The Journey to Decompression Procedures with Sidemount

[inquis]

You're likely looking down, which often results in yoyoing. Eyes up and things become easier.

Also:
You will want to blip your wing as the next to last step in each process. This keeps your breathing in the normal range.

Lastly, the last pickup step is backwards. You need to exhale (since you inhaled before pickup). Note, you inhale slightly before pickup because you will overshoot the wing addition (in fact, you're counting on it).

 

[Tigerpaw]

You're likely looking down, which often results in yoyoing. Eyes up and things become easier.

Also:
You will want to blip your wing as the next to last step in each process. This keeps your breathing in the normal range.

Lastly, the last pickup step is backwards. You need to exhale (since you inhaled before pickup). Note, you inhale slightly before pickup because you will overshoot the wing addition (in fact, you're counting on it).

BINGO, yep I am looking down focused on the tank. OK great and THANKS, can't wait to try it out next week!!!

Quick question, is it possible to do it with just your lungs or do you have to blip your bcd?

 

[VikingDives]

Need Pointers for Staging AL40

OK, this is the one skill I know I just need to practice but I'm wanting to make sure I get it right. I can take off the AL40 stage it and reattach BUT I am all over the place with my buoyancy.

- Breathe normal, unhook rear bolt snap, unhook chest ring bolt snap
- Breathe normally position AL40. holding it with both hands in front of me
- EXHALE while setting AL40 down. My rationing is I'm losing weight/mass
- Slightly inhale to maintain buoyancy, then breathe normally

To Pick up
- Position over tank, grab it
- Once I have tank INHALE to be positive
- AT this point I attach tank to chest d-ring, then hip d-ring
- INHALE and balance out

So this is what I've been practicing with varied results. IF I am on the right pathway, please let me know, I have no problems putting in the work and being repetitive with it.

Unclip the tank, clip it off on a line or set it down. Hold it with one hand until you adjust your buoyancy back to neutrally buoyant, using the weight of the tank to control yourself until you no longer need it.

To pick up the tank, do the opposite. Hold the tank and slowly add gas until you are neutrally buoyant with the tank off the line/ground, then clip the tank off.

 

[Scott]

- Breathe normal, (Check buoyancy) unhook rear bolt snap, (Check buoyancy) unhook chest ring bolt snap (Check buoyancy)
- Breathe normally (Check buoyancy) position AL40.(Check buoyancy) holding it with both hands in front of me (Check buoyancy)
- EXHALE while setting AL40 down.(Check buoyancy) My rationing is I'm losing weight/mass (Check buoyancy)
- Slightly inhale to maintain buoyancy, (Check buoyancy) then breathe normally

To Pick up
-(Check buoyancy) Position over tank,(Check buoyancy) grab it (Check buoyancy)
- Once I have tank INHALE to be positive (Check buoyancy)
- AT this point I attach tank to chest d-ring, (Check buoyancy) then hip d-ring (Check buoyancy)
- INHALE and balance out (Check buoyancy)

Don't rush the little steps, pause and (Check buoyancy)

 

[inquis]

Quick question, is it possible to do it with just your lungs or do you have to blip your bcd?

While it's possible for an AL40 (about 1/2 liter of air required), it's silly to do so. An AL80 will take more air, and then what? Are you going to breath at the upper range of your lungs for the next 30 mins? You should ALWAYS adjust the wing to enable use of the optimal breathing range in steady state. It's literally why the BCD was invented. You might as well do it up front.

The breath I mentioned on pickup, for example, is only slight, with the lion's share done with the wing. Feel free to skip that for now, as it's a subtlety that can be added later. Do it completely with the wing like this: in, in, in, in (as many as needed), <barely rise while holding the tank>, out.

To clarify, the purpose of that slight inhale is to avoid having to release a bit of air from the wing when you invariably overshoot the addition -- you can exhale to achieve that small/final "out" instead.

