Negative entry vs Using a downline

[MXGratefulDiver]

Two questions:

* My old rear inflate BC had an attachment point for a 1" crotch strap that I took advantage of. The crotch strap I purchased had rings in the front and back. The strap attached to a plastic plate in the back. Is this still considered a BP/W, or are the definitions getting fuzzy? I suppose this rig could have been pulled by a scooter, though maybe the 1" strap would have been less comfortable?

... sounds like a TransPac ...

* I'm curious about managing team hot drops in low visibility. It seems it would be easy to lose sight of your buddy during a hot drop with 15' visibility or less. If you are able to maintain buddy contact during a hot drop in low visibility, what does that look like? What are the mechanics?

You can maintain buddy contact with a bit of technique. Here's how we do it ... buddies go in at the same time ... side-by-side giant strides. Maintain eye contact on the way down ... if necessary maintain some sort of physical contact. Leave the camera(s) on the boat.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[danvolker]

FWIW - we weren't using a line ... we were swimming to the rocks and following the contour down.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

How is this NOT what I am talking about? If we can make better way on the surface, and the dive does not start till we cover 100 yards first, I will be happy to snorkel 100 yards, then switch to scuba, and do a drop......This IS exactly like some dives we have the boat can't get close to.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

How is this NOT what I am talking about? If we can make better way on the surface, and the dive does not start till we cover 100 yards first, I will be happy to snorkel 100 yards, then switch to scuba, and do a drop......This IS exactly like some dives we have the boat can't get close to.

... it ain't a hot drop ... which is what you've been telling everyone is the only way to go. And we don't generally use snorkels around here ... not in my circle of divers anyway. You either breathe off your reg or flip over on your back and kick while looking at the sky ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[danvolker]

... it ain't a hot drop ... which is what you've been telling everyone is the only way to go. And we don't generally use snorkels around here ... not in my circle of divers anyway. You either breathe off your reg or flip over on your back and kick while looking at the sky ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob....Man you love to do the aggressive arguing.... I said in the horrible first post I made in this theme...and to paraphrase so as not to p*ss off people all over again, that I hate pulling my way down a line, and prefer to swim down negative. I was not actually even talking about "Dive Bombing" or full speed to the bottom...just dropping.

If the current is not ripping, I can just fall down --vertical body position of course ( NOT horizontal), and work on slowing my heart rate and respiration to absolute lowest resting rate in this early portion of the dive.....no swimming until the bottom.
In your scenario....well Bob, I am a freediver also, so I do know how to use a snorkel, and where a large surface swim is in the plan, I WILL be happy to discuss the pros and cons of covering 100 yards to a mile by snorkeling--or, by swimming on your back.....I like the snorkel way better....obviously any technique that gets you to the rocks is going to work--especially if you don't waste air on the way.

Even with my long hose, a snorkel is a tiny nuisance easily dealt with if I need to donate the long hose. On a dive like you are suggesting, the chances of needing to donate would be like one in a thousand with any group of friends I would be with....but like I said, the snorkel is not going to change the donation more than about .08 of one second. A compromise I can live with

Also, with the snorkel, you get to enjoy all the sights below you the entire dive, and not miss the life you might have seen while back stroking. Navigation if you had to go a mile or more, is alot easier with a snorkel. Even a 4 mile swim is not so tough to navigate and enjoy with a snorkel ( I have stories on this, of course

 

[undrwater]

... sounds like a TransPac ...



You can maintain buddy contact with a bit of technique. Here's how we do it ... buddies go in at the same time ... side-by-side giant strides. Maintain eye contact on the way down ... if necessary maintain some sort of physical contact. Leave the camera(s) on the boat.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Thanks...makes some kind of sense. If for some reason the buddy contact is lost (seems a decent probability), is the dive aborted, and you await pickup?

My BC was a Dacor Falcon.

