Don't move the upline!

[do it easy]

What ever happened to the good old days when people would toss in a few helpful hints and then write "Thanks for sharing and glad you survived"?

:banana: :catherine:

​

 

[Ana]

Anyone on the boat?

No, most of the times, it is just the 2 of us.
Once in a while we find someone to be the 3rd person and we rotate 2 down 1 up but that isn't often.
For livebottom-exploration dives we keep a live boat and do 1 down 1 up, but once we have the location set, we tend to use the anchor.

 

[nereas]

...
(BTW, having had trouble finding the up line a couple of times now, I think I'm going to take a strobe with me and attach it from now on. Even if others don't like it, I think it would be a benefit and since I have a strobe, why not? And a question for those of you who put a strobe on the upline -- do you leave it for the last person or, if you are the one who has put it on the line, do you take it with you when you ascend?)

As RJP stated, it is the last team or person up has the responsibility to detach everything and bring everything back, normally. Otherwise a fresh D/M goes down for it.

So, TS&M is your wife? Wow! You are a lucky guy!

 

[Cacia]

I believe it is more common and more appropriate to drop the hook ON the wreck.

Yikes, what do you do if other divers there? From a practical point of view, I'd consider setting a bouy if I went there often. I hate lifting heavy objects under water, even with lift bags and especially anchors that have a boat in surge, super dangerous. ALL types of anchors and hooks are dangerous to drop from the surface as well, practically speaking I think it is important to realize this is a bigger threat than many of the other scuba worries we talk about very often. Nothing worries me more than people handling these things without experience. Simple things like trailing the line, many people have no experience with and it is a disaster waiting to happen. Either you learn it and do it often or leave it to the crew, IMV.

No, most of the times, it is just the 2 of us.

We do that sometimes too, and it takes evaluating the mooring, anchor, whatever to a whole new level. I examine the line every foot down. If it is compromised, I stay right under the boat. I'll do it IF no current and no switch due, and pristine surface conditions.

(even though Walter's experienced voice is ringing in my ears and ruins my entire dive!)

 

[nereas]

Yikes, what do you do if other divers there? From a practical point of view, I'd consider setting a bouy if I went there often. I hate lifting heavy objects under water, even with lift bags and especially anchors that have a boat in surge, super dangerous.

Yes, it is nice when you have mooring buoys.

But with this statement you have negated the issue of those wrecks without mooring buoys.

To answer your other question, if someone is already diving on the wreck, then it makes sense simply to go to another wreck. You definitely do not drop anchors nor hooks around other submerged divers, agreed. That what scuba flags are all about.

You are really lucky if all your local wrecks are moored.

 

[do it easy]

Yes, it is nice when you have mooring buoys.

But with this statement you have negated the issue of those wrecks without mooring buoys.

And to answer your other question, if someone is already diving on the wreck, then you go to another wreck. You definitely do not drop anchors nor hooks around other submerged divers. That what scuba flags are all about.

If you ask them nicely, they might let you tie up to their boat too.

maybe something like this:
Northwest Explorer Northwest Explorer, this is The Little Dinghy, The Little Dinghy. Requesting permission to tie up to your stern. Pretty Please Pretty Please Over

 

[nereas]

No reason to untie until everyone is back on the boat. First group down loops the grapnel as others have said above. Then tie the line to the wreck with a loop of sisal. Then attach a lift bag to the grapnel, and partially inflate.

When all divers are back on board - confirmed with a roll call - grab the line, tie it to a cleat, and give the engines a little throttle. Sisal snaps, and a few seconds later the anchor is at the surface.

We do this frequently in NJ with a 50' dive boat attached!

The times we don't do it that way, a mate goes down to untie after everyone is back on board.

All that said, I always bring my strobe with me and clip it off on the chain above the tie in. It has a mini-slate on it that says "I'M STILL DOWN HERE - RJP."

In a perfect world maybe. But in reality I have never seen anyone actually do this.

Maybe my friends are just lazy?

 

[nereas]

I always like your posts and I don’t want to sound too critical but, DAMN. You profess to be DIR and use all the team stuff and then you guys completely fail to plan a very significant portion of the dive plan which was entirely foreseeable. You could have conceivably really endangered the other divers. You seem to fail to acknowledge this failure to make appropriate pre-dive plans because you make reference to writing “wet notes” underwater at the end of the dive and seem to imply that you could have stopped Peter from moving the hook. This should all have been worked out well before anyone hit the water.

Of course before I go too far on a rant, my buddies did the same thing to me when diving on a 200 ft deep wreck, 100 miles from shore. We were all pretty much solo spearfishing, and when I came back to where the hook should be, I couldn’t find it and was pretty confused since the vis was 70 feet, but the narcosis on air was also a factor. I had accrued some deco and the only person on the boat was sleeping when we descended, so I was not too happy about a drifting deco and ascent… Anyway, as I stood on the wreck scratching my head and delaying my ascent I somehow heard a tiny little scream. I looked out (down current) and could just make out my “two buddies” drifting off the wreck with the grappling hook just at the limit of visibility. They had pulled it because they assumed I had already ascended. If I had showed up 10 seconds later, I never would have seen them. All three of us made an uneventful ascent, but we also held a long overdue discussion about how we are going to handle pulling the hook later on. We also should have known better.

What good is all the DIR stuff, if you fail to make extremely basic dive plans? For a very shallow dive like 70 feet, my first option would be to have a divemaster or crew descend down the line and pull the hook after everyone else has safely been on the boat. If you are on a private boat with no designated crew, then somebody should have been designated to go down (and oh my God, solo even) and pull the stupid thing. Doing a bounce to 70 feet is not that big of a deal if you plan to do a slow ascent and deco out properly. Of course you could designate teams, allocate responsibilities, contingency plans and supplement this with the placement of colored lights and other ornaments on the anchor rode to designate the status of various groups or individuals, but I’m not sure what colors would be DIR.

This is cruel, DD, and uncalled for. What ax are you grinding? Anti-DIR? Go into the DIR forum and pick on guys there who are as big as you are, or bigger.

Solo & narcosis on air at 200 ft. Are you kidding me?? Of course you are not going to find the upline. Odds are you won't even remember your own name, nor where you even are.

Odds are also that whoever pulled the hook before you forgot anyone else was even in the water.

 

[Cacia]

Oh, we share wrecks here.

I understood Dumpster to be saying that if you value planning, set your own priorities and don't overlook the obvious by being concerned with smaller procedures and checklists.

There is a danger in too many checklists, from some perspectives. The times I have overlooked the big things, were usually times when I was doing something so habitual, I failed to take the big picture "fresh look" of our dive and do an initail risk assessment.

DD just comes at you straight, I seriously doubt she is offended, he just forgot his smiley face.

Charlie99 made this point the other day in the dive planning thread.--he said AT LEAST PLAN HOW TO GET BACK, meaning this is number one. This scenario is a great reminder to step back initially (and periodically) and think before you busy yourself with all the "tasks" of diving. It seems the more technical the dives get, the bigger this risk becomes.

 

[nereas]

If you ask them nicely, they might let you tie up to their boat too...

I have seen that done in Fiji, and then underwater you end up with a total zoo.