Practicing Skills

[Uncle Pug]

I'm going to become buoyant even if slowly breathing out.

No you won't become positively buoyant , Bjorn. Try it shallow.

(BTW when it comes to buoyancy control shallow is much harder than deeper.)

 

[ArcticDiver]

I always consider experience doing a task as good practice. But, one must have an occasional check ride to be sure everything is being done correctly. That is why in many fields licensing/certification requires so much actual hands on activity.

Emergency procedures however need to be practiced in the environment they will be used but with caution. I can remember when I learned to fly engine out procedures were practiced with, you guessed it, engine out. Or, a bit later, with engine at idle. After a few years of accidents from the practice when engines wouldn't restart or come back to full power the practice was changed. Same with scuba: practice the in the same environment but do not increase the danger.

A drill that is a good one I think was reinforced on a recent dive trip. This has happened twice now so maybe it is an item that needs some practice. It goes like this:
Diving with experienced divers; but divers who are not your regular buddies. Have a small problem; in this case a buoyancy problem. Proceed to attempt to solve the problem without signaling anyone else. See if any of your other team members/buddies comes to your rescue.

In both cases the other divers hung out close by and obserrved but did nothing to affirmatively assist. What happened to me I've seen happen to others in other places, regardless of their prior training or team/solo diving orientation.

I posted elsewhere about the DM who was surrounded by divers but no one offered to help and he was so busy handling the problem he never thought to ask for help.

Lesson: When diving with strangers, or those you don't know very well you must assertively let them know you are there to help.

Warning: No surprise exercises. All emergency practice to be done after a pre-briefing and agreement by every participant. Each and every participant has the unquestioned right to call "knock it off" at any time.

 

[scubafool]

With me, every dive I do has SOME type of skills practice included. With a new buddy, it usually is just an airshare, followed by mask off, then back on and clear. This is my minimum practice for every dive, and also gives me an idea as to their comfort level. With one of my regular buddies, things get a little bit more wild (and fun).

Practicing skills is, in and of itself, fun. If someone doesn't like practicing a particular skill, that in itself might mean that is an area where they really NEED practice.

That being said, there are some dives that are more oriented to doing the dive in question, and others that invite more practice, and either is more enjoyable with the difference kept in mind.

 

[dsteding]

In both cases the other divers hung out close by and obserrved but did nothing to affirmatively assist. What happened to me I've seen happen to others in other places, regardless of their prior training or team/solo diving orientation.

I posted elsewhere about the DM who was surrounded by divers but no one offered to help and he was so busy handling the problem he never thought to ask for help.

Lesson: When diving with strangers, or those you don't know very well you must assertively let them know you are there to help.

This, and Lamont's remark about communicating are both good ones. Bringing this thread back to it's main point: a skill to practice on every dive is communicating. Difficult, and I think effective communication happens before the dive, and is refined in the post-dive brief.

Question: Besides talking on the surface before and after, how do we get better at communicating underwater? Practice deploying the wetnotes?

 

[Green_Manelishi]

This, and Lamont's remark about communicating are both good ones. Bringing this thread back to it's main point: a skill to practice on every dive is communicating. Difficult, and I think effective communication happens before the dive, and is refined in the post-dive brief.

Question: Besides talking on the surface before and after, how do we get better at communicating underwater? Practice deploying the wetnotes?

Especially if one is prone to solo dive. And that is not meant as a slam on solo diving (which I do quite frequently) just pointing out that diving with and by one's onsies does bupkis for developing buddy/team oriented diving.

 

[jeckyll]

No you won't become positively buoyant , Bjorn. Try it shallow.

(BTW when it comes to buoyancy control shallow is much harder than deeper.)

UP, I'll try it next time we're offgassing in the shallows.

I just find I do that "slight up & down" thing when I breath and I have noticed that when we do OOA drills I have a tendency to rise slightly which I attributed to the fact that I'm slowly blowing bubbles while switching regs.

 

[jeckyll]

Lesson: When diving with strangers, or those you don't know very well you must assertively let them know you are there to help.

ArticDiver: That is one reason why I like diving with folks I know and have experience with.

Yesterday a buddy of mine got himself a bit tangled while we were playing with spools & SMB's. When I looked over I saw it and he'd already stopped moving around to not make the problem worse. It took me all of 30 seconds to get the line off his first stage & hose.

I'm not sure if there is a good way to relay that type of behaviour to people you don't know. My buddy and I dive together weekly and he knew I'd be right over to help him out, so instead of struggling and making the problem worse he waited. If you're diving with folks you don't know, how do you know that they'd have the skills to efficiently help you and not make things worse?

For instance, I like trying to fix my own issues, but will ask for help when I feel it's necessary or just want someone to double check something (ex. my mask is leaking like mad but I can't find anything wrong and with the thick gloves on can't feel well around my hood to see where it's caught, I'll have my buddy check to see if he can point out where the problem is.)

To me the 'when do I intervene' instinct the type of thing that you develop with people over time.

 

[JeffG]

I just find I do that "slight up & down" thing when I breath and I have noticed that when we do OOA drills I have a tendency to rise slightly which I attributed to the fact that I'm slowly blowing bubbles while switching regs.

No, I will bet a dollar its because just before you go to donate the reg, you take a HUGE breath of gas. Its a scary thing not having a reg in your mouth for a period of time....or at least it seems that way at the start.

 

[Uncle Pug]

I have noticed that when we do OOA drills I have a tendency to rise slightly

The reason you rise during OOA drills is that you are taking a big drag on your regulator before you hand it over.

Just hand it over without grabbing a lung full first and you'll be fine.

 

[TSandM]

in this case a buoyancy problem.

How does one assist with a buoyancy problem? If it's a beginning diver and the person is rocketing to the surface, I'll try to catch them and slow them down. If it's an experienced diver who appears to be having buoyancy issues, I'm much more likely to watch them closely, figuring they'll either solve it themselves (which they ought to know how to do) or, if there's a malfunction, THEY'LL SIGNAL ME AND LET ME KNOW.

Now, on the other hand, I was down with another non-novice diver the other night, and he was in a new undergarment and underestimated the needed change in weight. At the end of the dive, he was picking up rocks. I kept watching him, and to me, it appeared he was bouncing off the bottom, which is not like him; but I kept an eye on him and he didn't seem distressed at all, so I saw no need to intervene. When I found out on the surface what the issue had been, I realized I could have given him one of my weights if I had known, because I was diving the top half of my doubles and was effectively fairly overweighted.

This gets back to something I started a thread on earlier this year -- If you're having a problem, let your team know about it. Even if you CAN solve it yourself, it may be easier for them to do it for you, and at the very least, they'll know why you're acting strange.