Are you an EXPERIENCED recreational diver?

[Blackcrusader]

When I see divers without their regs in it makes me question their instructor(s), as so many don’t teach it.

You will see many vacation divers remove their regs to get their selfie or photos taken by friends underwater. I threw a rope to distressed diver after she had surfaced in a strong current and missed the boat ladder and tag line. I had to yell at her to pump her BCD with more air and put her regulator back in her mouth as the sea had slight swells with the water washing over her head as I reeled her in.

 

[Bierstadt]

One thing I’m quite anal about is keeping the reg (or snorkel) in the mouth when in the water. We lost one of our long standing divers last year (2019) in 2ft of water. They were being held down by their kit, solo diving.

When I see divers without their regs in it makes me question their instructor(s), as so many don’t teach it.

That's awful. But in my diving not having a reg in one's mouth on the surface is common, unless there is a need for it. Getting back on the ladder, reg in no question. Rough seas, reg in. Shore diving entry/exit, reg in. But no breaking waves, no current, waiting for the rest of the dive team to jump in and assemble on the line? No one's going to have a reg in their mouth. But perhaps your conditions are different?

 

[Blackcrusader]

That's awful. But in my diving not having a reg in one's mouth on the surface is common, unless there is a need for it. Getting back on the ladder, reg in no question. Rough seas, reg in. Shore diving entry/exit, reg in. But no breaking waves, no current, waiting for the rest of the dive team to jump in and assemble on the line? No one's going to have a reg in their mouth. But perhaps your conditions are different?

On the surface in calm waters I use a snorkel unless chatting with someone. Waiting for other divers to finish kitting up and getting in the water. I find getting in first lets me relax more at the beginning of the dive.

 

[Edward3c]

That's awful. But in my diving not having a reg in one's mouth on the surface is common, unless there is a need for it. Getting back on the ladder, reg in no question. Rough seas, reg in. Shore diving entry/exit, reg in. But no breaking waves, no current, waiting for the rest of the dive team to jump in and assemble on the line? No one's going to have a reg in their mouth. But perhaps your conditions are different?

A calm day is 12” waves, quite often with 1m swell. When diving the tropics I wait on the surface with a snorkel or use it when swimming to the shot/anchor line. I see guides and instructors on their backs missing the buoy or using up air on the surface. Some boat entries in the U.K. are negative entry as the current is still running, we have slack on the dive, then a current again when surfacing; the Hispania is an example.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Is it a matter of expertise, an absolute value of dives, your specialty certifications or the different situations you faced? A bit of all but I believe the latter matters the most. So I would like to ask my AOW instructor (that I really trust) to elaborate a training plan and dive me through the below predicaments so that I am prepared the day I go on diving trips with people I don’t know. I like challenges and I love diving but I am very cautious and (uncontrolled) risk averse. What do you think I should add the list?:

My first recommendation would be to consolidate and gain practice and comfort it the skills and procedures already taught. Many people never bother to achieve this.

Having complete comfort and relaxation in the water (not being mistaken for complacency) is the first step. So many people have a bit of a flap when something simple goes wrong (freeflow, disconnected LPI hose etc) even simple water splashing on their face in choppy seas puts people outside their comfort zone.

In water comfort provides a solid base from which to work on other skills. A simple test, can you easily open pockets on yoru BCD or adjust straps without a loss of buoyancy or trim? A lot of people make a huge fuss over shooting a dsmb (lots on nonsense written on SB) it's an easy skill, yest you need to figure the mechanic of the best use of your hands, but the fact so many struggle with buoyancy because their slightly task loaded means they're still inexperienced in the basics.

Maintaining blue water position just with lung capacity is a fundamental skill. People who have to rely on holding on to a line for anything more than holding against current need to practice more.

Diving in strong currents (if possible vertical in addition to horizontal and washing machines) and getting out of it.

Currents - most people don't dive currents (I discount drift dives because its just hanging about in a flow). Proper currents (you stated washing machine currents) are scary places for most people. Currents are my thing. I'm happiest jumping into them, and yes get hit by true washing machine type situations a few times a year

The analogy to comfort I can think of is being a passenger in a car being driven around a track. when it's going slowly everyone will be relaxed. As it goes faster you transition through anxious to scared)

Currents are a sensory overload. they test yoru mental bandwidth for clear thought. The most basic for most is having to kick hard to cross one. elevated breathing etc causes "tunnel vision" where the diver's focus is just on kicking and breathing and nothing else. In proper current you need to have achieved the ability to maximise your mental bandwidth so you can think clearly and decisively, you're life might depend on it. There's no course for this. It comes from experience and in small steps.

So my standard advice is that divers should get an excellent grasp of the basic foundational skills, learn simple positional kicks (helicopter turns and back kick, so they can maneuver around a reef without sculling with their hands. and be really comfortable with their equipment underwater before moving forward too quickly

That's not to say instruction isn't valid its always a good idea to go out with someone whose particular skills you admire to work on a particular item, much like going to a golf pro for a tune up

 

[Dody]

My first recommendation would be to consolidate and gain practice and comfort it the skills and procedures already taught. Many people never bother to achieve this.

Having complete comfort and relaxation in the water (not being mistaken for complacency) is the first step. So many people have a bit of a flap when something simple goes wrong (freeflow, disconnected LPI hose etc) even simple water splashing on their face in choppy seas puts people outside their comfort zone.

