Tracking your buddy in low vis

[danelen]

Here's a newbie question. What are some tips/tricks for how to keep together in 5-6ft vis without diving on top of one another?

This past weekend me and my brother did some diving in such conditions and I found that, unless I was practically in contact with him, if I looked away for a moment it was sometime hard to find him again. I like to stay close together but I also find that being too close together can be a pain too.

This was my first low vis dive since I got certified but of course my instructor was right with me the whole time that time. I find the low vis diving to be kind of eary but this location is about 5 minutes from my house, set up well for diving and is a great place to work on my skills so I figure I will get used to the low vis if I take it slow and keep diving there.

Dan

 

[DivemasterWill]

Hey Dan -

Being that I do a lot of shore diving in New England in conditions more or less identical to those you are describing (and a lot of times worse), I'll give you my two cents.

5-6 feet is plenty of room for you to maintain visual contact without being "on top of each other." That being said, there are some things that you can do that will help you maintain the contact with your buddy:

One - plan your dive. Agree on compass headings before you descend, and check your compass often, as it is pretty easy to get disoriented, especially when just starting out.

Two - agree before the dive the orientation you will maintain with each other... for example, my wife and I generally dive with her on my left (and therefore me on her right). If you know where to look, it makes it easier to find someone who is at the edge of your viz.

Three - zip-tie a strobe onto your BCD - nearly all of my dive buddies and I have Princeton Tec Aqua Strobes ziptied onto our BCDs, and we turn them on before we descend. Sometimes when you are in a poor viz situation, your buddy will be just on the edge of viz, and you won't see them, but you'll see the water light up where they should be (see item two above) - then you know where to head to re-establish visual contact.

Four - Bright / Unnaturatal colors don't hurt. My wife and I both sport International Orange drysuits with reflective tape on the sleeves and neon yellow fins. While, yes, it is a dashing fashion statement, it serves the additional purpose of making us highly visible to both our staff / students and to each other when we are underwater.

Five - Look a lot - Get into the habit of checking for your buddy every 10 to 15 seconds. Sounds like a pain, but it's not. all you need is a quick glance to know that they are there. It will become a matter of habit very quickly for you, and you really will not miss anything as far as what you see on the dive once you have practiced it a bit.

Mix them all together and all the sudden diving in 5-6 feet will not be a big deal for you, with a little practice.

~W

 

[jbd]

by DivemasterWill. I think the most important thing is the orientation that he mentions. Get in one place in relation to your buddy and stay there. One thing that I do is look for a lighter shade in the water if my buddy and I get a little far apart. This will be the column of bubbles rising when your buddy exhales. Of course this is intermittent so you must move slowly and be patient. Once you see that lighter shade of water then you move towards it and you should find your buddy there.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

The vertical visibility is often better than the horizontal visibility and I agree with the benefit of looking for the other divers bubbles above them. Also scanning carefully and looking for a light or dark spot in the water helps locate a just out of sight buddy. This is where consistently maintaining a relative position to each other can help by limiting the area that you really need to seach carefully.

It also helps to have a plan for the inevitable separation and know what each diver is supposed to do. In my case I normally lead and my spouse is essentially the wingman in our little formation. If I turn to look for her and she is not there, she more than likely stopped briefly for something, cleared her mask, was mistaken for a seal by a great white, etc. My job then is to hold in place a few seconds and her job is to stay the course we were on and then run a short search in the direction I am supposed to be in. This will usually bring us back in contact.

If you look for each other frequently, you don't have very much time to get too far away and a short search pattern is all it usually takes for one diver to find the other. One diver or the other needs to hold position at least initially, as if you both search, you run a greater risk of missing each other and losing your orientation over the bottom.

If we still don't find each other, we do the standard lost buddy thing and rejoin on the surface with a slight modification, she will surface after a brief one minute search and I will hang out a bit longer as more often than not she will see my bubbles on the way up and come back down, or in shallow water will surface and decend the flag line again. Quite often we meet halfway and resume the dive.

I wear very bright green fins as they are easier to see and let me swim a couple more feet before getting completely out of sight. SHe also wears a bright green mask which allows me to look back and often see her a foot or two farther away than I would otherwise.

I use a strobe in very poor vis but I zip tie it to the tank valve or first stage. It's out of your line of sight and given that my buddy is usually to the side and a bit lower, it does not bother them either until they need it. And it is visible for through nearly 360 degrees in that location. (A glow stick can serve the same purpose on a night dive in better visibility.)

 

[danelen]

These are great tips! I really think that agreeing up front who will be where with respect to one another will really improve this for me. I do look very frequently but the problem was looking not knowing where to look was not very efficient. I like the idea of always looking in one spot which, like Aquamaster said, will also make it easier to know where to start looking if we do get separated. Good tips on the bubble locating too. Thanks all! Dan

 

[JeffAustin]

A bright light really helps divers keep in contact with each other. In the Pacific Northwest, it is almost a necessity( OK, in my book, it is a necessity!).

Also, if you dive side by side, with both divers slowly sweeping their lights back and forth, you will not loose contact with each other.

I think that most separations occur when divers are proceeding in a single file manner; the front diver can't see the rear diver, and has to constantly turn to keep track of their buddy, then they start to assume that their buddy is right there close to them. This creates an unbalanced effort, with the "lead" diver constantly checking up to make sure his buddy is still there.

plan your dive.
use a light.
dive side by side.

 

[Raven C]

A little 2 cents.

SeaJay and I do a lot of braille diving. We plan our dive and make sure who is going to be on what side. This depends on compass usage and navigation techniques. Usually he reads the compass. We dive in waters that you can't read the compass unless it is inches from your face and with a light too. We usually stay touching or tie off because if you let go in the dark water with the current you will lose each other instantly.

I am checking into a strobe because I wonder if it would help. But in black water it is important to be able to communicate underwater without seeing hand signals. He have come up with certain signals for direction and often have to take the others hands place them on yours and have them feel the signal much like a blind deaf person would do. To move forward we use the same technique that DIR teachs in an OOA. Take the elbow and direct your buddy that way.

It helps to be very in tune with your buddy. Oftentimes we know what the other is thinking and that comes from the closeness we share and from diving together.

Safety is first and communicating is an important part of staying together in low/no visibility. Inches make the difference so stay that close or tie off a line. R

 

[chiara]

danelen once bubbled...
Here's a newbie question. What are some tips/tricks for how to keep together in 5-6ft vis without diving on top of one another?

There are times I wish I had that much

 

[Wildbill]

A 10-12 foot buddy line attached to our BCs with a snap hook incase we have to release quickly.

Wildbill

 

[Norda]

I believe there are other posts on the board that cite using a buddy line in low viz situation. Are there any safety concerns for using such a setup? My buddy and I recently dived in very poor visibility, probably not much better than 1 foot. We were actually attempting to catch crabs, which required both our attention searching the bottom and quickly moving from side to side. We used a short buddy line (six feet), one end with a loop around my wrist with the other end clipped to her BC. Seemed to work fine, we were only 20' deep on a muddy bottom with no obstructions so we never had a problem getting caught even though we were right on the bottom. If either of us took off quickly the other just followed the pull automatically and caught up. Seemed to work great in this situation. However, I can think of other places where it could be a possible problem with entanglement.

Bill.