How often do you "Plan your dive, dive your plan"? Preliminary Survey Results

[uncfnp]

I honestly don't remember my responses but 99% of my dives are drift or shore so essential I never plan my dives by computer or software. So I guess divers like me skew the data in that I "plan" my dive but not by any means listed in the question.

 

[Bill Parker]

Since in open water diving you can come up any time you hit your NDLs or run low
on air all you have to do is keep an eye on those two things. You don't need a
plan anymore sophisticated than that so why bother? Sometimes my plans are as
simple as come up when I get cold, thirsty, run low on air, or get bored.

 

[redacted]

Since in open water diving you can come up any time you hit your NDLs or run low
on air all you have to do is keep an eye on those two things. You don't need a
plan anymore sophisticated than that so why bother? Sometimes my plans are as
simple as come up when I get cold, thirsty, run low on air, or get bored.

You may be able to surface, for survival purposes, anywhere and any time; but with many OW dives, it may still be important to surface in a planned location. So you may need enough planning or experience to accomplish that goal. Boat captains and wives may be very unhappy if you do a poor job.

 

[DogDiver]

For what is worth.
For each hour of bottom time, about 3 hours of preparation and planning goes into EVERY dive I do. With that said. All my dives are mixed gas stage decompression cave dives.
Most are 110 feet of depth with run times of 90-110 minutes.
A lot can be learned by recreational divers by observing cave dive preparation. [emoji41]


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[eelnoraa]

I think I belong to the "always" group. But like it is mentioned before, how much planning is implicit and how much planning needs to be discussed before the dive largely depends on the dive and the buddies.

With a group of similar trained divers on fun rec dives, we usually already know what tank(s) each of us are using, we know we all use rock bottom gas planning, all we need to know is the max depth of the site, so that we know our approximate bottom time. Ascent strategy is also agreed upon, and usually need not to discuss. To observers, it feels like we don't have a plan. We have done some dives that we intended to get something done, like finding something or laying lines for something. In those dives, we talked about a lot more planning. With instant buddy, I usually bring up more topics. This sometime annoys the buddy, but I think it is always better to talk about things before the dive than to talk about it afterward.

 

[redacted]

For what is worth.
For each hour of bottom time, about 3 hours of preparation and planning goes into EVERY dive I do. With that said. All my dives are mixed gas stage decompression cave dives.
Most are 110 feet of depth with run times of 90-110 minutes.
A lot can be learned by recreational divers by observing cave dive preparation. [emoji41]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Makes sense. As a recreational diver who rarely goes deeper than 50 ft in Bonaire on EAN32, our dive plan usually consists of site selections and a decision to use AL80s or Al63s. Early in the trip we might re-address turn pressure/time.

 

[Steve_C]

You go down the line. You make sure you are back to the anchor line with 1/3 left. There is a pony so you can use that if you need to share air at the end. End of plan. Decisions like do you run a line and what direction to go, etc. are made when you get down to the anchor and access viz, current. Only planning is making sure that the MOD is ok, but I normally dive 30% which conservatively handles any depth I dive to so that takes no planning either. Easy rec diving. Not dive planning as you see advocated but safe diving well within my experience.

Now if I am diving in unfamiliar territory or with a new instabuddy then there are more discussions about procedures etc.

I think for once RJP may not have the best designed poll but then I did not know what he was looking for

 

[dmaziuk]

I would say yes ... For a more involved dive, you need a more involved plan.

You would say "yes" but if I were answering the questions as stated, I'd say no to planning using software or tables and no to calculating gas requirements. So I'm clearly one of the statistical majority of the "recreational divers [who] don't plan their dives" in 36-pt bold font with shiny histograms to prove it. (I can see checking the "plan" function of your DC near the end of a 7 days+ liveaboard trip when you have enough residual to start checking your ndl against the planned depth and cylinder size. I think would count as "rarely" for many/most recreational divers, so still in the "bad" majority.)

Also, what would be a more involved recreational dive? -- specifically where you'd pre-calculate your gas requirements using planning software.

 

[kr2y5]

It just asks a question, any ambiguity is in the mind of the diver answering and is sorted out individually before answering. There is no right answer, just what people perceive themselves doing. Regardless of what they may know, they don't believe they have a plan. Personally, I don't jump in the water without a good idea how I'm going to get out, I've met others that don't.

I wasn't saying anything that would stand in contradiction to what you just wrote above... simply pointing at one possible explanation of the surprisingly negative result.

 

[uncfnp]

...//...
Also, what would be a more involved recreational dive?

Not addressed to me but I think I will give my take.

This would be an unfamiliar dive to the likely limits of recreational depth or NDL. A recreational dive that I would formally plan would be if I ever actually get to dive the NC coast.