Valve drill

[TSandM]

What is more important, to my mind, is knowing that the people I'm diving with no my issues and I know there's. The way we dive, and what we do, is tailored to suit that.

That's always the bottom line, isn't it? My buddies dove with me for months while I was learning my doubles, and they knew I couldn't reach my isolator. Of course, the dives were easy recreational dives, the same ones we had been doing on single tanks with no redundancy at all, so it really wasn't an issue. But we wouldn't have attempted anything more ambitious until I got the problem solved. So in that vein, notice that Bismark didn't say he wouldn't dive with you. He said he wouldn't go into a virtual or real overhead with someone who couldn't manage his valves, and I think that's a fair determination for him to make.

We all have strong points and weak points in our diving, and as long as we are honest about them, our teammates can make risk assessment decisions as to which, if any dives they are willing to do with us.

 

[AndyNZ]

That's always the bottom line, isn't it? My buddies dove with me for months while I was learning my doubles, and they knew I couldn't reach my isolator.

Always - I'd rather dive alone than dive with someone who doesn't know their own limitations.

So in that vein, notice that Bismark didn't say he wouldn't dive with you. He said he wouldn't go into a virtual or real overhead with someone who couldn't manage his valves, and I think that's a fair determination for him to make.

I wasn't being shirty or offended, but there are genuine reasons why he probably wouldn't dive with me at all! Deep air, solo, sidemount being some of them!

But that's not a conversation I'm intending to open here - wrong place and wrong time...

 

[Belmont]

First I want to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.

I continued my stage-deco training last weekend.

We spent more than 7 hours in the water, real intensive. Up at 7AM last dive finishing at 10PM :shocked2:.

I'm happy to say that I was finally able to reach my valves with the help of you guys, stretch exercises and better positioning of my drysuit before getting in the water .

As far as loosening my belt, my instructor did not reccommend it, mostly for the reasons given here, he said it comes with practice.

So, it's one more thing taken care of.

I'm not taking Fundies but the same kind of DIR training. What is different in my case is that I am progressing at my own pace. It is not a matter of rec or tech pass but an integrated course, when a skill has been mastered we step up to another portion of training. It keeps me interested and it gives a taste of what's ahead.

All this done with safety in mind.