I always recommend (and adore when people follow the recommendation) to students that the schedule at least an extra day or two, if they can, for class just in case things go a little pear shaped or this or that needs a little fine tuning.
What makes me even happier is when everything is going just goddamn ducky and we have those extra days to play with... because it means we can take a break from black-out masks and bubble-guns for a day and just fun dive right in the middle of class.
We put everything on hold, and have a day as a reminder that, "Yes, I've been picking on you and making your life miserable in this treacherously challenging class, because this class HAS to be challenging, because you're going into a place with such an increased level of risk that if I don't challenge you then I am being an irredeemably negligent piece of shit. But you wouldn't even be here if you weren't already a really solid diver, so let's just go have a really solid dive where I won't fuck with you at all."
That was today.
What was just as fun (for me anyway) was that I got to take the day as an opportunity to dive the tanks that Bernardo from Cuzel has been trialing around the area.
They're 7L tanks. The same dimension as LP50s. BUT, they're also high pressure. Like... really high pressure. 300bar/4500psi.
They work out to about 400L/14cf less than a set of 80s. So... negligible. (But it did give Shane and Joshua the opportunity to do a bit of dissimilar tank gas matching.)
I shot from the hip and put two v-weights on. Then I shot those motherfuckers straight off my hip again as soon as I got in the water since I was struggling to stay afloat with even my 45lb wing fully inflated.
The weigh about as much as a single AL80... that is, the doubles weigh about as much as a single AL80. I could juggle them (I'd have to learn to juggle first, though). They feel like I don't have anything on my back at all. I've never been able to back-kick as easily in my life (actually had to slow myself down). They trim perfectly without any weights at all.
And they're just so bloody cute! They're like if that store Miniso sold scuba gear.
I'm already talking to Nelly about how we probably need a couple of sets of doubles and couple of sets of sidemount tanks in this config.
Because I'm kindof in love.
And, yes, they look silly on me. Because they're little and I'm big.