Skills to practice on limited time schedule?

[heliflyer]

While reading another thread a thought accured to me. My wife and I have just purchased some new gear and this coming up Sunday we will check out the gear in a local pool with the good folks from our local LDS who we also recieved our OW certification. Now my wife and I have not been diving in a year and we are newbs(as I also am to this forum).Well I figured since we hav an opp. to be in the water we may take advantage and work on some skills, if you guys and galls had this opp. what skills would you want to work on? Mind you we have a limited time at the pool, maybe a couple of hours. Note: the pool is 14ft. We have a couple of dates planned to local quarries(sp?) before going to Cozumel for are 5th aniversary(no kids this time,Yea ) so what do think?
Lanny

 

[TSandM]

You could start by getting a handle on your weighting -- Once you have it in the pool, it's an easy calculation to adjust for salt water. At the same time, you can check and see if you can hover in a horizontal position -- in other words, are your weights distributed correctly.

Mask skills and air sharing drills are also good skills to keep sharp. Air sharing drills make sure that you know where all your equipment is and how it's secured and shared, as well.

 

[stevenq99]

Not much to see in a pool but I like to practice buoyancy control.

 

[PerroneFord]

Buoyancy, safety skills, mask clearing/removal/replace, and clean finning technique. If you learned how to dive in proper trim, try to work on that.

I spent HOURS in the pool last fall just learning to ascend, descend, fin around horizontally, turn around in place, and attempt to STAY STILL. Believe me, if you can manage your basic skills in a 5-6ft pool, doing them in the open water will be a breeze.

 

[Vayu]

I would say the most important aspect to focus on is your pre-dive planning and buddy checkouts. Make sure you and your partner can communicate underwater. If you have been away from SCUBA for awhile, make sure you can get comfortable in the water. The last thing you want is one of you to be in the water in a foreign country if you are not comfortable or not sure about the gear.

If I were planning a trip to Cozumel, I would look into ways of storing and deploying surface marker buoys. Alot of diving there is drift diving and chances are you will want one.

 

[TSandM]

Yes, but pre-dive planning and gear checks can be practiced elsewhere . . . you have to make constructive use of limited pool time, and that means practicing what you can only practice in the water

 

[Vayu]

Practice being still in the water :14:

 

[Walter]

My first question is what gear is new?

In general, I agree with TSandM

1. Weighting
2. Buoyancy
3. Mask clearing
4. No mask breathing. Take turns swimming around for several minutes at a time without your mask.
5. If you know how to buddy breathe, practice it till you have it down, then practice octo breathing - doesn't take much practice. If you don't know how to buddy breathe, skip it and head right to octo.
6. Practice your kicking techniques. Avoid the flutter kick, work on frog, scissor and dolphin kicks. Practice swimming with one fin. If you haven't learned it yet, it's time to learn helicopter turns and the reverse frog (for backing up).
7. Have fun and start diving more. Don't let yourself go more than a month without diving.

 

[wunat]

Others have made some good suggestions. With all those skill practices, also make sure you are comfortable in the water.

 

[heliflyer]

Thanks for the tips.Basically practice all skills we worked on OP certification nad maybe if time allowed bouancy.
Walter, new equip., Oceanic Delta 4 regs and VEO250 navcon console and SubaPro Guide PLus BC. We already have mask,fins,snorkel and wet suits(3mil)all these items are SubaPro.
We are planning a couple of local dives this sprong and summer before we go back to Coz,we were there diving a year and a half ago and loved it.We logged 8 dives each while we were there including swim throughs and two night dives(those were awsome). So we are looking forward to our return trip Aug. 5th-12th.