Predive plan?

[C0N3RY]

With all the new computers on the market these days, do any of you still take the time to plan out your dive? Or do you just hop in the water and let your comp take care of it?

 

[spectrum]

Letting the computer manage your NDL it is surely one reason why you have it. You should have at least a working understanding of the dive and any prior dives before heading for a given depth hoping to stay long enough to accomplish an objective.

Another aspect of planning is having enough air to accomplish the dive. In most cases this eclipses the need for NDL planning especially on shallower dives.

With experience many common dives have "understood plans" so it may seem transparent to an observer.

Pete

 

[Doc]

With all the new computers on the market these days,

Computers really haven't changed since they were printed on plastic slates. There have really been no real advances in them for years.

do any of you still take the time to plan out your dive? Or do you just hop in the water and let your comp take care of it?

You can't not plan your dive.

If it's an unknown dive site, you must at least lay down some initial parameters. If nothing else, planning your dive does mean that you know what mixtures everyone is using and then setting a depth limit for whatever reason. They don't have GPS yet.

If you "just hop in the water and let your comp take care of it", you better be bloody sure that you're planned enough to be under the boat for that last 15 foot stop.

That made my head hurt.

 

[TSandM]

My dives are all planned with maximum parameters for depth and time, and an ascent strategy. We also discuss the gas each diver is carrying, and have a parameter for turning or ending the dive which will maintain a safety reserve for each diver.

 

[DiverBeth]

While IMHO computers are a big help there is a lot to more to managing a dive. My dive buddy and I want to be on the same page regarding what we want to accomplish on the dive, when to head back, what to do if we're separated, have a problem, etc. If we've dived the site before we can do a plan in a couple of minutes, with some of the people I've dived with it's a very automatic thing and it's part of gearing up.

I like my computer but I would never depend solely on it.

 

[Peter Guy]

The OP's post is one of those posts that, quite honestly, just wants to make me cry. (Please, TSandM, don't snicker!) This is NOT a criticism of the poster but, to the contrary, of the underlying training which is, I'm afraid, way too common.

Yes we are told to "plan our dive and dive our plan" but, as the poster says, with today's computers, are beginner divers actually being taught how to "plan a dive?"

 

[HowardE]

My plan depends on the situation. If I am just diving locally (ocean diving, non-overhead environment), I usually just dive my computer... My local dives generally have a hard bottom at a known depth (60-90 feet) so even though I am diving my computer... I am applying the knowledge I have of the dive tables in having a general idea of what my bottom time can be. So even though I am generally diving my computer - I do know what limitations I have, and I also keep in mind that I usually dive Nitrox as well, and have an MOD planned (usually based on the max depth to the sand) which is generally known in advance of the dive too.

Also... Most of the dive ops in South Florida prefer that we keep our dive times to around an hour (some allow us to do 75 minutes or more even) so often times - the clock is our limiting factor over anything else.

Sometimes - the extent of my plan is to "Go down... swim around for an hour... then come up"

If it's a more complicated dive (wall dives with possibility to go very deep, deco stops, gas switches, etc) then a dive plan (using tables or v-planner or other planning software) is a good idea.

 

[Sas]

I always plan my dives with tables first with my buddy. I wouldn't know how to hop in the water and let my computer plan repetitive dives actually. It shows me remaining bottom time for that dive but not sure how I would extrapolate from that a repetitive dive plan.

Also whilst I really like my computer, I'm a software tester and my job often involves finding the weirdest bugs that you would least expect so I have a slight distrust of all programs . I am sure dive computers are well tested but you cannot test for every scenario so I wouldn't want to be an unlucky person and have it show me the wrong NDL or something like that. If I have already calculated an approximate bottom time then I would know if my computer is playing funny b***ers.

 

[ucfdiver]

Mine really depends on where I'm diving. I don't make a dive plan (other than come up at 750psi) for OW dives in springs. On a dive boat, I swim against the current for 1/3 of my air, and return to the boat with the remaining 2/3. Obviously for cavern/cave things are different, but that's off the topic of this post.

 

[maged_mmh]

computer cannot tell you the objective of your dive - beside having fun of course; cannot tell you where to descend and why, where to exit, what route to follow...etc.
hence the dive plan