Why, when & where do we do a checkout dive?

[Dan]

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?

 

[redacted]

Every dve I do is a check-out dive but I do not expect such a dive to prevent a medical incident.

 

[cneal]

My most important checkout dive is in a pool after getting gear serviced before leaving on the dive trip.

 

[Dan]

I do think in her case, had she waited for another day to do checkout dive in the proper dive site for the checkout dive, she could have been rescued. After all, she had 5 week stay there.

 

[tbone1004]

ok, so checkout dives are what we usually call the dives for classes, so for this it would be a shakedown dive.

for shakedown dives

Why? To make sure that you are prepared for an upcoming dive
When? Typically when you have been out of that kind of diving environment for any length of time. I.e. I will sometimes go 4-6 months between cave diving trips because I don't like the heat in Florida. My first dive is a shakedown dive and is usually fairly innocuous. The "size" of that dive may sound big to a lot of people, but it depends on where you came from, and how long you have been out in terms of how far back you have to go. I will do the same when prepping for a big ocean dive, or big dive in cold water etc etc.
Where? Preferably in the conditions/environment that you are planning on diving. I.e. I can't do a shakedown dive in preparation for a big cave dive in a quarry, doesn't quite work. For recreational diving however, even getting into the dive well of a pool is something that should be done before venturing out into open water if it has been a long time since you were last in the water
Things to check? Your gear should be fully checked before you get in the water, no exceptions. This is not to find out if you have a bubbling hose or your bcd has a leak, etc. That is the pre-dive checks that you do before you leave the house if you have your own gear, or before you leave the shore/shop if renting. No exceptions. What you're checking there are all internal things. Do you feel ok, are you comfortable, is there something that doesn't feel right, are you nervous, does everything fit properly if you rented gear *a lot of times it changes in the water*, any specific skills that are involved in the upcoming dive *for me that's usually moving bottles around, blind air shares, etc*.

 

[Dan]

My most important checkout dive is in a pool after getting gear serviced before leaving on the dive trip.

Good point. I did a checkout dive in my LDS "pool" (Mammoth Lake, in Lake Jackson, TX)after receiving my rebuilt regulator.

 

[Diving Dubai]

I'm a big fan of the shake down dive. I know some people don't like them because they feel they're cutting in to their allotted vacation dives.

Generally when asked when I last dive, the answer will always be within the last 7-10 days.
I also never service my kit just before a trip, I like to put at least 10 dives on it to be sure.

However. A a holiday destination I'll generally be using an Ali cylinder, and while I know my weighting to the lb, a sanity check is also good

Just gearing for the dive allows me to make sure everything has survived the journey, and that I have got everything. Despite making lists and checking, sometime somethings not there (I put it down to the item jumping out of the bag rather than me not putting it there)

The shakedown is on the boat or at teh resort. not only do it allow the DM/Guide to assess me, I can do the same to them.

A lot of people often underestimate the effects of travel. People who haven't dived recently are understandably excited, but few take into account the stress of travel, change in diet and of course hydration - often burning the candle at both ends.

I've seen too many people go ill on dives, for all of the above (generally hydration and too much sun are the main culprits. At the best they miss a days diving, in more serious they get taken off the boat.

Hence (generally speaking) a lot of operators schedule the first day of so as easy diving while people get acclimatised.

The one saving grace about living in Dubai is that when you go away in the summer every where is cooler than it is at home

 

[Neilwood]

Did a "check out" dive at the start of my holiday - good reason to as well as the entire group were UK divers and the vast majority had not dived the Red Sea (which is relatively salty even compared to other salt water such as the North Sea), were diving rental AL tanks for the first time and a lot of us had different wetsuits. So trying to dial in buoyancy on a benign dive site was definitely a good idea.

 

[diversteve]

I'm pretty sure AKR does a check off the back of the boat while it's still docked. At least they made us do it on the dolphin dive at the resort - including a mask clear in case it gets knocked off.

We were walk-ins but my group (of 8) consisted of 2 rescue divers (1 works in a dive shop), 1 master diver, 1 active DM, one daily dive guide and one ex-commercial diver. And the dive is only 60' deep to the hard bottom. And they likely knew we'd been diving all week with our shop since they set it up for us. We;re not exactly rookies either most have 10-20 years+ diving - I'm just short of double that.

I believe they also ask resort guests to do one first also if they don't meet a recent dive requirement or other minimum qualification. Because they dive the 2 deeper wrecks off the north side regularly.

IDK what they do when they move the boats south to the temporary dock but since you're shuttled over on a van - it's possible they do also.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I don't mind a shakeout dive at beginning of trip to check weights and gear and make sure my head's in the game but at this stage in my diving avocation, I'd be fairly annoyed with a dm more than half my age insisting I do a mask check. Perhaps that's wrong of me but that's how I feel.