Dan
Contributor
After reading this incident; Canadian woman presumed dead - Roatan, Honduras, she was an experienced diver, who went down to the abyss on her 1st dive, I have a greater appreciation on the importance of checkout dive. So, I post the question above to everyone and hoping the discussion would bring attention of the importance of checkout dive, no matter how experienced diver we are, help answer why we do it, when we should do it, where we can safely do it, and what things / actions to checkout.
Here are what comes to my mind as I'm writing this post:
Why we should do it
To me, it is a good refresher of my diving skills. Especially after a few months of not diving, my diving skill can get rusty. Also making sure all parts of my diving gears are working properly, no leaks, etc.
When we should do it
Definitely it should be done on the first dive of the diving trip. I prefer to do it in the morning after a good night sleep. Especially after a long flight half around the world, I'll be tired, muscle stiff, jetlag and dehydrated. A nice dinner & good night sleep before the checkout dive have served me well in the last 12 years of diving.
Where we should do it
All of the dive resorts and liveaboards where I have been in, conduct the checkout dives in their shallow (15-30' or 5-10m deep) house reef or similar sites, where there are no current, fairly good visibility with DM and crew ready to help me if anything goes wrong. My last checkout dive with Galapagos Master was in 20' (7m) deep San Cristobal harbor. After back rolling into the water from their Zodiac, I was floating like a cork with my new thick wetsuit, no air in BCD and what I thought the proper weight in my BCD (14 lbs). I had to swim back to the Zodiac to ask the crew for more weight before I can descend.
What things / actions to checkout
I think the most often thing to checkout is buoyancy, to make sure I have enough weight or not too much. I also check if my dive computer is working properly, no leaks or bubbles coming out of the fittings, PLB case, SPG or hoses, etc. DMs, in general, brief us on sign for thumbing the dive, tank half full, tank empty etc. Tank empty means when you are at 750 psig (50 barg) in an easy dive or 1000 psig (70 barg) in a hard (deep / current) dive. One liveaboard (Mermaid I) DM have asked me to demonstrate how to launch the DSMB. Another liveaboard (Pearl of Papua) DM have asked me to perform mask removal and installation.
What else should we be doing during the checkout dive?
Here are what comes to my mind as I'm writing this post:
Why we should do it
To me, it is a good refresher of my diving skills. Especially after a few months of not diving, my diving skill can get rusty. Also making sure all parts of my diving gears are working properly, no leaks, etc.
When we should do it
Definitely it should be done on the first dive of the diving trip. I prefer to do it in the morning after a good night sleep. Especially after a long flight half around the world, I'll be tired, muscle stiff, jetlag and dehydrated. A nice dinner & good night sleep before the checkout dive have served me well in the last 12 years of diving.
Where we should do it
All of the dive resorts and liveaboards where I have been in, conduct the checkout dives in their shallow (15-30' or 5-10m deep) house reef or similar sites, where there are no current, fairly good visibility with DM and crew ready to help me if anything goes wrong. My last checkout dive with Galapagos Master was in 20' (7m) deep San Cristobal harbor. After back rolling into the water from their Zodiac, I was floating like a cork with my new thick wetsuit, no air in BCD and what I thought the proper weight in my BCD (14 lbs). I had to swim back to the Zodiac to ask the crew for more weight before I can descend.
What things / actions to checkout
I think the most often thing to checkout is buoyancy, to make sure I have enough weight or not too much. I also check if my dive computer is working properly, no leaks or bubbles coming out of the fittings, PLB case, SPG or hoses, etc. DMs, in general, brief us on sign for thumbing the dive, tank half full, tank empty etc. Tank empty means when you are at 750 psig (50 barg) in an easy dive or 1000 psig (70 barg) in a hard (deep / current) dive. One liveaboard (Mermaid I) DM have asked me to demonstrate how to launch the DSMB. Another liveaboard (Pearl of Papua) DM have asked me to perform mask removal and installation.
What else should we be doing during the checkout dive?
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