 

[aprxh]

TC I am sorry that you have had bad experiences with DIR divers. I would like to share with you my experiences with DIR or GUE divers. I am not a DIR/GUE diver; I was certified in NJ in 1973 by NASDS and then got re-certified in the 1990’s with PADI. I am just your average rec diver.
In the early 90’s DIR was discussed in CompuServe in the tech part of the forums. Their presentation was horrible. It really turned me off to the whole topic. It was only in the Tech area and being I was only doing rec dives I paid no attention to it.
20 years later we moved to FL and while my son was in college he wanted learn to SCUBA dive. He got certified by PADI and we would go diving and all was well in the world. After a while he told me he was researching DIR. The warning bells went off and I remember all the rants from the 90’s. Being I never met any DIR divers I decided not to go by what people said in the past and decide to find out more information 1^st hand. They were having a GUE demo day at the Blue Heron Bridge and I decided to go. Everyone there was nice and helpful. I met Dan Volker and his wife as well as a lot of other divers there. Now I sometimes dive with Dan and his wife and Bill Mee and I have never seen them talk down to other divers on the boat or spout about how great they are. I have been on the boat with them even when I was not diving with them but I was with my dive club. The 2 DIR divers I met have always been friendly to everyone and did not try and convert them or say anything about their gear.

About once a month some of my buddies (non-GUE) and I dive with a group of GUE divers. I have never seen any arrogant or boasting by any of the divers. They are always friendly and helpful.
GUE does not use the term DIR.
Forget about the equipment the best thing about getting a GUE buddy is you know that they stay by you. It is not like a SAME OCEAN SAME DAY buddies you get as an insta-buddy.

 

[Darnold9999]

Fun thread.

Two stories. Finding yourself on the surface, in current that is changing from strong to ripping, in a narrow channel (Dodds Narrows) in front of a log boom being pulled directly toward you is a VERY scary. They CAN NOT STOP or steer at all. Not like a large yacht at all, more like a freighter, but no freighter would be anywhere near the places these log booms go. Only time I have used my reserve and drained a tank dry and wished I had a much larger pony. I gather the conversation on the radio between the dive boat and the tug was "colourful". The plan was to drift out of the channel but the current turned just before we hit the end of the channel (about 15 feet from the end) and we were all blown back into the channel and all over the place. 6 of us were together at the turn near the end of the dive and the three buddy pairs ended up separated by more than half a mile when we were picked up.

Second was a trip to a local wreck last summer. Tied up to the bouy and jumped in. Almost no current so decided that as I was directly above the wreck that I wouldn't bother swimming to the front of the boat and going down the line but would just drop directly to the deck. Vis was about 10 - 15 feet. the deck is at about 60 feet. Never did find it. From where I surfaced it looked like I did a giant U around the wreck in the mud. Did get a few shots of nudi's but that was it.


Doing a hot drop around here in summer is almost a guarantee that you will not find what you are looking for. And secondarily in many locations there is absolutely no way you can predict where a diver will end up if you do a hot drop. The currents are so unpredictable that a second or two difference in entry can place you hundreds of yards away from a diver dropped at exactly the same location.

We did one dive off Quadra Island with a group of 10 divers. We all jumped in at exactly the same location and were together for the first 2 minutes. Then currents took all 5 pairs in completely different directions. The pair I was in ended up surfacing because we ended up on a mud plain with nothing to see. We dropped again at the original site and ended up having a great dive. Other pairs were more than half a mile away. Why dive at that particular site??? Because the high currents generate some spectacular scenery.

