People embarrassed to do pre dive buddy check?

[lowwall]

Not only that. Be sure you have a right and a left fin.

Otherwise you go in circles. Happened to me once and there was nothing I could do about it. Please no one tell me it was a skills problem.

Turn one of them upside down and you'll be fine.

 

[EFX]

The people who handled that gear have set things up untold thousands of times before, and it's a pretty darn simple process, one that is supposed to be thoroughly taught to beginning OW students.

You would think. Of course it depends on how familiar they are with your equipment. I did a boat dive and we were told to leave our BCD's in the front of the boat on the floor. The crew would then put the BCD's on the tanks. Once the tanks with our BCD's were placed in the racks we could put our regulators on and go through the checks. I had a back plate with wing attached through an STA with attached tank strap weight pockets. I watched carefully as a young girl assembled my equipment. To my amazement she put my equipment on upside down. Knowing she would be embarrassed I explained to her very gently in a non-accusatory tone that she put it on upside down and that the tank weight pocket flaps need to be facing up and not down.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Turn one of them upside down and you'll be fine.

You sir, are a real man of genius!

 

[Twoblues]

Just need to rant/ talk about some failures of mine.

I believe every rec training agency teaches some sort of pre dive buddy check. Valves open, pressure gauge reading full, regs breathe, inflator inflates, holds hair, deflates, etc.

It seems that almost every dive location I go to, whether it’s a chartered boat, dive at quarry with locals, etc, people don’t do this buddy check.

I dove with new buddies yesterday and explained to them my long hose config and how I would donate in an ooa emergency. The response I got was, “If I run out of air, I did something wrong” I’m thinking yeah, that’s the point of reviewing this stuff. Prepare and have a plan for an emergency, but it’s like they think it’s never going to happen to them so they brush it off.

During that same dive, I’m on air, others are on 32%. I get to 5m NDL and swim over to communicate this. I tried to talk about a dive plan before the dive, should we communicate half tank, what will we consider low on air for this dive, etc but was met with a laxidasical response that ended up discussing how good at conserving air they are… We did not discuss NDL. So I tap on my watch and signal the number 5 and pointed to the watch for more clarity. They think I’m saying I have 500 psi and try to turn the dive for air. I catch back up and show them by pressure gauge with ok symbol and repoint to my watch with number 5. Finally it clicks, and we agree to go to 40ft. Rest of the dive was uneventful. Post dive debrief I ask how I can better communicate ndl. No one knows. One person said make a D with your hands then the minutes. Okay, great, I’ll do that next time with this group but why isn’t this a standard hand signal?

On another dive with a new buddy, I take responsibility to do a pre dive check and everything’s good. This is where I make a mistake, second dive, I don’t check his gear and he giant strides with tank valve closed… his bc had air, so I simply opened his valve when he said his reg didn’t breathe but that could’ve easily ended in drowning if he didn’t fill his bc. I take full responsibility for this. I should’ve checked his gear.

Long story short, I don’t like the mentality in the various communities I’ve dove with. From now on, even when diving with master divers, I’m going to take a leadership role in the pre dive planning and safety of others. It’s not worth the risk.

I've been on many boats where at the end of the dive almost no one does the 15 ft safety stop. No wonder a dive op. needs insurance!

 

[blueskies_up_ahead]

Are you suggesting that people don't check their gear before diving if the gear was set up by a DM?

Is your question whether I think people don't check, or whether I propose they don't check their gear? Either way, no. But I'm sure it can lead to complacency and mistakes. And I just prefer to set my gear up. I paid a **** load of money for that stuff and love to set it up. I actually enjoy it. Has nothing to do with my point regarding predive checks. This was just referring back to another comment about valet service in diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

I've been on many boats where at the end of the dive almost no one does the 15 ft safety stop. No wonder a dive op. needs insurance!

You must dive in some unusual places. In my quarter century of diving all over the world, I do not believe I have seen a dive where almost no one does the safety stop. In fact, I have remarked recently about the dives I have seen in which people do safety stops where they are not remotely necessary.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I'm happy to buddy-check someone else if asked. If people want to check me, I'll politely say it's unnecessary, but also ask them to wait until I'm ready to jump in the water.

Yeah I was paired with an instructor for a dive. It was a fast current dive. He slags off at me about how he is an instructor and doesn't do buddy checks. I never touch someone's gear I wait till they kit up and usually ask to check air is on and the amount of air. I've seen people kit up to find a tank with 160 bar.

Anyway this instructor is all rude and jumps off the boat. All good he jumped in left his fins on board and drifts away at the surface.
As I have an electronic SPG I let all the crew know that if they check air to close the tank valve and release air from the reg's so my SPG doesn't sit there using the battery. It needs to have no pressure to turn off. Never had an issue with boat crew and my gear. A lot of experienced divers with their own gear like to do their own kit setup and crews are fine with that too. On boats where divers just giant stride off the last thing that goes on are my fins. I walk to a rail and stand, put one foot in a fin the crew put the strap on. On smaller boats where back roll off the boat we are in sitting position. I often have my fins on and put on BCD after arriving at destination.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Are you suggesting that people don't check their gear before diving if the gear was set up by a DM?

I've seen where people do not double check after gear setup by guide. Just strap in and dive. I take out my inserted weights from my BCD after every dive. Just easier and lighter BCD to put on a tank. Sometimes a guide might not realize I've done this and put them back in the BCD. One thing with my BCD is that I have 2kg in each back shoulder pocket. I bring a pair of sports socks and put the weight in the sock, two reasons, stops a scratched weight from damaging the mesh pocket and secondly easy to slide the weight out in the sock.
So I have the two inserts in the BCD at waist and two at back shoulders. If I did tell people they would not know about the weights on my back as most BCD's do not have back pockets.

 

[Jafo19D]

The first clue that you need a buddy check is that you state turning on the Oxygen... inexperience and reluctance to seek advice leads to problems. When I first started diving, everyone had everyone's back and it was common to interact with other divers to insure equipment and dive planning was good to go. Somehow that has morphed into you do your thing and I'll do mine... as if making sure a common understanding is somehow an insult to individuality. I want to dive and fish.. not help recover bodies.

The first clue that you reply to posts without reading them is criticizing me for saying oxygen.

 

[Jafo19D]

The first clue that you need a buddy check is that you state turning on the Oxygen... inexperience and reluctance to seek advice leads to problems. When I first started diving, everyone had everyone's back and it was common to interact with other divers to insure equipment and dive planning was good to go. Somehow that has morphed into you do your thing and I'll do mine... as if making sure a common understanding is somehow an insult to individuality. I want to dive and fish.. not help recover bodies.

You actually insure that dive equipment is good to go? How much does that cost?