Reading Gauges, Any tips??

[Phish-phood]

Last night in the pool a few of us were practicing some mask skills. Thankfully I have most of them nailed while maintaining my bouyancy which is great, but the one that really got me was trying to focus on my gauges/computers without my mask on.

We were doing this for a number of reasons the main ones being if we didn't have a spare mask and lost our mask for some reason, how would we keep track of assent rates, air, safety stop times and depth and also to help deal with unexpectadly bad viz on a dive. For some reason I cannot get my gauges to come into focus at all! while I can see where everything should be and can sometimes get a shadow of where the dial is it was never good enough to be able to control an assent safely and unaided. Any tips would be great

 

[coliseum]

What agency teaches this?

Well, I would say your odds arent that good if you:

1- Lost your buddy (where is your buddy in all of this)**
2- Lost your mask
3- Viz is bad enough for you not to be able to even read the gauge?

Do you at least have a computer that beeps when your ascent rate is a bit too fast?

** I know you that you write "Unaided" but why should you be unaided in the first place?

Dive safe....

 

[WaterDawg]

Well you really dont need to know the exact psi in your tank a rough estimate should be enough. Thats the reason most gauges have color coded areas green: your good, yellow: ok stop messing around, and red:you better hurry!

If you can see that you should be OK, if not thats whats your buddys there for.

 

[Inkypoo]

You need to read gauges w/o a mask on????

Ouch...I wear contacts and there's NO way in hell I'm gonna open my eyes w/o a mask on...

Are you being trained by her majesty's SBS or something from G.I. Jane??

 

[Phish-phood]

Coliseum, no agency teaches this. It is something a couple of us were doing as a drill. Worst case scenario type drill. Obviously because we plan our dives properly we don't expect this to happen, but it is something we can practice which gets us comfortable with all aspects of our kit in all types of conditions and allows us to deal with unexpected occurences.
I have a computer which beeps but not everyone I dive with does have one and to be honest the beeping is not the loudest and sometimes I miss it. Plus I like practicing unusual drills and setting myself challenges like this because it increases my confidence in my diving, increases my familiarity with my kit, increases my ability to be able to deal with minor incidences unaided. While what we were doing as described may be of no use whatsoever, the principles are similar to why a dm trainee would need to be able to kit exchange while buddy breathing. Its developing the confidence and ability to deal with the unexpected.

Waterdawg I managed to get the coloured areas into focus after some serious concentration so that's a good place to start I guess, thanks.

 

[budgy]

I read pearl divers used to cup their hands around your face and for a moment hold a bubble of air over the eyes to enable them to see. Never had much luck doing it though.
For the most part I struggle to read gauges that don't have large numerals even with a mask so I've got a pocket for a spare mask. Regard the computor malfunction and the solo diver. With a single 12 litre cylinder my normal deco penalty is negligable. On my average dive a 3min safety stop at 5 or 6 m is more than adequate. Based on my own consumption rate of +- 100bar by observation if I go above 10m on 100bar I don't exceed no stop times, but again its a guess and diving without recording and calculating deco penalty is generally asking for trouble. Slow ascent rates were estimated by going slower than your bubbles, some computer divers believe its dangerous but I've done it for a few years without problem, I think its safer because your looking around and above you.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Ascending no faster than the smallest bubbles is an old technique but still gives a fairly conservative ascent rate and my computer does not ***** when I do this. You have to keep changing to smaller bubbles though as you ascend as the one you are watching gets bigger and faster. It also has the advantage of having no lag time and you can maintain a very consistent ascent rate with this technique - far better than you can with your face glued to a computer.

I agree it keeps you looking up and around and is preferable to staying glued to a computer.

In fairly murky water you can also monitor ascent rate by looking at suspended particles in the water.

 

[WJL]

Phish-phood once bubbled...
Last night in the pool a few of us were practicing some mask skills. Thankfully I have most of them nailed while maintaining my bouyancy which is great, but the one that really got me was trying to focus on my gauges/computers without my mask on.

...For some reason I cannot get my gauges to come into focus at all! while I can see where everything should be and can sometimes get a shadow of where the dial is it was never good enough to be able to control an assent safely and unaided. Any tips would be great

I just watched video of my buddies doing no mask ascents in a GUE Tech 1 class. As far as I can figure out, it really can't be done. With the mask off and no air in front of your eyeball, you won't be able to focus on smallish details like the numbers on your gauge. Even putting the gauge right on your eye doesn't help. In the class, they relied on the one member of the 3-man team that still had a mask to manage the ascent, deco and gas switches for the whole team.

I never tried to catch a bubble under the eye to create an air space, maybe that would work.