PS both current dives were at slack - diving these sites at any other time is not recommended

 

[danvolker]

TC I am sorry that you have had bad experiences with DIR divers. I would like to share with you my experiences with DIR or GUE divers. I am not a DIR/GUE diver; I was certified in NJ in 1973 by NASDS and then got re-certified in the 1990’s with PADI. I am just your average rec diver.
In the early 90’s DIR was discussed in CompuServe in the tech part of the forums. Their presentation was horrible. It really turned me off to the whole topic. It was only in the Tech area and being I was only doing rec dives I paid no attention to it.
20 years later we moved to FL and while my son was in college he wanted learn to SCUBA dive. He got certified by PADI and we would go diving and all was well in the world. After a while he told me he was researching DIR. The warning bells went off and I remember all the rants from the 90’s. Being I never met any DIR divers I decided not to go by what people said in the past and decide to find out more information 1^st hand. They were having a GUE demo day at the Blue Heron Bridge and I decided to go. Everyone there was nice and helpful. I met Dan Volker and his wife as well as a lot of other divers there. Now I sometimes dive with Dan and his wife and Bill Mee and I have never seen them talk down to other divers on the boat or spout about how great they are. I have been on the boat with them even when I was not diving with them but I was with my dive club. The 2 DIR divers I met have always been friendly to everyone and did not try and convert them or say anything about their gear.

About once a month some of my buddies (non-GUE) and I dive with a group of GUE divers. I have never seen any arrogant or boasting by any of the divers. They are always friendly and helpful.
GUE does not use the term DIR.
Forget about the equipment the best thing about getting a GUE buddy is you know that they stay by you. It is not like a SAME OCEAN SAME DAY buddies you get as an insta-buddy.

Rich, thanks for popping in here with this
And Rich is a great example for this discussion....Rich actually dives very much like a DIR diver, even though he did not ever try to become DIR....he just likes to swim flat horizontal, to have less effort in getting around, he does not like to see other divers swimming head up and feet down, kicking the bottom....and he did not have to hear this from DIR's....He has great peripheral awareness, and I would trust him to be a buddy with my wife Sandra on any dive they both wanted to do...even though technically he is not a "DIR", he has made many great choices in how to dive--like many other good recreational divers with lots of experience....and he enjoyed sort of a co-evolution from which he ends up acting so much like a DIR Diver, that Bill and I or our GUE friends, would ask him to be a member of a team type dive we were doing any time....He is not into tech and doubles as far as I know, so we are talking 130 like the Hole in the Wall, and everything shallower in Palm Beach.....Most of the diving that any of us will do.

Sort of like a Bruce Lee thing...the "Art of being DIR, without being DIR"

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Even with my long hose, a snorkel is a tiny nuisance easily dealt with if I need to donate the long hose. On a dive like you are suggesting, the chances of needing to donate would be like one in a thousand with any group of friends I would be with....but like I said, the snorkel is not going to change the donation more than about .08 of one second. A compromise I can live with

Also, with the snorkel, you get to enjoy all the sights below you the entire dive, and not miss the life you might have seen while back stroking. Navigation if you had to go a mile or more, is alot easier with a snorkel. Even a 4 mile swim is not so tough to navigate and enjoy with a snorkel ( I have stories on this, of course

Again, local environmental conditions come into play. Plankton is a dominant force around here, and we're currently into our first major bloom of the year. Using a snorkel right now would guarantee you'd see about three or four feet of brown water beneath you as you snorkeled along. That's why most local divers just ditch them after OW class is over ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added April 11th, 2014 at 11:44 AM ----------

Thanks...makes some kind of sense. If for some reason the buddy contact is lost (seems a decent probability), is the dive aborted, and you await pickup?

That depends on what the two of you decided when you went over your dive plan. For most folks, buddy separation means the dive is over, and you surface. Sometimes you'll regroup on the surface and try again. Other times the boat will pick you up, particularly if the drop is time or distance critical.

For some ... and hopefully you've discussed this prior to entering the water together ... it means you continue the dive. If you're properly prepared, equipped and experienced, go solo and enjoy the dive.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[nimoh]

on many of my dives, I see a lot more wildlife swimming on my back than face down snorkeling.

Also, I can be sure that my teammates are able to hear me complain about how much I hate surface swimming