 

[J-Vo]

Don't rush the little steps, pause and (Check buoyancy)

"Task, buoyancy, Team"

Repeat this in your head. With each word, that's where you focus should be. Task, put your hand on the bolt snap preparing to pick up the tank. Buoyancy, add a puff to the wing. How does it feel? Team, where is my teammate, do they need assistance? Etc... etc... etc...

 

[Tigerpaw]

Cut the cord as short as possible. I also have my cord tied to the top side of the flange so it's always there on top.

I didn't cut the cord but I wrapped up the excess line and taped everything together so that the dongle is closer to the dump valve. And it WORKED!!! Thanks for the info!

 

[Tigerpaw]

UPDATE

I arranged to dive with a local instructor who teaches DP to do an eval to see where I am at skill wise. I had just gotten off work and away I went to the lake. Upon arrival he looked over my gear and we chatted. I was only wanting to practice staging my AL40 but he decided to run through all the skills, which turned out to be a great decision. I started out doing OK but as time went on I had issues controlling my buoyancy and I was using my arms waaaay to much. When we got to the DSMB portion I fumbled to get it set up, the deploy part went well but I took too long setting it up. At that point I was at the part where we did the simulated deco. Once I started the ascent it was fine but I overshot the 15ft and went to 10 feet. Once we surfaced he asked why and I told him I thought you signaled 10ft. He made the great point of mentioning that we went over everything during the pre dive brief AND the dive plan was on my slate on my arm.

Finally there was the surprise free flow drill at 20ft on simulated O2. I shut down a tank but the free flow kept going and I'm thinking how is that possible. After a few moments I realized hey stupid you have three tanks and you're breathing off the "O2" so I finally cut off the correct valve. While I did a few things correctly overall I did horrible. I didn't understand because my buoyancy is normally good and I've done these drills before with little issues.

During our debrief he figured out my issue was fatigue. I work a 12 hour night shift, so as soon as I got off, I went straight to the lake with no rest and went straight into diving. By the time I got home, I'd been up for 30 straight hours. So the new lesson I learned was not to ever dive again without adequate rest, I was not thinking clearly and my performance showed. As I think back had these been real dives I would have killed myself multiple times.

Next week is the final week I have before heading out to test, I'm going to get some rest and do some practice dives to see how I fare.

 

[halocline]

One thing I noticed about your method for dropping and picking up is that I always clip the bottom of the stage first, then the neck. For unclipping, neck first, then bottom. Definitely use your wing for adjusting buoyancy (you’ll need it for a bigger stage). Someone mentioned adjusting your buoyancy while the stage is clipped to the line; I do that too. And the advice to keep looking up is really important.

I used to do practice dives (still do if I haven’t been in the water for a while) where I take a stage, go into the OW or cavern zone, run a short line, then practice switching/stowing the reg several times, then dropping/picking up several times, then combining the two several times. There are lots of steps, and after each step, make sure you’re looking up, checking buoyancy, and really take time to make each step easy. Usually it’s rushing through several steps where divers get in trouble; you lose fine control over your buoyancy, start fixating on what’s in your hands and looking down, and it goes sideways from there.

 

[Tigerpaw]

One thing I noticed about your method for dropping and picking up is that I always clip the bottom of the stage first, then the neck. For unclipping, neck first, then bottom. Definitely use your wing for adjusting buoyancy (you’ll need it for a bigger stage). Someone mentioned adjusting your buoyancy while the stage is clipped to the line; I do that too. And the advice to keep looking up is really important.

I used to do practice dives (still do if I haven’t been in the water for a while) where I take a stage, go into the OW or cavern zone, run a short line, then practice switching/stowing the reg several times, then dropping/picking up several times, then combining the two several times. There are lots of steps, and after each step, make sure you’re looking up, checking buoyancy, and really take time to make each step easy. Usually it’s rushing through several steps where divers get in trouble; you lose fine control over your buoyancy, start fixating on what’s in your hands and looking down, and it goes sideways from there.

Thanks for the tips. Tomorrow and Tuesday are my last days to practice before I fly out. I'll be well rested, so I'm looking forward to see how I do.