Have you ever deployed a delayed surface marker buoy or been taught how to?

[The Chairman]

FIY, Navy divers are NOT combatants

That's why they go through that training, eh?

Back in 1972ish, I dropped off a car we had worked on to the illustrious Hal Watts at the pool where he was teaching Scuba. I saw a dozen or so young men in the Florida August heat, doing push-ups in full gear. Fins, masks, tanks, weights, wetsuits: the whole enchilada. I have no idea what they had done wrong, but it didn't look very fun to me. I had already been taught Scuba by a Navy Master Cheif and saw no need to pursue a "certification" for over a decade because of this. He always denies this and then he smiles with a "Well, that might have happened back then."

 

[rhwestfall]

I have felt I needed combat training when diving locally during sunfish and bluegill nesting season....

 

[uncfnp]

When I first started doing ocean tech dives, lift bags were used pretty much 100% of the time to mark ascents. Only a few years later, the man who had been my trimix instructor back then told me that boat captains were telling him that people were starting to switch to DSMBs, and they could see them better. Those were the standard sizes most recreational divers use today. When I am doing an ocean tech dive today, I see nothing but DSMBs, and they are big hummers. I have one myself now.

One of the first times I saw one of those really big DSMBs, I saw something unusual about it, and during the 10 foot stop I drifted over by it to get a better look. The owner had written a message on it telling boats to stay away. A boat would have had to be within 10 feet to be able to read the message, and it was completely under water at the bottom of the bag.

The one time I witnessed the captain of my favorite south Florida dive boat “lose” a diver and call for assistance it was an unfamiliar diver from Poland in doubles treasure hunting. He had a lift bag. After the first day of diving the captain actually told him it was not a good choice. The second day, with the same bag, we lost him for about 20 minutes.

 

[Akimbo]

That's why they go through that training, eh?

It wasn't clear to me at the time but harassment training for Navy divers is all about panic resistance, self-confidence, and watermanship. Instructors don't want to wash diver candidates out for macho reasons. They need to identify sailors who will be a danger to themselves and shipmates when everything goes wobbly. An enemy isn't the one trying to kill us, the ocean and what we are working on is. We all know that panic kills more divers than gas management errors. We just get more opportunity to get into dicey conditions than our recreational counterparts.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I think the location where one gets certified determines how/if DSMB deployment are taught in OW/AOW. I feel fairly strongly that in the Salish Sea (Seattle-Vancouver), DSMB deployment should be mandatory in my opinion, due to the currents often met while boat diving in the area. I don't think teaching SMB inflation at the surface makes any sense as by that time, the yahoo already ran you over with his boat.

I wish that training agencies would have a little blank spot on their cards like DDI for adding notes that would be relevant. For OW, a mention of DSMB deployment would be nice. I'd hazard a guess that the majority of divers, who primarily follow a guide around, never deploy a DSMB. Should we necessarily force them? I can see arguments both ways.

Personally, I feel I've done a disservice to past students who I only taught SMB inflation at the surface. I think that lately, I finally figured out how to have a streamlined OW class with PADI. I'm switching over to SSI (already crossed over to SDI), so I hope that I can apply those lessons and continue to improve my courses. One thing about DSMB's, it does require more pool time (as the pool is where they learn to dive anyway). This is one reason why I like to co-teach at the shop, so students get more individual attention and more practice time.

The thing I like about teaching DSMB is that it requires that a diver manages another air space. Since we all know it is possible to teach a course midwater and have students with good buoyancy and trim at the end of OW4, I think that teaching students to use DSMB's in an OW course is realistic. It just takes a bit more effort.

 

[boulderjohn]

A number of years ago, we had a ScubaBoard regular who absolutely insisted that it was a crime that OW training did not focus on diving with tides. He himself did a lot of diving in the Bay of Fundy, so he knew how important that was. As for me, I had more than 800 logged dives before I did my first dive where I had to give any thought whatsoever to tides. At the same time, I was teaching OW classes at altitude, so I made sure my students knew about issues related to diving at altitude, to which I am sure the Bay of Fundy diver never gave a second thought.

The general coursework for OW instruction deals with general issues. If you are diving in areas that bring something else into play--like tides or altitude--you have no choice but to talk about those issues. If, on the other hand, you try to train every OW diver for every condition they might ever face if they ever travel to a site that requires it, the course will take forever, they will forget that information by the time they need it, and the time spent learning it will interfere with their ability to learn the core information.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

If, on the other hand, you try to train every OW diver for every condition they might ever face if they ever travel to a site that requires it, the course will take forever, they will forget that information by the time they need it, and the time spent learning it will interfere with their ability to learn the core information.

I am not sure if I was clear. While I don’t think SMB inflation at the surface is worth doing (congrats! You can blow up a balloon!), teaching DSMB most of the time does not make sense.

Checkout dives seem to be the place where dive ops try to ensure that customers can handle more challenging dives. No reason why they cannot ask their customers to deploy from 10 meters or so at the end.

@NWGratefulDiver, what did you do in your ow courses with DSMBs?

 

[boulderjohn]

I think there is a value to teaching people to blow up a DSMB at the surface, even though the skill required is admittedly pretty darn low. If you did not teach that in the OW class, they would not know about it. By teaching it, you get it in their head that there is a benefit to owning an SMB and carrying it with them as a safety measure in case they are separated at the surface. If that is all that is accomplished, I am perfectly fine with it.

 

[JBFG]

1st thing I did after getting certified was to buy a DSMB and YouTube /SB it. I learned it that way. I deploy it maybe every 10 dives to maintain skills

 

[The Chairman]

While I don’t think SMB inflation at the surface is worth doing (congrats!

You would be surprised. Best to let them do it with you present for the first time than to get all flustered from worrying about it when they need to get it out. When the boat is looking for you is not the time to have erectile dysfunction.

teaching DSMB most of the time does not make sense.

I disagree. I was on a dive charter out of Panama City. When we went to get on the anchor line to go up, it wasn't there. We looked and looked, and were just getting into deco as we started our ascent. I shot the sausage deep and we did our short decos and were greeted by the boat on surfacing. Yay. There were a few terse statements by the crew, but we were down a long time. As we were motoring away, one of the other divers came up to me and explained that this was their second departure from the site. They were moving away when my sausage hit the surface and while the staff hadn't noticed, he had. They turned back and waited for us to surface. If you dive off a boat in mild to horrid conditions, take a spool and sausage.