Reverse Patch Diving

[lowviz]

...//...So now I just play about doing my own thing. My current thing is pretending I have a freeflow reg and after reading a post on here I usually when doing my safety stop take of my bcd then sitting on my tank turning it off and then on each time I want a breath. That and using my octo for as long as I can stand such a crappy reg. Hmm ok plus swimming along upside down and doing somersaults trying to keep at the same depth.

Most Excellent! This, and SB of course, truly are what diving is all about.

 

[UrbanJungle1966]

Yeah SB is good, picked up some really good tips and ideas. I have only just started doing it due to a post from Kevrumbo in the free flow thread. I tried the shutting it off but as my trim means it is a hassle getting to the tank valve and I nearly drowned well not really as my mate was right beside me I thought about it for a second and went hmm lets take it all off and see what happens.

Yeah that was fun as well as my weights are in my BCD so body up BCD on the sand. Went this sucks so I chucked the BCD between my legs and sat on it. That works for me. Still crap at it but at least the second time I could stop laughing and got it done at about half breath so had enough time to set myself up all nice and comfortable. I reckon a few more times and i'll do it a depth just for the hell of it to see what happens . I know at least in a pinch I would make it and not have to do a crazy get to the top asap sucking on air being blasted out my reg thinking crap I only have a couple of minutes air.

Anyway straying from the thread. As a new diver all I can recommend for other new divers is forget about trying to get as many qualifications as you can in the shortest amount of time and concentrate on each skill you have learnt at each depth until you get to your maximum qualified depth. This freeflow thing is a classic case. Imagine being 100ft down and according to the OW where you learn this stuff you are relying on sipping from your reg and blowing out all that precious air. That's just dumb and more importantly dangerous. Wouldn't it be better ripping off your BCD, turning the tank off, hugging the BCD and calmly cruising to the surface or better yet saying dive aborted and calmly cruising back to the exit point knowing you are going to make it. Well that's my thoughts anyway. Could be wrong but I am going to make it so unless someone has a better idea I can use that's what I will be doing .

 

[Mike.D]

Yeah SB is good, picked up some really good tips and ideas. I have only just started doing it due to a post from Kevrumbo in the free flow thread. I tried the shutting it off but as my trim means it is a hassle getting to the tank valve and I nearly drowned well not really as my mate was right beside me I thought about it for a second and went hmm lets take it all off and see what happens.

Yeah that was fun as well as my weights are in my BCD so body up BCD on the sand. Went this sucks so I chucked the BCD between my legs and sat on it. That works for me. Still crap at it but at least the second time I could stop laughing and got it done at about half breath so had enough time to set myself up all nice and comfortable. I reckon a few more times and i'll do it a depth just for the hell of it to see what happens . I know at least in a pinch I would make it and not have to do a crazy get to the top asap sucking on air being blasted out my reg thinking crap I only have a couple of minutes air.

Anyway straying from the thread. As a new diver all I can recommend for other new divers is forget about trying to get as many qualifications as you can in the shortest amount of time and concentrate on each skill you have learnt at each depth until you get to your maximum qualified depth. This freeflow thing is a classic case. Imagine being 100ft down and according to the OW where you learn this stuff you are relying on sipping from your reg and blowing out all that precious air. That's just dumb and more importantly dangerous. Wouldn't it be better ripping off your BCD, turning the tank off, hugging the BCD and calmly cruising to the surface or better yet saying dive aborted and calmly cruising back to the exit point knowing you are going to make it. Well that's my thoughts anyway. Could be wrong but I am going to make it so unless someone has a better idea I can use that's what I will be doing .

There's a very recent thread on this topic.
In summary:
New/inexperienced diver: breath off reg and ascend
Experienced diver who had practiced this skill and can multitask without compromising safety of himself and/or buddy: attempt 'feathering' tank valve and/or buddy breath depending on situations.

Totally agree on everything you said though

Cheers

Mike


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[waterpirate]

Go see Wayne at as his shop, take your gear. Keep an open mind. I left my afternoon spent with him in his pool better off than when I arrived. I got a no bull$hit fresh perspective than the the one that exists on my boat. Although I did not agree with everything he said, my skills were improved and I am a beter diver for it. Cost less than a trip off shore, it was 1 on 1, and watching that video of me made my eyes bleed, compared to watching him.
Eric

Your post is certainly "on target" with respect to where I'm coming from. I'm in no rush to get anywhere, I'm just positioning myself to get the most from one or two extremely expensive courses that I'm considering as being worthwhile. Pass or Fail is not an issue, cards are nice but my boat knows me. I just text for a single seat on an upcoming dive and get something like "Ok" Not even a period after it, just "OK" if a spot is available. That is all I need, I don't really care how I look. And that is a large measure of my problem. I refuse to "fake" anything. Sometimes, like my last dive, I just hang out on the bottom totally fascinated by sea life.

