I Started To Lead Dives...

[Erik Il Rosso]

After 200 dives I/we decided that it was high time that I started to lead dives...

I have got a great buddy/mentor and he insists that I must be more "Team Aware" so we decided that from now on I will lead our dives...

Let me say that after leading my fist two dives my respect for DMs is higher that ever, these people deserve our "Bravo !!!" considering that most of the time people following do stupid things and that they are there ready to solve problems and to take you back to the up line so you have a reference for going up...

Apart from this the first three things I noticed are:

1) Leading is not easy
2) You use more gas
3) Task loading is heavy

I must admit that it wasn't too much fun because yuo stop thinking about you and you start thinking about the others...
I discovered that it is difficult to control all the aspects of a dive when you are not carried around like a sheep by your local DM...

I discovered the I was going too fast and I suspect my mind was saying :"Go fast, let's end this task asap"...
I did not enjoy the dive and I suspect that if I do not enjoy the dive the followers wouldn't enjoy it either...
I found difficult to manage the task loading, look at fishes/check depth/check bouyancy/control follower/check air/follow the right profile over and over again for 50 minutes...
I was also worried about trying to find the up line on our trip back, I might be wrong but people who are able to go back to the up line with relative ease are the best DMs I know...

Oh yes, my SAC rate increased by a couple of litres per minute...

I know it takes time to lead a perfect dive and I know that some divers will be able to achive this in a few dives while others will need some time and others will never be to able to do it...

Apart from this, any good tips ???

Last thing, if there's a dive spot where you have been 100 times as a follower try staying in the front leading, the place will look totally different and there's a good chance that you will see absolutely nothing, just try and you'll see by yourself !!!

Ciao Erik Il Rosso

 

[SparticleBrane]

Personally I am a big believer in the idea that diving is not a "leading" or "following" sport where divers just trust a DM to get them somewhere.

 

[Freds@Aquanauts]

Erik I know exactly what you mean, when I started to lead dives i had exactly the same problems as you. Howvere you will find that the more you do it the more you will relax into the task, and you will get to the point where everything is automatic, and you are enjoying the dive again, just at the front this time. You are now the one that is finding most of the cool stuff!

PS I love it when my customers show their appreciation, after having a good dive with me!


Freds

 

[carlodel]

Hi Erik, I totally agree. I'm doing my DM course now and I thought at first - "leading will be fun and easy". Little did I know that the reality is so much different from the promise. Every dive site now seems to look so much different with every group I take. But in hindsight, it actually gives you a new opportunity to "re-experience" the dive site and get to see more new things, which you sometimes take for granted.

 

[gcbryan]

I've noticed that initially people who are new at leading think that all they have to do is swim fast to where ever they want to go and that it's up to the other's to follow.

You soon learn that you are leading only if the others are following

I have noticed that those who seldom lead become better followers once they have had some experience leading as well.

As a leader make sure that your moves are somewhat predictable and if you show other's something hang around long enough for everyone to actually be able to see what you pointed out.

Even in a buddy team or pair someone is usually assigned to lead for that dive.

 

[TSandM]

I agree with you that leading a dive is a very different experience from following -- it IS more task-loaded and you have more to stretch your attention around. But the couple of times I got to do it on our Virgin Islands trip, I actually enjoyed it a great deal. I tried to lead the way I have most enjoyed having someone do it -- move slowly, point out interesting things and make sure everybody gets a chance to see them before moving on. I got lots of compliments on how I did.

Sparticle, I know where you are coming from and I agree with you to a very large extent. But there are times when you are navigating a completely unknown site, when it works pretty well to have someone who knows the site and is experienced at spotting its major attractions to be the "leader". The group being led may consist of teams who still take responsibility for their dive, but get more out of it than they would if they simply tried to explore the site themselves.

 

[ReefHound]

I'm not a DM and have just under 100 dives but I'm usually leading, often in small groups. I think my less experienced buddies look to me to navigate and the more experienced buddies see the chance to ditch the burden for a change.

It took awhile to develop a sense of speed and how often to look back without being a mother hen. You can't make the others follow you, you can only make it easy for them to follow you.

Tips. Go slow, kick real easy, better to go too slow than too fast. You don't want someone with less stamina or strength getting stressed out and struggling to keep up, they will have a miserable dive and are less prepared to handle a problem. Use a frog kick, hard to run away from the group with a frog kick.

Learn to look back without breaking your momentum. If you have to stop and turn around to look back, you'll kill your air consumption and disrupt the group flow. Especially with newer divers who have poor buoyancy/trim and need to stay in motion.

Lean your head down and look back under your legs. If you can see everyone that is the least disruptive way. It works when people stay near your depth or below, and you have a wide horizontal field of vision. But some people like to trail along above you. From a horizontal position it's easier to look down than up, it's much easier for them to keep you in their sight. For this turn to your side as if you are swimming a sidestroke, then you have a wide vertical field of vision.

When you do stop, make it long enough for everyone else to get settled, check their status, secure loose danglies, etc.

Play your air more conservatively. You may be OK at 1000psi but someone else may be at 500psi. It helps to have an idea before the dive of everyone's consumption rate. When you get comfortable with leading you should get better air consumption than when following.

Make sure everyone has tank bangers or such. If leading a large group put your best diver at the rear.

 

[miketsp]

..snip..
Apart from this, any good tips ???
..snip..

One of the things that caught me out a couple times is that some divers have a much worse SAC shallow than deep due to poor buoyancy control at shallow depths.
When coasting I would do an outbound leg at 15-20m until the diver with the worst SAC was at half his usable gas and then do the return leg at 7-10m expecting this to leave a nice safety factor.
We'd start at 200 bar, turn at 125bar, come back shallower and still have divers that wouldn't make it back above 50bar.
Divers that would drift along steadily & calmly while deeper would suddenly be finning constantly to hold depth while shallower or constantly dumping & filling their BCs.

 

[Cacia]

check air about 20% into the dive and make note of who is the lowest. This can flip, but it is often a good guide.

I prefer to look at new divers gauges...they all trained differently and I will have pilots and grandmas all with their own methods. Too much at stake, so i just prefer to look.

My biggest tip is to ask other people with more experience about a given site before leading a group. "hey, Cameron, what is tricky about this site at night?" Then he will say something like "just make sure you know if you are the inside bouy or the outside bouy!"...stuff like that makes 180 degree details.

 

[skinnydogdives]

i've kinda been given the job of leading all the newly certified divers in my LDS some times it's good sometimes its bad
a couple of things i've found always give a detailed dive brief do an air check after about 10 min always get them to let you know when they reach 1/2 tank tell them there will be consequences if they dont. always give them a few basic signals so they dont think you've lost it when your down there make sure they know who their buddy is even when diving in a group it helps to keep them organized get them to enter the water together take it slow and have fun. usuallywhen your in front you get to see all the critters before they get frightened away by the mob