Sequence in S-drill

[Dan Gibson]

I agree.

Famous last words.

~ Jason

 

[peter_steinhoff]

Peter, your point about passing the light back and forth if you are repeatedly having to clip it off is well taken. In the dives I do, the light gets clipped off before diving, deployed on descent, and clipped off on ascent. I have really wondered about light cord routing and which hand the light head should be in, given that I will probably never use a scooter and will CERTAINLY never use stages or deco gas. Something to think about while absorbing the new information.

The thing is that most of the scooter procedures works for other stuff too, like diving with a videocamera in one hand or towing a surface float. It's like any good diving skill - you never know when you are going to need it.

When I learned this stuff I tried to find the most experienced guys to learn from. Not because I couldn't figure out what worked for the kind of diving I did at the time but because I couldn't possibly know what was going to work in the future when doing more complex or advanced dives.

What may seem simple is not always as simple and one of the reasons for heated internet debates is the fact that most people haven't got enough experience from diving in different environments or doing advanced dives to really tell what works and what doesn't. Doing no decompression dives in an open water environment with ambient light and good visibility doesn't really show the power of DIR, even tough it adds to the enjoyment of the dive. And the reasons to choose some methods over others will only show itself futher down the road, so to speak.

Best,
Peter

PS. When I started to dive I was probably the worst student ever. But I didn't quit and after years of practice and diving I am now a teacher myself. I have also done basically all GUE classes in tech, cave and rebreather and I'm not telling you that to brag but to tell you that I have been in the exact same position as many of you are today.

 

[darkpup]

What may seem simple is not always as simple and one of the reasons for heated internet debates is the fact that most people haven't got enough experience from diving in different environments or doing advanced dives to really tell what works and what doesn't.

I definitely fit into that category, hence the reason I backed off after Soggy's message. I've been scootering a bit lately, and will be starting my Tech training soon. I'll give both methods a try, and see how they work out.

Thanks for the post Peter.

~ Jason

 

[TSandM]

Bob made the point tonight that the insistence on having the light head on the left hand, which he also resisted, makes great sense with a camera.

Like so many other things, it's probably not a great idea to try to second guess the guys who are teaching you until you have the experience to pick and choose -- which is why I am trying to do these things exactly according to protocol, until or unless I know enough to discard protocol in favor of educated alternative choices.

I trained in surgery, and we absorbed protocols through our skin. You knew you had mastery when you understood where the protocols came from, why they were they way they were, and when you were facing a protocol exception.

I ain't there with diving yet . . . no way.

 

[RTodd]

Thank you all for the input. Jason and Reinoud, thank you especially for pointing out to me what I was missing . . . what I was missing in my writing is EXACTLY what I miss in reality -- task loading leading to perceptual narrowing. A good call to attention.

Peter, your point about passing the light back and forth if you are repeatedly having to clip it off is well taken. In the dives I do, the light gets clipped off before diving, deployed on descent, and clipped off on ascent. I have really wondered about light cord routing and which hand the light head should be in, given that I will probably never use a scooter and will CERTAINLY never use stages or deco gas. Something to think about while absorbing the new information.

The problem is, if you rarely clip off your light and you run it under your long hose, in the infrequent event when you do clip it off you are more likely to forget to run it back over the top and trap the long hose.

If you are doing multiple stage and scooter dives and constantly clipping off and unclipping and are running the light under the long hose, the chances are you will either forget once or get sloppy and trap the long hose. This is a really bad situation, because generally you are clipping off a light for a gas switch which is the most common time for an out of gas situation. Most out of gas situations are temporary and are really, I don't have access to the gas I thought I had, please help keep me from drowning while I sort out this situation. When the light cord is over the long hose, it will never get trapped, it will just get twisted over the top of the hose. Guess what, you can still deploy the entire hose and function with your light cord slightly pulled up. Once things are under control, the cord overlap is easy to fix.

 

[BabyDuck]

lynne, you need to update your blog. isn't it amazing how far you've come in such a short time? way cool, and very entertaining. thanks for writing it all down.