suggestions for doing some skills drills?

[Leejnd]

My husband and I are going out on a dive boat to Anacapa Island (SoCal) on Thursday, and I would like to spend the entire first dive doing skills drills. I would like to get some suggestions of a list of specific drills we should plan on doing, so we can go over our list in advance, and plan our dive accordingly.

Background: we both got certified in August, and went on to get our AOW. I fell so in love with diving that I kinda went berserk -- I found a bunch of great dive buddies through this board and other local forums, and have done a lot of beach diving (and a few boat dives) with some very experienced divers, who have helped me tremendously. I'm now at 61 dives, and I've become pretty comfortable underwater.

My husband, on the other hand, while he enjoys diving, didn't get quite as sucked into it as I did . Not to mention the fact that he works full time, and I'm a freelancer, so I've had a lot more opportunities to dive than he has. He's now done only 17 dives.

Here's my concern: the weather and conditions have not been conducive to diving much lately, so we haven't been out in over a month (two months for him). Plus, we haven't really done that many dives together, and most of my other dives were with divers far more experienced than I am. While I'm dying to just get underwater and enjoy the scenery, I think that it would be wise to spend our first dive practicing our basic skills, and learning to be a true buddy team. What I'd like to do is put together a specific list of the drills we're going to do. That's what I would like suggestions on...what should be on this list? In what order? How should we plan our dive?

I've read over and over in here that the way to become a better diver is through practice. I've also read lots of posts about divers doing skills & drills dives, but nothing about exactly how to plan and execute one. My husband and I are trying to do more dives together, and have several great dive trips planned for the summer, so we really need to come together as a buddy team.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[creamofwheat]

First thing's first...that's awesome that you want to do skills dives. So many times we do these skills for our OW class and then never again. What use are skills that we have forgotten? Always good to keep them fresh.

Anyway, the minute you decend, do an Out of Air drill. Both of you playing donor and receiver, meaning...do it twice. Also for fun, try switching masks under water (to make it harder, but more rewarding, do it all neutral instead of kneeling on the bottom). Maybe do a couple reg recoveries, and mask clearings.

As for the buddy thing, best way to become a good buddy pair is simply to dive with that person often. It's really neat when you dive with someone so often that you can predict how much air they have left, and you have left, and be right within 1-200 psi. Stick close and communicate constantly, even if it's asking "ok?". But if you are communicating all the time, it means you are always aware of your buddy. And heck, use touch contact if you want/need. Sometimes in really bad visibility, I'll grab my buddy's wrist, and he mine, and we descend through the muck holding onto eachother. makes keeping track of them easier when you can only see 6 inches in front of your face. But touch contact is good in many other situations as well.

Have fun on your dives with your husband!

 

[Ben_ca]

Mask clear
Mask remove and replace
Reg remove and replace
Regulator switch
Air share


Since this is your first time doing drills on your own I would be careful and try to limit them to ones you are comfortable (and trained in) with.

Here's a couple of tips that may or may not be helpful.


1. Start out on bunny slopes. If you are rusty don't try to do drills when it's rough, deep or unfamiliar.

2. Pre brief the drill. Talk about it... when, how and when to terminate.

3. Preface all drills with the signal "drill" (drilling finger into pal of other hand)

4. Dry run on land if necessary - May apply in your case... if you plan on practising OOA or something you haven't done in a while

5. When/how to terminate drill-OOA to surface or OOA stabilize then call cut drill?

6. Know when to say "Knock it off" the drills shouldn't stop you from having fun.... when it get's too complicated or you are just too task saturated make sure you realize it and save the drills for another day.

7. De brief the dive... see if you can "replay" your dive in your head and talk if over with your buddy... "How was my positioning, how did I do on the mask clear.... ect"

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

I hit the pool between dives! Practice new skills that I pick up and definitely practice old ones! Now that I have been taught to be buoyant and horizontal I practice my breathing and now task loading. Taking off your mask and swimming without it is very hard since the reg bubbles go up your nose. But it is a skill that could save your butt if you do not have a spare mask. The pool is a controlled situation that can help you and your buddy get very comfortable with gear issues and also getting comfortable with how you want to communicate once you get into OW. Don't forget bubble checks. Always good to get you and your buddy underwater and learn to check each other's gear for leaks. Also I have learned to do a buddy check above water before you get in to make sure each other's equipment is set up and is breathable. Remember, your buddy is your spare air! So have a BLAST!

Happy Diving!
Carolyn:sharks:

 

[RoyN]

Here is one skill that is use alot, but use it if you feel like doing something stupid. First step is to press your panic button, run around like crazy and then go up to your spouse, shake him or her crazy, and then run into the water and swim out away.

 

[TSandM]

LeeAnne, the advice to hit a pool is very good advice. If you have access to one, get your husband in there with you and practice the skills Ben lists. That way, you're in very shallow water where any issues with the drills can be easily dealt with safely.

I say this because I've had the experience of being with a couple of very novice divers who decided, after listening to me talk about skills, that they should practice airsharing at about 40 feet on a reef dive -- Predictably, they just about corked doing it. Airsharing in midwater is a learned skill, and most of us were pretty awful at it the first few times.

Go play with the skills in the pool, and then just relax and enjoy your charter dives, or maybe do some simple stuff on your safety stop, like reg exchanges or mask flood and clear. When airsharing in midwater is going okay in the pool or on shallow shore dives, then play with it on "real" ocean dives. JMHO.

 

[xwhitesmokex]

For those using computers, (IMO a digital BT/watch is also a computer, unless using a D - gauge) a good drill to do is making a computer malfunction ascend.
I was taught to not go faster than the smallest bubbles coming out of the regulator.
So with your buddy using his/her computer and you without looking/using yours, check that your ascend rate matches that of the computer based on the bubbles. have your buddy bump check you speed as you go...

At least this is one i was thinking of doing, not particularly taught in OW class, having a computer myself.

 

[Leejnd]

Thanks for all the suggestions! We're going to sit down and plan the drills tonight, as well as reviewall of our underwater hand signals, and go over them again before the dives. We were discussing this last night, and we decided that since it's been a while since we've been underwater, we're going to spread the drills out over the three dives, and do some of them during our safety stops, so we can spend part of the first dive just getting used to being underwater again.

As for the pool, unfortunately we don't have access to one right now -- we will a little later in the spring. So any diving practice we do for the time being is going to have to be in the ocean. That means either the beach, or a boat. And beach diving around here is far more challenging then we'll find off a boat out at Anacapa. Lately the vis around here has been horrible. I've done enough ocean dives at this point that I'm pretty comfortable with it, and he's getting there, and I think doing some skills and drills together will be good for us. I would hope that 61 dives has earned me something! We'll go slow and be careful. Charlie is by nature a very slow, deliberate, painstaking and detail oriented person, much more so than I am, which makes him a great buddy for me to have.

I agree that we should try to do these drills while hovering, rather than on the bottom.

Thanks again!