Don and Doff Gear underwater

[AfterDark]

Stop trying to figure out how to slip passed the skill test and learn to do it right... Any diver worth his weight , Should be able to ditch and don his gear and also put on any gear at any time and perform... The ditch and don was taught in basic scuba as was buddy breathing... Than we wonder why divers are getting their ZERO TO HERO cards...

And at a added point... Making two divers work as a team and communicate well buddy breathing and given the task of total gear swap... Is a VERY GOOD training tool.... The diver learns to work and buddy breath and deal with another diver all at the same time... A VERY GOOD SKILL TO HAVE... It's like the kid washing and waxing cars in Karate Kid.... It's not always obvious.....

Jim....

Word.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

my brother used to have a higher breathing rate than me. We used to switch scuba units while doing 90 ft open water dives.. to extend our dive time. To be honest, we probably wasted as much air/time doing it that we saved, but it does make for more confident divers..

---------- Post added April 1st, 2015 at 05:47 PM ----------

The posts above have good info. Key thing is GO SLOW and plan it out ahead of time. If you have never done buddy breathing, then practice that until you are really comfortable with it. I had the good fortune to learn that skill when I started diving.

Question: why are you wearing a thick wetsuit for this skill? If you are doing it in a pool, use the least buoyant and least restrictive garment you can (eg swimsuit).

Remember: There is NO time limit.

yeah seriously, what does this DM do if he gets tangled up and has to remove his scuba unit to untangle himself? Go back to the boat to get some extra weights? LOL It is amazing to me how unskilled "professional" divers can be. Why in the WORLD world you voluntary dive with a rig that you could not remove and replace underwater?

 

[SubAquatix]

Assembling and disassembling weapons blindfolded has a real world training value...or kinesthetic memory.

Naui does have a variant of that skill still in the S&P, however I don't believe it is attached as a requirement for any course. It's one of those. Skills that is still there because some dinosaur won't let it go. Like I said, there is no real world training value or application. When am I ever going to exchange gear with someone underwater and then buddy breath? Never...under any circumstance...ever. It's a bull**** "skill" and should be thrown out with last weeks garbage. If you want to task load someone or re-enforce comfort with your gear, find a way to do it that could actually happen on a real dive...

Hey Tom,

Another point of view on what I agree is a BS skill. Back in 1982, when I learned the skill through NAUI as part of OWSD, we did it black mask as well and were told that this was the pass or fail test that determined we could go on the open water section.

Years later, I asked my instructor, Ed Teidemann up in NY, what the value of the skill was, as I never saw myself removing all my gear and leaving it on the bottom, only to come back later. He explained it quite simply. It really isn't a skill at all. While they instruct you on the easiest way to do it, the real "test" is a matter of determining your comfort level while you try. There is an awful lot of stress in doffing and donning, and it is a real wake up call as to your understanding of your gear and how it functions in the water versus out of the water.

To this day, I use it as an optional, prove it to your self skill, and have yet had anyone come up to me and say "Gee, that was 20 minutes I'll never get back". It's also a great skill for the loud mouth, already diving, buddy. Very few things calm down that person better than looking like a cluster in front of the new diver buddy.

 

[beanojones]

Like I said, there is no real world training value or application. When am I ever going to exchange gear with someone underwater and then buddy breath? Never...under any circumstance...ever. It's a bull**** "skill" and should be thrown out with last weeks garbage. If you want to task load someone or re-enforce comfort with your gear, find a way to do it that could actually happen on a real dive...

yeah seriously, what does this DM do if he gets tangled up and has to remove his scuba unit to untangle himself? Go back to the boat to get some extra weights? LOL It is amazing to me how unskilled "professional" divers can be. Why in the WORLD world you voluntary dive with a rig that you could not remove and replace underwater?

Is it wrong that I completely agree with both positions here?

to tomfcrist: Yes gear exchange is something we unthinkingly require DMs to do. It's a dinosaur skill that probably no one would miss if it were removed yesterday.

to dumpsterDiver: OTOH, if a diver cannot comfortably remove and replace everything underwater then they cannot get OW certified. The additional aspect of swapping gear and buddy breathing is not really much to add to things.


Personally, I think the main problem in fact is that the DMs are told beforehand they are going to do it. This thread actually violates the standard as written, and the point of the exercise in spirit because there is way more than five minutes planning being allowed

I throw this at DM in the very first CW session we have, with no more than five minutes lead time (after I have the buddy pair swim around the pool buddy breathing), because I want to see how they handle themselves (or don't) before I start on them pretending to handle other people's fake problems. If they cannot handle their own ****, then I certainly don't want the clusterfsck of them making a fake problem into a real problem through incompetence.

This brings to mind the situation from the "snorkel and long hose" thread where a DM knocked her own mask off by the snorkel when deploying her looped long hose, and ran into problems. "Skill demos rarely develop actual skills" would be one of the lessons learned from that I think. But to the point of this thread, it's clear that that DM cheated her way through the gear exchange, or got to do too much planning beforehand. Because "running into a problem if the mask comes off, or stays off for an extended time, or something else happens when the mask is off" is one of the main problems that the gear exchange shines at finding.