However, I do want to progress in my diving skills. I have sets of back-mount double 119's, 120's, 100's, and 72's. So the 119's and 120's are the "big" gas loads, both about equal, but 119's are short and fat and 120's are narrow and long. Same for the 100's, short and fat, the 72's (filled to 3K) are about the same gas load but long and narrow. So two basic gas loads, four sets of very different tanks. I also have two very different wings that I routinely use. GUE suggests that you dive a particular configuration about 20 times before really understanding it. Do the math, we are talking years for just the assessments. I need a better plan than that.

I'm really off-topic, so this will be the last...

Ever since failing my solo course, I have been working quite hard to pull all this together. I can achieve trim by fussing with one particular configuration, but it still escapes me how I can predict trim with any given collection of needed/available gear right off the blocks. Chances are fabulous that if I cease all motion I will roll axially or radially.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that I could tune one single configuration and use it to "fake" fundies and get a rec pass. Big whoop. There is some physics here that they don't teach and I haven't figured out yet. So, before I pay dearly for a course that "features" trim, I want to see the instructor hang in trim for three minutes with only breathing controlling his/her depth...

 

[jadairiii]

.....GUE suggests that you dive a particular configuration about 20 times before really understanding it. Do the math, we are talking years for just the assessments. I need a better plan than that......I can achieve trim by fussing with one particular configuration, but it still escapes me how I can predict trim with any given collection of needed/available gear right off the blocks. Chances are fabulous that if I cease all motion I will roll axially or radially.....

Rather than typing and reading, actually go and sit down with a GUE instructor and speak to them. You have lots of misconceptions about GUE.

 

[markmud]

There are some people who are really into collecting certifications, going quickly from class to class, assembling an impressive array of cards (or “patches”), without doing a lot of diving. The term “patch diver” refers to this sort of person, and it’s not a compliment.

Training without certification is much better than certification without training!

Hey DrMike,

Good thread.

For most of us, diving is an avocation. Freedom to choose one's training regimen should be a given.

No OW, or a jacket full of patches, or a few selected badges that allow one access to dive venues, is strictly up to the diver.

I know an instructor who is like Wayne, the one you described in your OP. Good guy.

thanks,

markm

 

[NAM001]

iT SHOULDNT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHAT TANKS YOU ARE DIVING. oops... You should be able to go from one set to another will little or no isues. Rolling side to side is a function of a high center of gravity/mass trying to move to a lower position. The tumbling is that,, and the position of that mass.. Your body has a center of mass I believe at the solar plex. The tank has a center of mass also. You need to stack these centers. If done you could put 200 lbs of tanks on and you won't tumble forward or aft. If tanks rides high you will be head heavy. Its the see saw effect and leverage. The overall neg buoyancy of the tanks moves you mass center from your gut to (in the water) the back side of the tanks. The only way to reduce that high center is to 1. lower the tanks to your body bowels. Or you can reduce the mass/ neg buoyancy of the tank by making it lighter. Air in your wing will put lift on the tank. Figurativly if you put enough air n the wing to comp for the tanks neg buoyancy you would not have weight on your back at all and your center of mass will now move from your back to you gut. When you roll you will be doing it rotating from a center point in your stomach instead from a point between your back and your tank. I know you can relate to this so....imagine you are holding a 10 ft pole in you hand upright. all is well till it starts to lean and the forces of the pole take over as it moves to a new position. now do this with a helium balloon attached to the top of the pole.

You mention you have 120's and 72's i would think they would need different wings. The tank weight is not a real factor but the buoyancy's are. I think if you write down te buoyancy's of your tanks and find like numbers they will function the same with the same or near same wing. Teh problem with wings are that many think the larger wing the better. not true. The wing only has to comp for the gas and maybe another 20#. So your twin 120's is about 20# of gas so a 40 should be ball park for sizing. This gives you extra lift for equipment and enough to hold you head out of thewater and some reserve for your buddy if his wing fails. Too litle wing and you can imagine. too much wing and the air bubble runs from head to butt and now moves the center of the tank mass so they are not stacked.

Your post is certainly "on target" with respect to where I'm coming from. I'm in no rush to get anywhere, I'm just positioning myself to get the most from one or two extremely expensive courses that I'm considering as being worthwhile. Pass or Fail is not an issue, cards are nice but my boat knows me. I just text for a single seat on an upcoming dive and get something like "Ok" Not even a period after it, just "OK" if a spot is available. That is all I need, I don't really care how I look. And that is a large measure of my problem. I refuse to "fake" anything. Sometimes, like my last dive, I just hang out on the bottom totally fascinated by sea life.

However, I do want to progress in my diving skills. I have sets of back-mount double 119's, 120's, 100's, and 72's. So the 119's and 120's are the "big" gas loads, both about equal, but 119's are short and fat and 120's are narrow and long. Same for the 100's, short and fat, the 72's (filled to 3K) are about the same gas load but long and narrow. So two basic gas loads, four sets of very different tanks. I also have two very different wings that I routinely use. GUE suggests that you dive a particular configuration about 20 times before really understanding it. Do the math, we are talking years for just the assessments. I need a better plan than that.

