What's your entry look like?

[CamG]

Yeah it can get ugly when you have to roll off or worse yet do the straight leg side entry.
I have had some really good entries / exits in smooth or rough waters and some train wrecks.
It really has been pretty versatile allowing me to gear up different ways for different boats.
One had a walk through transom and I geared kneeling on the tag line, stood up side stepped through the transom them put my fins on and stepped off.
I have in good conditions snapped tanks off on down line but in rough exits leave them on with fins clipped off on my rig.

This last season getting on and off a boat was a killer in my BM 108's as you had to step over the transom and it was rather high for a 30 in. inseam.
It made for a rather uncomfortable night with plenty of Advil!
This particular boat was difficult for SM divers as well but it seemed to be a tad bit easier than the big BM'ed doubles.

I have been spoiled by SM off my buddies boat and Florida Caves so it is always fun to mix it up a bit on a strange boat.

CamG

 

[Dive-aholic]

Are you saying you do this while sitting on the bench, one tank on each side of you, or are you standing on the floor of the boat with the tanks on a bench in front of you at about knee height?

Sitting on the bench.

---------- Post added March 5th, 2014 at 07:21 PM ----------

So if you were on a charter boat like this one in South florida.....how would you get in the water quickly from being at the bench sitting, to being told to move to the platform with 3 to 4 other divers in a wave being dropped....say with there being 3 waves that would get separate drops to the same bottom site....and when your wave of divers is up, you each move up to the platform, and then jump in on the DIVE, DIVe DIVE command....You might be standing on the platform for 20 seconds to 2 minutes, as the boat runs a course to provide you with the perfect drop point for you trajectory to the bottom site desired. When the Dive command is given, a GOOD diver is in the water the instant the Word is out of the captain's mouth.....and should be 20 feet down and moving down at a good pace in a couple of seconds from the command being given....ideally, you are already swimming down, the moment you hit the water....Easy if you can dive in with your chin tucked, or if you do a giant stride with a 180 degree twist to back flop on entry, then with negative entry you can be swimming down from instant one after impact with water. Bad form, is any kind of giant stride where you pop back up after impact with the water, then need to do ANYTHING on the surface other than get head down and feet pushing you down
See View attachment 179046

I'd likely be in my rebreather... It's all about the right tool for the dive.

But, yes, I could do a negative entry off a moving boat in sidemount. It's rare for me to do a positive entry even when tied up. When I'm ready to get in the water I'm ready and I drop.


Where do you dive out of? I'm down in S. Florida a few times a year. I will warn you that we've been blown out every time I try to dive out of the West Palm/Boynton area though. I'm still waiting to do some dives there.

 

[danvolker]

Sitting on the bench.

---------- Post added March 5th, 2014 at 07:21 PM ----------



I'd likely be in my rebreather... It's all about the right tool for the dive.

But, yes, I could do a negative entry off a moving boat in sidemount. It's rare for me to do a positive entry even when tied up. When I'm ready to get in the water I'm ready and I drop.


Where do you dive out of? I'm down in S. Florida a few times a year. I will warn you that we've been blown out every time I try to dive out of the West Palm/Boynton area though. I'm still waiting to do some dives there.

My preferred boats are Narcosis and Wet Temptations.....As to preventing blown out weather...it helps a lot when you live here and only plan on going out when the weather is already good
But....If you can make some flexible plans....and only decide to dive if the weather is good for sure....this should not happen again.....this last year may have been the worst ever, though the last month has been pretty flat, even though still winter--so maybe we are due for a flat summer like we always used to have....

Let me know when you would want to try a trip here.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Weather was decent but wind was pretty bad. We were down for a week this past summer and tried 3 days to head out but were called off all 3 days because of the waves. No big deal as we were down visiting family anyway and just wanted to get a couple of days of diving in. We just spent more time with family. We'll be back in the next 2-3 months and I'll let you know.

 

[Subcooled]

I don't do boat dives. My water entries are usually either walking entries or on my knees. Sometimes I sit on the edge and then enter water. Below you can find a complete account of my entry protocol in full detail.

Preparations on land:
1. analyze my gas, attach regs, pressurize slowly, listen to the valves, check pressures, close valves, leave pressurized
2. put on the drysuit and the harness (&suit gas system if needed)
3. gauges, lights, knifes, reels, spools, ... all the little things
4. dry gloves (or wet gloves when possible)
(...time passes...)
5. open cylinders. Listen to the valves.

Preparations in shallow water (if possible, else on shore):
6. attach cylinders, bottom clip first, bungee then
7. route the hoses and clip regulators to neck bungee
8. attach the bcd hose (and drysuit unless it's attached already)
9. check that cylinders are open, regs work (several breaths under water), and check suit & bcd inflation and dumping (all dump valves)
10. fins, masks, put on a helmet where needed, lights on
11. stage cylinder, if needed. Also check its reg under water.

Check in deep water
I will enter deep water only after making sure that the bdc, suit and regulators work
12. gather the team
13. discuss the goal(s) of the dive, who does what, procedures and signals [one more time]
14. check equipment: regs, buoyancy, gauges, other
15. agree on max depth, turnaround time and pressure, decompression plan
16. check that the longhose is free and check for bubbles
17. rest a while (e.g. after swimming)
18. is everyone ready?
19. dive

If I need to walk from a dive site to the next then I will take off my fins in the water, and put them on once again in the water. I will also remove the mask while on surface. In deep water I will NOT remove cylinders before ensuring ample buoyancy. Usually this is not a problem as I often have a suit gas bottle on my belt.

 

[TTPaws]

Not trying to hijack or anything, but does anyone dive with an argon bottle for the drysuit. I have one of the DUI 6cuft with the velcro straps that goes around one of the tanks. When I enter the water I don't even notice it on my back.

 

[Subcooled]

Yes, a 1 litre 200 bar steel bottle of air. I have no need for argon as I'm only spending and hour or so in +2C. It's incredibly small and unnoticeable. I have sewn a 2 inch wide flat webbing loop and attached that on the side of the bottle. I can then thread the bottle on my belt (just like a canister lights battery). A small clip fastened by bungee on the bottles neck clips to my harness (I attached a second low profile D-ring a bit lower). A simple loop of bungee around the shoulder strap finally pulls the bottle close to the shoulder strap.

The grey and black thing is a waist belt. The black webbing to the left is a chest belt (proved to be needed with this wing). There are two bungees here: one for the clip and also one simple loop. The clip is for land operations. The loop is enough while submerged. The 1st stage is Apeks DS4 (it was around) and the drysuit hose makes an U-turn around the bottle.

Just add a second stage to make it a full dive kit for many minutes of submerged fun - look: it even has an SPG

 

[Dive-aholic]

I've used an inflation cylinder on occasion, mainly when I'm doing deep dives with high helium content. I don't like having anything attached to my sidemount cylinders. Makes it more difficult to push the cylinder forward when needed. I attach my inflation cylinder much like a top mounted stage with a slight difference since the cylinder is so small. The top clip gets attached to the chest D ring and the bottom clip gets attached to the butt plate rail. The cylinder lays snugly in the crook between my sidemount cylinder and my back.

 

[cyberdiamond]

Had to do a BIG leap to clear all the rocks

 

[canadianoid]

Had to do a BIG leap to clear all the rocks

View attachment 179490

You don't leap like that. You leap like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdQ8LZtXlL0