Plan Your Dive & Dive Your Plan

[acelockco]

I understand, I often stay up late in the evening on the computer. I find my typing skills quickly get bad when I start to get tired.

LOL

Ace

[Grateful Diver]

Anyway, great point I think you should always discuss that with your buddy before you dive. I was always told the standard practice was to circle around looking for your buddy for 1 minute. If you don't find him/her then you begin your acent. If you both follow this, you buddy should be at the surface within minutes of you.

About buddy diving ...

There are two main reasons new divers sometimes lose track of their dive buddy.

First off ... when you don a scuba mask, you lose your peripheral vision. All our life, we're used to being able to see "wide angle", being able to detect things on our periphery without having to turn our head. With a scuba mask on, your vision narrows and you have to train yourself to turn your head in order to keep track of what's going on around you. We call this learning "situational awareness" ... it's part mental and part physical, and takes conscious effort at first to learn.

The second reason divers will sometimes lose track of their dive buddy is because you weren't taught proper buddy diving skills. Too often you'll see divers swimming one in front and one in back ... and often the one in back, for one reason or another, will be behind and a little above. This works great for the diver in back ... they can see their buddy just fine. But the diver in front has to be constantly turning around to see if their buddy is there ... and that's a major distraction. If at some point the buddy in the back stops to look at something, the buddy in front isn't aware of it and keeps swimming. Next time he turns around the dive buddy isn't where he expects him to be.

Under most open water conditions, you and your dive buddy should be swimming side-by-side, where it's easy to see each other by simply turning your head a little bit. You should be swimming close enough to be able to quickly get each other's attention, and to be able to reach each other reasonably in an out-of-air emergency. If visibility is poor, you might want to be a little closer together to avoid losing each other. In very poor visibility, a dive light works well to maintain contact. Shine the light on the ground where your dive buddy can see it easily ... if he can see your light, he knows you're there.

In the event of separation, search a complete circle for one minute. Rise up above the bottom a few feet and scan for bubbles ... air bubbles are very reflective in ambient light, and will often be the most visible part of the diver. If you don't find your dive buddy after a minute, initiate a controlled ascent ... keeping yourself safe by making a slow (no more than 30 feet per minute) ascent to the surface. Once on the surface, remain there. If your dive buddy doesn't appear within a three to four minute window, summon help. DO NOT go back down on your own searching for your dive buddy ... chances are he will arrive at the surface a few seconds after you go back down. This can lead to a number of potential problems.

For those who dive in poor visibility, good buddy positioning and swimming slowly will reduce the possibility for buddy separation.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[BamaCaveDiver]

Damn Bob, you have me wanting to take a class with you Very good information there.

[rubber chicken]

Damn Bob, I wish some of my buddies had taken a class with you!

[Grateful Diver]

Thanks ... hope some find my perspective on things useful.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Mountain Dog]

Grateful Diver-

In your first post you mentioned that there is a bit of math involved in developing safe diving plans. I think something that might be helpful in this discussion is if you could spell out the necessary formulas for divers to determine their sac rates and how to apply that number to varying tank sizes and dive profiles.

I have been doing these calculations for every one of my nearly 50 dives, and I'm starting to get a really good picture of my gas usage, which is quite necessary to take dive planning beyond the "go to the fire truck" stage.

I would provide the formulas, except I'm away from my dive books right now and would hate to publish an error. Besides, you're knowledge on this subject is legendary.

Mountain Dog

[hbh2oguard]

also if you and your buddy is spearfishing you REALLY want to be side by side