TONY CHANEY
Contributor
Very good post and I totally agree. My buddy and I have a true and very useful thought: "Never do a dive that you are not willing to do solo." I have seen so many divers to include instructors cut too many corners because "it is just a quarry dive." Treating every dive like a tech. dive does not mean to bring all of your equipment. It really means to think like a tech diver. Questions like: do i have the proper mix, enough gas, proper equipment and is it functioning properly, how is my buddy, how about the dive plan, etc, etc. I does not take much time and most of the situations are done in your head and no need to go to great degrees of questions and answers. i.e. every time I dive with a new dive buddy, I just ask a simple question: "Mind if I look at your kit?" I have never been told no. What I am doing is seeing where my OOA reg is located, where the backup lights are etc. If there is a question of concern, hell we talk about it. I have even changed my kit around because the buddy had a better idea. In this day and age we are diving totally different that those in the past. We now have teams of SM, BM and RB's in the same team dive. Just my thoughts.