just me and the DM doing a dive to the Metridium Fields. It was a nice easy dive with quite a bit of life on the pipe as well as at the fields - lots of little rockfish (young of the year, maybe?) and nudibranchs. The ling in the end of the pipe looked even bigger than the last time.
-> 56min, 58ft, 53F
The good news was that the P-valve worked perfectly - it's well worth the extra steps needed to use it. The bad news was that I had a slow but persistent neck seal leak. I found a small nick which was probably exacerbated by me trying to gear up a lot quicker than I should have.
- U
