SM Essential Skills List

[SlugLife]

What one should practice depends on a variety of factors, including what you wish to improve. Here's a list I'd perhaps suggest:

• Donning an doffing gear "quickly," including in multiple environments (boat, dock, bench, no-bench, etc) You can even do some of this practice at home, and make adjustments (ex: if a certain boltsnap is a pain).
• Clipping and unclipping tanks in the water.
• Regulator switching: Including being able to reliably find and swap regulators by feel alone. Also determining which regulator you have by feel.
• Checking and fixing tank-trim by feel. (non-visual)
• Deploying & stowing any tool or device by feel. If you struggle, try moving the location of the dive, or how the device is attached.
• Valve drills.
• Finning Techniques

-failed bungee [this is awesome and very interesting...I will look into this]

This happened to me once, and it was my fault due to not tying things properly.

I had a bolt-snap tied at the top of the tank so the only real effect was the tank was out of trim for the rest of the dive.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

This happened to me once, and it was my fault due to not tying things properly.

I had a bolt-snap tied at the top of the tank so the only real effect was the tank was out of trim for the rest of the dive.

If I have not used my SM bcd in a while (which rarely happens) I check the bungees prior to kitting up. If I am doing multiple dives over multiple days, I check the bungees at the start of day 1 and then after the last dive of each day. This is also what I teach my students to do so that they can eliminate, as much as possible, the failed bungee scenario.

I use double enders for the top of my cylinders as I hate the sound a boltsnap makes hitting the cylinders on a dive. I take the double enders off on descent and clip them to my drop d-rings. With a failed bungee, I have two options that depends on the type of dive I am doing.

1. Reef dive- I would just grab the double ender and hard clip in and end the dive
2. Wreck penetration- I have a bungee in my pouch with a boltsnap on each end. If the bungee fails, I pull it out, attach one boltsnap to the chest d-ring, pass it around my back and clip the other to the opposite chest dring (going under the armpits), then wrap the bungee around the proper cylinder. Essentially I am making a continuous loop bungee system. This holds the cylinder(s) closer to where they typically sit rather than letting them hang down like hard clipping would do. This allows for a safer exit when penetrating.

The second one is something I teach my students. We make the backup bungee system during the gear setup and fitting and then dial in the length as needed on subsequent dives.

 

[lermontov]

Well, that is the reason for the practicing of these skills...so that the skills are always sharp. In tec diving, I learned about incidents where folks had been excellent beginner divers...spent many years NOT practicing the essential skills...had a minor incident that led to a major accident/fatality because they were not sharp on their skills.

I am very grateful for all the replies and thoughtful insights! I am adding to the list below, please, keep them coming!

-mask removal, replacement including deploying a spare mask
-out of gas scenario, long hose sharing
-removing the left tank and replacing it
-removing the right tank and replacing it
-deploying cutting tools and replacing
-deploying a spare light and replacing it
-regulator switches [tho, I do this a few times each dive anyway]
-gas sharing while swimming
-failed bungee [this is awesome and very interesting...I will look into this]
-reclipping tanks as the drain down and then get out of trim

I mostly dive ccr now but my friends and i go at leat once a month to local lake and practice all kinds of stuff - we have a bunch of laminated cards with problems on one side and solutions on the other that we randomly throw out its a good chance to practice and socialise - we have a BBQ and stuff

 

[Andrew Dawson]

Excellent input, everyone!! Thank you all for your thoughtful contributions!! #teamwork!