Nightly F Report

[TSandM]

I think you misread Adobo's posts. I know this person just took Essentials from 5thD-X and thought a lot of the course. I'm quite sure Adobo believes that there is great value in horizontal hovering, non-silting kicks, and a long hose.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Long Hose: having done 0-15 dives I am guessing you are at least certified so you have done some sort of OW air share with a buddy...tell me was it "comfortable" to do while holding on to his harness/bc straps in the position taught by NAUI/PADI to do an air share? I am going to guess not, because I can tell you that I hated it. A 7ft hose on the other hand gives you some leeway. You don't have to hold on to your buddy, nor be so close to each other. This gives your buddy MUCH better chance at calming down and being able to be a good buddy while you surface.

I find this very interesting, why would you hate it? I prefer being close, having a hand on the person gives me a sense of being able to calm the diver if they're a little freaky--it's amazing what the simple touch of another human can do in a stressful situation. If I were out of air I'd rather have a grip on the person who was now my only source of air just to make sure we didn't get separated by anything (currents, other divers landing on us, etc.). I've done a couple of OOA drills on a 5 foot hose with a tech diving buddy and didn't particularly care for being steered by my mouth. It was an impromptu drill without any familiarization for me (the first time--he wanted to see if I could figure it out) and we cruised the quarry with me on the long hose (including a penetration of a plane). Personally I'd rather be holding on to my buddy.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[lamont]

I've done a couple of OOA drills on a 5 foot hose with a tech diving buddy and didn't particularly care for being steered by my mouth.

The problem there isn't the long hose, but its the being steered around by the mouth.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

The problem there isn't the long hose, but its the being steered around by the mouth.

It was something new he decided to pull on me to test my ability to think underwater. Maybe a 7-foot hose would have been better but once I figured out where I needed to be (on his left and under him) so we could swim my tank was banging against his deco bottle and I kept kicking him. I finally had to give up on kicking and he decided to steer me by my first stage, that worked better but every time he kicked it felt like the reg was going to pull out of my mouth.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Randy43068]

It was something new he decided to pull on me to test my ability to think underwater. Maybe a 7-foot hose would have been better but once I figured out where I needed to be (on his left and under him) so we could swim my tank was banging against his deco bottle and I kept kicking him. I finally had to give up on kicking and he decided to steer me by my first stage, that worked better but every time he kicked it felt like the reg was going to pull out of my mouth.
Ber :lilbunny:

was too short if a five footer..
I wouldn't like that, either with a 5 footer.

 

[TSandM]

What we were taught is that, once you have donated your primary and deployed all the hose, you then take the OOA diver by the arm and guide them. You maintain contact, but you can swim side by side.

My group all had 7' hoses, but there was one guy in the other group using a 5' hose, and the consensus of his buddies was that it wasn't nearly as nice to do the air shares with.

At any rate, we didn't steer anybody by his mouth, not even the 5' hose guy.

I've practiced air-shares with my old gear, and it seemed like the only way you could do them was vertical, holding on to one another's BCs, and that quickly resulted in significant buoyancy issues. Being able to be horizontal and STAY horizontal and STAY in visual reference to the bottom and your buddies and do a controlled swim to the upline rather than a direct ascent all seem like good things to me.

 

[Adobo]

as someone who is "new to diving" you seem to have done a lot of research on some things such as "what most divers learn in OW". I know for a fact that I did not nail my bouyancy or trim during OW...unless you call "walking on the bottom or silting up an environment" good bouyancy and trim.

I didn't either. I felt like an idiot for even mentioning that fact in another post.

Horizontal Trim(hover): see above, not only are these things able to get you more viewing space since you are looking down and forward instead of just straight down(or just forward), but this position also gets more air to the lungs since your airway is more open. (or at least i believe).

And it looks really cool too.

Long Hose: having done 0-15 dives I am guessing you are at least certified so you have done some sort of OW air share with a buddy...tell me was it "comfortable" to do while holding on to his harness/bc straps in the position taught by NAUI/PADI to do an air share?

Lemme just say this about a real OOA situation. When it happens, you are not going to be particulary picky about the length of your buddy's primary hose. What you care about is that your teammate has his siht togehter. Gear config means nothing if his/head is not in the game.

Lemme also say this. While I am not particularly hung up on the length of my buddy's primary hose, I am absolutely a proponent of each team member having their back up below their chin on a necklace. Getting to an octo clipped to your hip when the peanut butter hits the fan, kelp all around and surge blowing you all over is well, added complexity that is not needed.

Any more questions? feel free to pm me, I have also sent this as a pm to your mailbox.

You're preaching to the choir, lord.

 

[Adobo]

What we were taught is that, once you have donated your primary and deployed all the hose, you then take the OOA diver by the arm and guide them. You maintain contact, but you can swim side by side.

Is this kind of thing dependent on the situation? What I mean is, in an overhead environment or in an environment that you need to make your ascent in a very specific location, then swimming after the donation makes sense. But in an open water situation where you could do a surface swim or a boat could come and get you, swimming after the donation probably introduces more risk to an already problematic situation. Would it not be better to begin a controlled ascent instead? If so, you would probably be eyeball to eyeball, no?

My group all had 7' hoses, but there was one guy in the other group using a 5' hose, and the consensus of his buddies was that it wasn't nearly as nice to do the air shares with.

The biggest problem I see with the 5' hose (on me anyway) is that it has a tendency to lay on top of my backup second stage. In an event where I have to ditch my primary and move to my secondary, it feels like I have to work the secondary around the primary hose. (I'm 5'7" with a medium to large build - too many pizzas I guess).

I've practiced air-shares with my old gear, and it seemed like the only way you could do them was vertical, holding on to one another's BCs, and that quickly resulted in significant buoyancy issues. Being able to be horizontal and STAY horizontal and STAY in visual reference to the bottom and your buddies and do a controlled swim to the upline rather than a direct ascent all seem like good things to me.

I'm not a proponent of vertical style diving but I will say that it seems to work reasonable well with experienced divers. Personally, I think the problems become more apparent when one part of the buddy team dives DIR style and the other part does not. Although both divers may be competent, they are somewhat out of sync.

Sorry to hijack...

 

[Drewpy]

I appreciate the time and effort by posting all this info-good stuff!
And congrats on making it through!
I did a DIR demo day in Monterey several months ago and have been contemplating making the leap...
It was great to dive with a BPW and see what all the comotion is about?

Thanks again guys and happy diving!
good luck with the suit repair Lynne!

 

[headhunter]

TSandM and BabyDuck,

I know you posed the question to Claudette, but I know she's taking a little vacation that may not include a computer.

Our class with MHK is structured a bit differently than yours and we are waiting for it to be over before posting our report. Here's the scoop without giving you any of the juicy details yet.

We did all of the lectures in two evenings on Tuesday, November 15th and Thursday, November 17th. We did some equipment fitting on Sunday, November 20th. Our in-water portion of the class along with our video torture sessions will take place at Catalina Island's Avalon Dive Park on Saturday, December 3rd and Sunday, December 4th. Both Michael Kane and Brandon Schwartz will be running our in-water torture sessions.

Speaking for myself, I found the lectures both entertaining and very educational. MHK is a very funny guy! I also really enjoyed the equipment fitting session. I found the information about fitting the equipment very helpful. I plan on getting a dry suit someday for future deco diving and visiting all of our friends up in the cold north, so I was really interested in the info about dry suits.

So, the information about our fundies class is "coming soon to a thread near you!"

Bottom line... we don't want to steal any of the spotlight from the current DIR-F victims and look forward to giving you our reports in a couple of weeks.

Christian