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

[Scuba J7]

All my SMB's (sold as SMB's) all have OPV's. Every one I've seen advertised state that they have an OPV as a selling point. Don't know where you got this.

I have one with no OPV, came from Innovative or XS Sold as SMB, all of my markers with OPVs were sold as DSMBs

 

[Akimbo]

I did a search at Amazon for: smb scuba

I didn't look at all of them but the descriptions on the first page say SMB and you can see OPVs on the image. SMB is proving to be a pretty poor acronym for Surface Marker Buoy since a lot of divers call it a Submersible Marker Buoy.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I bet many, if not most people who dive these quarries hope to make it to Florida or El Caribe to do some diving. If there's a good chance they're going to need this skill sometime, why not give it to them?

That’s possible, but they may also just wind up following guides everywhere as well. Hence my mentioning of the blank spot on the c card for such skills. I’m someone with a tendency to overteach. I’ll always want to teach this in OW. I probably can’t work in a mill, as I’d be fired for taking too long. Even when I have my own dive op in Greece where by law divers must be guided (unless they get special permits which require tremendous motivation to get through the Greek bureaucracy), I’ll still be teaching this. But I doubt my competitors will/do.

 

[Neilwood]

One thing that teaching DSMB deployment would not deal with is the fact that it is a practical skill that will degrade without reasonable practice. It would teach the basics but unless the skill is practised on some form of regular basis the skills will degrade to the point of being useless.

I know that if I haven't deployed one for a while but need to for the likes of a LOB it will take me a couple of shots to get comfortable with it again.

 

[The Chairman]

That’s possible, but they may also just wind up following guides everywhere as well.

Until they lose the guide or the guide loses them. Too many divers plan for the whole dive to be perfect and aren't prepared for when it goes South. I try to be the voice of reason and get them to think ahead for when things do. While it's not an agency requirement, shooting a DSMB for AOW is a requirement for me.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Until they lose the guide or the guide loses them. Too many divers plan for the whole dive to be perfect and aren't prepared for when it goes South. I try to be the voice of reason and get them to think ahead for when things do. While it's not an agency requirement, shooting a DSMB for AOW is a requirement for me.

It’s a requirement for me in OW. But i see so much pushback were the agencies to also make it mandatory. I’d like students to get off their knees in ow first

 

[The Chairman]

I’d like students to get off their knees in ow first

That's slowly coming. I was called a liar here on SB when I posted that my students weren't ever allowed to kneel (2004 0r 2005???). Now we see some people trying to shame others into teaching that way and act like they invented the process.

I don't believe in standards much. Bad and lazy instructors will find a way around them. Standards should be about how to conduct a safe class and then let me do my thing. I wouldn't want to force shooting a sausage on another instructor because I know how much I resent having a snorkel forced on me.

 

[hroark2112]

First time I ever launched an SMB was during my confined water CCR course. I messed it up so badly, I was using a HOG reel and didn't release the thumbscrew. Up to the surface I went rather quickly, dragged by the forces of physics. I was so embarrassed. I only messed it up one more time, same instructor, same location, during my CCR normoxic trimix course. Apparently sending up a sausage from 15' is just not my talent. Luckily the next day I did not mess it up from 150'.

Definitely a valuable skill, even more so when you progress into tech.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I don't believe in standards much. Bad and lazy instructors will find a way around them. Standards should be about how to conduct a safe class and then let me do my thing. I wouldn't want to force shooting a sausage on another instructor because I know how much I resent having a snorkel forced on me.

Well, one of the things I like about SDI is that they support instructors going above and beyond the standards. While there are indirect ways of adding skills/training to PADI courses, it really should be direct. For months, I couldn't get an answer from PADI on what I could do for a student whom I certified as AOW and deep, so dive #1 already done with me, no sense in repeated it, therefore what, if anything can I do for their dive #4 prime? The training consultant blew me off for over 6 months (I left a couple messages via email and voicemail). So I cornered a guy at DEMA, and he still wouldn't give me a straight answer that I cannot do anything. I can only do what is in the curriculum, and the only leeway is how strictly I defined "fluid" and "comfortable".

 

[The Chairman]

Well, one of the things I like about SDI is that they support instructors going above and beyond the standards.

Most of the agencies do. I know that NASE and NAUI also encourage this and are equally proud of the fact. I'm an instructor for both SDI and NASE, but I'll only do OW through NASE because of the CESA requirement.It's not that hard.