rkinder
Registered
As we approach the New Year, my thoughts go out to my fellow public safety divers. One of the surest ways to guarantee getting injured or having problems is lack of training or experience in performing any job or task.
With this in mind, if you are a tender or non diver support person on a dive team, take time to learn all that you can about the teams equipment if you work with just a few divers become intimately familiar with their equipment, not just that it is dive equipment, but how to set it up for your diver, check the gauges, BCD, Straps, Buckles, Quick releases, Regulators, Gas Blocks, and everything else involved in the dive. Become competent in assisting in planning dives, and helping with dive tables and forms. Learn to recognize potential problems before they become problems. Commit to becoming part of the team. Take time to learn proper line tending, and basic equipment maintenance and decontamination. Become a valuable member of the team.
For Divers, you are responsible for everything the tenders are responsible for plus developing your underwater skills. Commit to making a number of dives in the coming year. In fact commit to diving year round, concentrate on weakness, always look to improve. Just as in everything in life an earnest effort to improve will pay off. For many of us we will only be able to advance our skills just so far. So lets commit to being the best we can be with in our personal limits. If you use a dry suit become as comfortable as possible, with all the little tweaks that makes your suit comfortable, practice emergency skills, not just once or twice but over and over until it becomes second nature. Practice carrying a bailout bottle or stage bottle. Practice handing it off to another diver, and practice receiving it. Do this in clear water and work into ZERO visibility until it becomes totally natural. Just commit to improvement, and to get in the water year round.
Above all work with good experienced instructors and divers to improve your skills.
Remember the team dives not just the diver
Good luck in reaching your personal best and be safe.
With this in mind, if you are a tender or non diver support person on a dive team, take time to learn all that you can about the teams equipment if you work with just a few divers become intimately familiar with their equipment, not just that it is dive equipment, but how to set it up for your diver, check the gauges, BCD, Straps, Buckles, Quick releases, Regulators, Gas Blocks, and everything else involved in the dive. Become competent in assisting in planning dives, and helping with dive tables and forms. Learn to recognize potential problems before they become problems. Commit to becoming part of the team. Take time to learn proper line tending, and basic equipment maintenance and decontamination. Become a valuable member of the team.
For Divers, you are responsible for everything the tenders are responsible for plus developing your underwater skills. Commit to making a number of dives in the coming year. In fact commit to diving year round, concentrate on weakness, always look to improve. Just as in everything in life an earnest effort to improve will pay off. For many of us we will only be able to advance our skills just so far. So lets commit to being the best we can be with in our personal limits. If you use a dry suit become as comfortable as possible, with all the little tweaks that makes your suit comfortable, practice emergency skills, not just once or twice but over and over until it becomes second nature. Practice carrying a bailout bottle or stage bottle. Practice handing it off to another diver, and practice receiving it. Do this in clear water and work into ZERO visibility until it becomes totally natural. Just commit to improvement, and to get in the water year round.
Above all work with good experienced instructors and divers to improve your skills.
Remember the team dives not just the diver
Good luck in reaching your personal best and be safe.
