Do you check your pressure gauge BEFORE getting in the water?

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Peter_C

Contributor
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Location
Santa Rosa, CA
# of dives
I just don't log dives
We just returned from a 10 day trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. Our goal was to do a fair amount of shore diving and possibly do the Manta Ray night dive. We rented tanks and weights from one of the dive shops for most of our trip in order to dive when and where we wanted. (No CO in the tanks, and the fills were solid!) Anyhow we stepped onto a commercial dive boat for the night dive hearing that they were seeing Mantas near the airport which is a non shore dive, for what I had heard. Upon boarding we heard them state they haven't been seeing Mantas up North and we are headed South. So it is a two tank dive, and we pull up on a reef and drop in to follow the DM around. Great we are following some just certified divers around as they proceed to kick the coral. Although I love to dive, I have come to realize I don't like diving by DM lead dives, at least when there are a lot of other people in the water. In California you don't have a DM in the water, but we also have our own boat to dive off of.

Dive two is the Manta dive. We pull up right off the Sheraton Hotel, no more than 300 ft from shore. Arrggg, we totally could have shore dove this site. Neither of us has a problem crawling over rocks, and in fact I would have probably just snorkeled it since the water is only 25' deep with 60+ feet of vis. Alright enough about that. The boat drops anchor, which I believe a DM helped set "around" the coral. So the DM has our group gear up and jump off the boat, and wait in the water until we are ready to descend. We descend as a loose group with people all around us. I keep an eye on the DM as he descends, then in less than a minute he quickly heads to the surface and starts banging on his tank. My partner and I head to surface to find out the DM ran out of air and did a CESA because he was too far away to get to someone to share air. He has to head back to the boat, so I ask if I can do anything to help. He says get the other divers on the surface. So I drop, and write a wet note saying the DM wants them at the surface, and give them the thumbs up. They return the thumbs up then still with their lights pointing up stay put. So again I give them the thumbs up and point to my note. Nothing! I go to the next couple of divers in our group, and do the same thing with the same results...nothing! I chat with my dive buddy and saw screw the DM he is out of air, I saw a Manta way off in the distance, so lets go and do "our" dive. Eventually the DM gets back down and due to an ear clearing problem we slowly, as in ten minutes pass by, make it to the bottom and meet up with our group (Ascending and descending causes my partner ear issues.)

Since the only Manta is hanging out with the other boats lights our group doesn't get a chance to see it so our DM takes us on a tour. Great back to following a group of divers around, when I really just want to see a Manta up close. I write a note to the DM saying I say one and finally he heads back to the light box. No more than a minute or two later, the Manta shows up. Since I was excited I knew the first thing I had to do was check my air pressure..ugg..I am at 900 psi. I check my partners air and she is at 1,200psi, but there was enough surge, air sharing with her limited experience level wouldn't be the best thing to do, even with a long hose. So when I hit 700psi we head to the surface, and I surface with 500 psi in my tank, as I was trained to do.

Once at the surface I gave the DM a little crap with the whole ya' know you are supposed to check your pressure gauge. Here is someone with thousands of dives, and they got complacent. This left them in what could have been a bad situation. How hard is it to breathe off both your second stage regs, and take a quick peek at your pressure gauge BEFORE jumping off the boat, or at the least before descending? The buddy checks we are taught in open water apply to everyone even solo divers. The failure happened before he ever stepped off the boat. Does it mean he should have had someone else check his gear over, no, but he should have a routine check list and gone through it item by item, until he was confident his gear was in order to go diving.

Point being all divers need to do gear checks before descending! Also when you are excited underwater it is a good time to stop, and check your own pressure gauge.
 
Maybe because I haven't dove hundreds of times yet - so the strict "training" from my instructor is still a recent memory - I always check everything. I'm glad I'm not alone.

When I was diving in Grand Cayman, the DM said you're cool, I checked everything. My response, I always check everything, every time, to make sure I will always remember HOW to do it.

Thanks for sharing - I'll continue my good habit! Hopefully the DM learned a lesson too.
 
Habit. I check my gauge as soon as I hook everything up, then again as soon as we get ready to drop down, shore dive or boat dive.
 
I have had an insta-buddy refuse to let me do a buddy check with him. He was fine with checking me if I wanted but for some reason it was an insult for me to check him. You are absolutely correct in your statements. We do buddy checks as a ritual so that we never forget the most important and obvious things. With the number of tasks a divemaster has to do on the boat, a buddy check is even more important for him/her.

If you do a proper buddy check, the following will always be true:

Your BCD will inflate.
Your BCD will deflate.
You will have your weights on.
You will be able to release your weights in an emergency.
All of your releases will be properly fastened, and nothing twisted or tangled.
Your air will be on.
You will know how much air is in your tank at the start of the dive.
 
I check when I turn on my air, before I jump in, and before I descend.

Then underwater, I check every 2-3 minutes.

The DM was being lax and stupid by not checking even a few times. I guess he was used to people being much worse than him at air and not having to check but instead wait for someone to run low. No excuse for not even checking it once.
 
I check tank pressure when I analyze the Nitrox, again when I strap the tank on the backplate (breathing off the reg while watching my SPG), and one more time just before I hit the water (breathing off the reg while watching my SPG). Then in the water at five minute intervals.

Every. Single. Dive.
 
I check all my gear at the moment to assemble it. Then again just before entering the water and I take note of the reading in my slate as I have no AI PDC. During the dive I´m ckecking my SPG and my buddy´s SPG, especially near the end of the dive, so as to be sure we both have enough air to complete the dive safely.
 
I always check my gear from head to toe before going in, which include test breathing both the primary and the octo while watching the pressure gauge.
There is one thing I dont check and thats the clip that goes across the chest as I dont really need it (and dont like it).
 
I always check my SPG before descending, not just for pressure but I watch it while I take a final test breath. If the tank valve was partially closed or anything amiss, the needle will move as you breath and you can abort the dive before you dump the air out of your BC.

However, in reading this thread it seems like it more likely pertains to monitoring you SPG while you are diving, specifically when you get excited because you are looking at something really cool. Its easy to get caught up in the moment and forget about it.
 
It took about 700 dives or so before I managed to get in the water without having checked my gauge. Luckily, the tank I was diving was a really big one, because it turned out to be only half full. I had enough gas for the dive; but I could easily have run out before I checked, had the tank been smaller.

I think it will be at least twice that many dives again before I forget to check. Nothing like the burned hand.
 

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