I'm really off-topic, so this will be the last...

Ever since failing my solo course, I have been working quite hard to pull all this together. I can achieve trim by fussing with one particular configuration, but it still escapes me how I can predict trim with any given collection of needed/available gear right off the blocks. Chances are fabulous that if I cease all motion I will roll axially or radially.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that I could tune one single configuration and use it to "fake" fundies and get a rec pass. Big whoop. There is some physics here that they don't teach and I haven't figured out yet. So, before I pay dearly for a course that "features" trim, I want to see the instructor hang in trim for three minutes with only breathing controlling his/her depth...

 

[Phil_C]

An interesting thread, and also lots of interesting offshoots - as far as badge collecting goes to some extent I was guilty ! - OK confession over, I feel better for it - but I did approach each course as a learning experience and tried to get as much from it as possible. Partly I was motivated by my own insecurity, I didn't know what I didn't know, and thought that by doing courses I would manage to learn enough to be safe.

I also read everything and anything that I could get my hands on, even 30-40 year old diving manuals from the USA and UK which I added to my library.

I made a lot of dives, but it is only recently I have started to realise that also I made lots of the SAME dives and probably wasn't learning much from them or improving my diving. Apart from completing my Coxswains certificate I haven't done a formal course for some time now, but I have started to dive with lots of different divers, in as many different conditions as I can, and I have finally started to SEE some of what I don't know.

So for now I am diving twice a week, drysuit, side mount, and just practising to get completely comfortable, trying to perfect my buoyancy, trim, navigation and get very familiar with my gear - I haven't carried a camera in about 20 dives now - and probably won't for a while yet either.

As Lowviz also said I have come to the conclusion my buoyancy sucks ! I still have to concentrate on it too much and it is not natural and instinctive yet - I had wanted to do accelerated deco, trimix and possibly look to a cave course over the next 12-18 months, but actually I am now starting to think I am not ready. Many years ago I was awarded a karate black belt by a very famous Japanese master - I still clearly remember him saying after the award that "now you are ready to start learning karate".

I came to find out what he meant, and am starting to think I that my diving is the same. I have the cards I need to do most of the dives I want, but there is always more to learn, but more importantly I now have to start to really understand and embed what I have already been taught.

I have learn't an awful lot the last few months diving with lots of divers from national instructors down to newly qualified divers, none of it has involved a card of any sort, but I am sure I am a better diver for it. So if you can dive critically and see what other people do that you are impressed by and want to learn, then don't be afraid to ask and pick up tips.

I am far more comfortable now that I have a fair idea of what I don't know, and can't do right yet and what I need to work on, but I don't really see any courses out there that address what I want a another card won't give me what I want - so what I want to do is go down the mentor type route, I will try to dive with people who have impressed me, and emulate what they do, I will shamelessly ask them their secrets, and pump them dry for information - but I will buy the beers and try to be good company and a good safe dive buddy.

I'd be happy to pay for a one on one with an instructor whether there is a badge or not, it doesn't matter, and then perhaps in a year or so I'll think about cave and rebreathers again.

Phil.

 

[NAM001]

Interesting post Phil_C. At one time i got very confortable with my buoyancy, and personally it was good enough. Then someone had me follow them through an obsticle course and i found myself hung in the hulahoop by my tank valve. What once was personnally good enough was no longer good enough. It took that for me to realise that I am no longer a body mass because with a tank on I was larger and though my body went throught he center of the hoop the tank did not. I do hoops ok now but instead of a hoop it could have been a cable or something else on another dive.

 

[lowviz]

iT SHOULDNT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHAT TANKS YOU ARE DIVING. ...//...

Yep.

You mention you have 120's and 72's i would think they would need different wings. ...//...

Yep.

An interesting thread, and also lots of interesting offshoots...//... I haven't done a formal course for some time now, but I have started to dive with lots of different divers, in as many different conditions as I can, and I have finally started to SEE some of what I don't know.

Funny how that works...

...//...So for now I am diving twice a week, drysuit, side mount, and just practising to get completely comfortable, trying to perfect my buoyancy, trim, navigation and get very familiar with my gear - I haven't carried a camera in about 20 dives now - and probably won't for a while yet either.

Sounds quite familiar. Except for the sidemount thing, waiting to see if it catches on...

As Lowviz also said I have come to the conclusion my buoyancy sucks !

My trim sucks, buoyancy control is fine.

...//... I am far more comfortable now that I have a fair idea of what I don't know, and can't do right yet and what I need to work on, but I don't really see any courses out there that address what I want ...//...

So I've read The Six Skills several times, read Staying Alive and am now back to actually performing the six skills. Stuck on the bottom of the page that requires one to maintain trim and control buoyancy using only breathing. Been about a year on that page, made a major project of it. Maybe I'll blog it all someday, who knows. I have time, no rush. Getting close.

Working on wings at the moment. When I have that sorted out I think that I will call Wayne and dump everything into his lap for assessment...