Wreck Diver Certification (Blindfolded reel-in)

[NauticalNick]

Hi all,

Not sure if looking for advice or just encouragement but for one of my wreck certification dives I had to do the blindfolded reel-in (simulating coming out of a silted-out wreck with your reel fully wound back up) and while I barely got it done, it was an absolute disaster. The test was in shallow open water with a non-linear line path (bit of zig-zagging back and forth) and I got it done just before I ran out of gas. It was by far the hardest thing I have had to do in scuba so far, my buoyancy was all over the place (it's normally okay) and I guess just looking for tips to get better at this as keeping the line tight in particular was very hard to do.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[lostsheep]

I’d leave the reel and go back later.

Or maybe if it was a family heirloom tie off the line , cut it, leave the line in place and take the reel.

 

[rongoodman]

Leave it. There's enough going on without messing around with a reel.

 

[inquis]

Sounds like it was a task-loading drill meant to be stressful. In actual practice, you'd leave the line and just exit. Come back with more gas for a cleanup dive.

Or, if you know it'll always be silty (i.e., it's tight), then you'd be bumping things enough for reference that buoyancy will be easy enough.

But hey, you got it done. Nice job!

 

[lostsheep]

I’d love to hear the instructors thoughts on this.

It better have been a stress test and not what they are teaching as best practice.

How do you protect your head if both hands are busy taking line in?

 

[inquis]

keeping the line tight in particular was very hard to do.

This will crop up regardless of visibility. Cultivate an effective back kick to allow you to catch-up with the reel/spool winding. If there's substantial exit flow/current (probably not in a wreck, but perhaps on the exterior) and fairly open, you may wish to point into the current and wind up "in reverse".

 

[lostsheep]

Good news for me @gamon , I have no family heirloom reels

 

[inquis]

Another trick if you're using a spool is to hold the exit side hand still on the line and wind the spool toward it across your body. That minimizes the accelerate-coast cycle that happens when winding with the exit hand (spool fairly stationary).

 

[NauticalNick]

Sounds like it was a task-loading drill meant to be stressful. In actual practice, you'd leave the line and just exit. Come back with more gas for a cleanup dive.

Or, if you know it'll always be silty (i.e., it's tight), then you'd be bumping things enough for reference that buoyancy will be easy enough.

But hey, you got it done. Nice job!

Thanks very much. I think you might have been correct on the stress-test as the instructor advised my before the dive that the shellfish featured everywhere at the dive site were very sharp before the dive as well.

Agreed with your point as well in that I would just leave the line and follow it out in a real life situation.

 

[NauticalNick]

I’d love to hear the instructors thoughts on this.

It better have been a stress test and not what they are teaching as best practice.

How do you protect your head if both hands are busy taking line in?

I think it might have been. They also advised me that the test area was filled with sharp coral / shells beforehand which ratcheted up the stress.

I'm not fussed about the stress test as I appreciate it's useful it's more a matter of I wasn't sure what the expected standard was and I came out thinking I did very poorly.