If you're diving a wall or reef, just watch the fish at 5 meters as you are still diving. Watch your air and depth however.
SMB deployment question
- Thread starter razorseal
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If you're diving a wall or reef, just watch the fish at 5 meters as you are still diving. Watch your air and depth however.
sunshower
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You can deploy it deeper or just practice from 15' - 20' a bit more and do it there; just takes a bit of focused practice.
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I do at least a 3 min SS after my no stop dives, even if my SurfGF shows I'm below my desired surfacing GF. I prolong my SS to lower my surfacing GF to where I want it. No guessing anymore.
L13
Contributor
There is no debate about more SS being better, there is debate about how much is enough.
Only do what you think is just enough when there is a good reason not to do what you think is more than enough(emergency, etc.).
I find it best to deploy a DSMB from about 30 feet at the shallow end. Dump your BC and got a bit negative as you prepare to deploy. Make sure the spool is free, and inflate. If you are ascending straight up from terrain at a greater depth, deploy before you leave the bottom.
If you are diving from boat, be sure to discuss DSMB's with the captain or crew. Some crews might consider a DSMB popping up to be an "incident" so make your intentions clear before the dive. In other locations, popping a DSMB might be highly recommended due to boat traffic or surface swell.
On this dive, the capt wanted us to deploy SMB (or just inflate at surface) so he can see you better and come get you on the drift dive.
I could have made it easy for myself and just inflate on surface, but I figured inflating submerged would give me some much needed practice on deployment. I've practiced deploying from bottom on beach dives just for practice, but this is like 15-20 feet at the bottom. I hadn't done it on a 80-90 ft dive before, so these questions arose.
other issue I had was, I looked and my smb wasn't standing (just on it's side floating) so I put tension on rope to stand it, which caused me to go ascent (like climbing a rope) I also had some air in BC still, which didn't help. I will have to remember to dump some air next time.
I later realized the SMB doesn't have to be standing. just being on surface is good enough for you to get noticed (I saw other diver's SMBs when I was on surface)
I should add everyone had red SMBs, and the one person who had a yellow one was more noticable...
The Chairman
Chairman of the Board
Extending your underwater stay by 2 minutes allows you to continue to safely offgas and minimize the after-dive sleepies.
I've absolutely found the same. Extending my safety stops and doing a SLOW ascent from the safety stop to the surface at the end of the dive go a long way toward minimizing post-dive fatigue, also known as "sleepies" according the Pete!
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