 

[decompression]

We better hurry up and give our opinions as this skill only has 5 minutes to prepare.......nice to be able to post on SB while prepping for the surprise skill.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tomfcrist]

Is it wrong that I completely agree with both positions here?

to tomfcrist: Yes gear exchange is something we unthinkingly require DMs to do. It's a dinosaur skill that probably no one would miss if it were removed yesterday.

to dumpsterDiver: OTOH, if a diver cannot comfortably remove and replace everything underwater then they cannot get OW certified. The additional aspect of swapping gear and buddy breathing is not really much to add to things.

No its not wrong. Mostly because there are two different things being thrown around this thread as if they were synonymous....They are not.

The BS skill is the Gear Exchange...where you are literally swapping gear with your buddy underwater.

The other skill that is being thrown around is the Doff and Don of your own gear underwater, which in my opinion IS a valid skillset to have as a diver of any level.

 

[gypsyjim]

One benefit with such an "exchange" of gear is getting the diver to really look at another diver's gear, and begin thinking how that exchange might be done, and what effects it might have on their own, and their buddy's buoyancy and safety.

---------- Post added April 2nd, 2015 at 11:26 AM ----------

Just a thought.

 

[Crowley]

Lots of ways to do this and I am going to give no advice on how to do it because that sort of defeats the object of the exercise - also I must stress that the equipment exchange is NOT a - er - stress test! It's planning and problem solving exercise - an in my opinion, it should be down to the DMTs to figure it out themselves in the time allotted prior to the exercise.

Also - it's not a secret - all DMTs must have an instructor manual and the exercise is right there for them to read...

I insisted that my DMTs must either start or finish wearing exactly what they would wear whilst diving, without taking extra weight, but also I didn't do random things like randomly ripping off their masks or turning off their air supply. Humorous as that might be for some people, it's not part of the PADI exercise, potentially dangerous, and apart from anything is a major violation of standards.

I absolutely forbade practice sessions because again - it somewhat defeats the object of the exercise - there's a whole raft of things that can go wrong underwater, and you simply cannot practice all of them in advance; that's the point of the equipment exchange - to deal with a situation logically and calmly. When it all went wrong, as it often did, that was an object lesson in and of itself, and a clear demonstration of how a minor miscalculation can allow things to spin rapidly out of control.

Think about it - you have the standards in your instructor manual, after all - but I firmly believe that the best way to approach the exercise is for DMTs to do it on spec, and not spend hours practising.

Enjoy it though - it's great fun!

C.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Here is the best tip anyone will ever give you about the gear exchange underwater exercise. You should start in you buddy's gear and he should start in yours. Then exchange masks right away. ( I wear a Rx mask so this was real important to me. ) Staring in your buddy's gear, do a weight check and get properly weighted. Tell him what weight you are including, and he should od the same. If some weight need to be transferred from on scuba unit to the other, have that weight be free in a pocket for easy transfer. Together the two of you will always be neutral, so remember to hold onto each other. Second tip: both of you remove your scuba unit and hold it and then exchange. Put on on at a time while the other partner maintains close contact and hold to maintain neutral buoyancy. After each has their scuba unit on, transfer weight as appropriate. This exercise is not hard if you plan it our in advance. It has been 16 years since I did this exercise for my DM. The guy I did it with and I can still beat anyone in our dive center, and have, whenever there has been a "dare" or challenge, especially if beer is on the line.
DivemasterDennis

 

[oldschoolto]

Here is the best tip anyone will ever give you about the gear exchange underwater exercise. You should start in you buddy's gear and he should start in yours. Then exchange masks right away. ( I wear a Rx mask so this was real important to me. ) Staring in your buddy's gear, do a weight check and get properly weighted. Tell him what weight you are including, and he should od the same. If some weight need to be transferred from on scuba unit to the other, have that weight be free in a pocket for easy transfer. Together the two of you will always be neutral, so remember to hold onto each other. Second tip: both of you remove your scuba unit and hold it and then exchange. Put on on at a time while the other partner maintains close contact and hold to maintain neutral buoyancy. After each has their scuba unit on, transfer weight as appropriate. This exercise is not hard if you plan it our in advance. It has been 16 years since I did this exercise for my DM. The guy I did it with and I can still beat anyone in our dive center, and have, whenever there has been a "dare" or challenge, especially if beer is on the line.
DivemasterDennis

The point of this is to learn to work on the fly... NOT, I repeat NOT, To figure out before hand how to slip pass the test standard... All you are doing is cheating yourself of a learning experience and in fact being less than a diver that truly learned the lesson... I can see the reason we end up with low skilled divers and instructors... Getting the card is not supposed to be easy... I got a great idea.... You just send in a check from the comfort of your living room and a note asking for a divemaster card... :chuckle:

Jim....