In water comfort provides a solid base from which to work on other skills. A simple test, can you easily open pockets on yoru BCD or adjust straps without a loss of buoyancy or trim? A lot of people make a huge fuss over shooting a dsmb (lots on nonsense written on SB) it's an easy skill, yest you need to figure the mechanic of the best use of your hands, but the fact so many struggle with buoyancy because their slightly task loaded means they're still inexperienced in the basics.

Maintaining blue water position just with lung capacity is a fundamental skill. People who have to rely on holding on to a line for anything more than holding against current need to practice more.




Currents - most people don't dive currents (I discount drift dives because its just hanging about in a flow). Proper currents (you stated washing machine currents) are scary places for most people. Currents are my thing. I'm happiest jumping into them, and yes get hit by true washing machine type situations a few times a year

The analogy to comfort I can think of is being a passenger in a car being driven around a track. when it's going slowly everyone will be relaxed. As it goes faster you transition through anxious to scared)

Currents are a sensory overload. they test yoru mental bandwidth for clear thought. The most basic for most is having to kick hard to cross one. elevated breathing etc causes "tunnel vision" where the diver's focus is just on kicking and breathing and nothing else. In proper current you need to have achieved the ability to maximise your mental bandwidth so you can think clearly and decisively, you're life might depend on it. There's no course for this. It comes from experience and in small steps.

So my standard advice is that divers should get an excellent grasp of the basic foundational skills, learn simple positional kicks (helicopter turns and back kick, so they can maneuver around a reef without sculling with their hands. and be really comfortable with their equipment underwater before moving forward too quickly

That's not to say instruction isn't valid its always a good idea to go out with someone whose particular skills you admire to work on a particular item, much like going to a golf pro for a tune up

This morning I did my first dive without any specific objective. Just one way and back at 10 m average. Max depth 14,1. Duration: 62 min. Didn’t even had the feeling that I was underwater. Just watching the fish but no ray, no whale, no shark of course, no dolphin, no squid, no lobster. A bit boring. So I spent the time working on my buoyancy skills. Finning as little as possible. Not touching the LPI buttons. Doing the helicopter thing. Back finning, I don’t know it yet. Not moving the sand at the bottom even when I was a couple of inches above. Disconnect, reconnect the LPI, reach for the valves and purge as fast as possible, play buddha (I know I was told it is useless), taking of my BCD and accessing the valve (I can’t do it with the BCD on, not flexible enough). When doing those exercises, my pulse rate does not move. I hope I can control myself the same way in real conditions. 9 l/min SAC through this dive. Never went that low. I still move my fins too much because of my poor balance when I should not. Horizontally, it is perfect but vertically, the cylinder upsets it. When I said boring .
I won’t do anymore course for months except Stress and Rescue (to complement react right) and Nitrox. I have already done 5 courses in 8 weeks. I think that it is enough for now as I am not interested in Tech diving.

 

[David Novo]

I won’t do anymore course for months except Stress and Rescue (to complement react right) and Nitrox. I have already done 5 courses in 8 weeks. I think that it is enough for now as I am not interested in Tech diving.

5 courses in 8 weeks is a lot but Nitrox is good to have, specially as you are diving deep.

 

[Diving Dubai]

This morning I did my first dive without any specific objective.

Good for you. It's always good to practise skills. As a tip, go slower - however slow you thing you're going, you'll be moving too quickly

Obv as an instructor I get to "practise" all my practical skills regularly, however (much to my wife's amusement) I'll often wander around the house going through the skills with my hands and muttering to myself with all the steps

I often set myself silly little skill challenges underwater, the one I do most often when bored is make a blue water stop with a max of +/- 0.1m vertical movement (smallest increment the computer shows) Or I'll unwind and rewind my spool at the stop, again with minimum movement etc


Also in the future, don't dismiss Tech as a course. The first level is where you learn lots of additional theory and some more skills which are absolutely relevant to Rec diving, even if you have no intention of diving deep and long deco hangs

The main thing of course is to enjoy diving, and build on experiences and skills improvement will naturally fall into place

 

[Blackcrusader]

This morning I did my first dive without any specific objective. Just one way and back at 10 m average. Max depth 14,1. Duration: 62 min. Didn’t even had the feeling that I was underwater. So I spent the time working on my buoyancy skills. , play buddha (I know I was told it is useless), .

Playing budda is never useless, to me anyway. Some dives are like that where not much to see so can chill out and practice skills now that you are not with an instructor and become self reliant on being able to do them yourself without assistance. Compared to me you are quite a small chap as I am 185cm tall and weigh 130kg. Some dives have no current do go 30 mins one way and 30 mins back to where you started and for safety stop I just do the last 5 mins coming back at 5m depth. Sometimes when you go really slow you will start to see tiny things you missed going faster. Some of my favourite photos I took as I was going so slow the slightest movement by any critter is spotted even by my peripheral vision. Do another dive at the same site and try to halve the distance and speed you did this time. You always see different things even at the same dive sites.

 

[Dody]

I have a question that some might find silly. From OW, we have all been trained to breathing through a free flow regulator. For 30 seconds, I don’t know why as I think that you can do it for several minutes. I know that free flow will empty the cylinder fast (exactly at what speed, I don’t know) but I have also read that breathing through a free flow regulator can allow a safe ascent to the surface. So my question is:
During free flow, the air pressure should no longer be adjusted to ambient hydrostatic pressure. It should be the pressure from the 1st stage reg that is 8 to 10 bars. Providing that you have enough gas to surface, is it safe to breath air at 10 bars while surfacing?