Proposing a New Hand Signal

[wstein]

For "move up" how about one hand, palm upwards, and motioning upwards witht the fingertips. You could throw in a "return" and then a "move up" to let your buddy know that you will be heading back shallower.

I do one similiar, palm down and slowly raise my hand up,

 

[rickyd]

Good point.
By the way, love your avatar. That manta's huge!

Yes, amazing animals; this one about 18 feet across, and very friendly; the Soccorro Islands.

 

[Jcsgt]

Yes, amazing animals; this one about 18 feet across, and very friendly; the Soccorro Islands.

I hope to see some on my trip to Sea of Cortez in September.

 

[Aquanautchuck]

If I want to go shallower I point my right thumb up and place my left palm over it, then give the depth I want to stop at with fingers. 5 fingers with mean I want to go up and stop at 50'. Another thing to go over on the dive brief.

 

[Iruka]

I generally use the one mentioned by (Cavediver I think?)....except in the opposite order. Signal "a little" and then "up." Might use it in a case where we want to do our safety stop "swimming" rather than just hanging out under the boat. Or if we hit a thermocline & I decide my t-shirt just isn't cutting it, ha ha.

 

[do it easy]

If I want to go shallower I point my right thumb up and place my left palm over it, then give the depth I want to stop at with fingers. 5 fingers with mean I want to go up and stop at 50'. Another thing to go over on the dive brief.

My buddies and I use that signal for when we get narced, so that we can ascend to a less narcotic depth- we set a level before the dive, so we don't need to communicate a depth.

 

[Charlie99]

If I want to go shallower I point my right thumb up and place my left palm over it, then give the depth I want to stop at with fingers. 5 fingers with mean I want to go up and stop at 50'. Another thing to go over on the dive brief.

I would take that signal to mean that you have an extraordinarily conservative computer that is showing a required stop time at 10' of 5 minutes. Or perhaps that you want to do a 5 minute safety stop before surfacing. In practice, though, we'd just start wandering up and sort it out as we go.

 

[LavaSurfer]

Here's the assimilated answer;

A pointed finger in the way of the exit or up line and the thumb up. Kind of like when you make a pistol with your finger.

"Way to surface" at the bottom of the page.
http://www.dir-ger.de/faq/cavesigns/handzeichen1.htm

Interesting web site
On page three, Stuck means have to go to the bathroom in sign language.
Wouldn't it be cool if all divers knew sign, sure make life easy under water at times.

I give my wife the bathroom sign everytime we swim through a warm spot. It freeks her out. I think she believes it was me that made the warm pocket - LOL

 

[nessum]

If a thumbs up instantly indicates a sense of urgency to you perhaps you should find some different dive buddies! A thumbs up is a signal to ascend and hopefully an ascent is not always an urgent affair.

As far as I know the best way to signal going up to a shallower depth is best communicated with a thumb and level off motion. If I want to suggest we ascend over a distance I'll often motion diagonally in the direction I'd like to go. Most of this should be fairly intuitive on the dive because the profile should be talked about in the dive planning.

 

[jham2081]

what about just making the "swim" motion with your index and middle finger scissor kicking, and point where you want to go (up at an angle).