Attention please

[Tractor Tom]

...buddy a long time, they tend to pay LESS attention to you. My regular buddy Dave and I have about 35 dives together in a little over a year, and I tend to follow him around on many of the dives. Becuse of that, he doesn't check on me all that often. If I need to get his attention, I usually grab one of his fins and give it a tug. When I dive with someone new, I really try to keep an eye on them, and will check frequently about their wherabouts. Other than a noise maker, it's sometimes hard to get your buddy to look at you without touching them. I WILL tap on my tank with a knife or boltsnap if I need to get someones attention from distance. It usually gets them to turn and look for the noise. Years ago when diving in Hawaii, I used to carry a 'hawaiian sling spear' in the water and would tap it on a tank to get folks attention...

Even though I don't like them, a tank banger will grab attention. You can buy em or make em. A chunk of surgical tubing and something solid to snap against the tank is all that's needed. Or in a pinch just carry something that you can tap your tank with.

As I said, I really don't like to make noise. Every time I hear a tank bang, I think someone's in trouble. :11:

 

[justleesa]

I don't thinks it's quite fair to insinuate she has poor buddy habits based on her comment. For all you people know, she may be in constant contact with her buddy but stumbled across a cool little fish and would like to share the find with another set of divers that she has made friends with on the dive boat. Ease up a bit folks...not every post on the board has to chastise other posters for not being a good enough diver. Anyhows...

I usually just give a couple of taps against my tank with my dive knife or a brass clip or something. The sound of metal on metal carries pretty well through the water.

Thanks Zagnut, I always have my buddy in sight!

As said I help guide the group - it's their attention I would like to catch. They are told prior to the dive, if you want to see something, stick with the guide. Then I've seen the divers go out on their own, never having been at the dive site before..they just can't know the hiding spots of some of our regular critters. Then on the boat I hear so many stories of how a dive sucked on other vacations because they didn't see anything. I don't want that to be said when they dive with me. That is what a dive guide if for, isn't it?

 

[HammerNoMore]

As I said, I really don't like to make noise. Every time I hear a tank bang, I think someone's in trouble. :11:

I agree. I've had an overwhelming desire to throttle "overbangers" on several occations. Don't even get me started on sub-ducks and hammerheads...

However, if you do insist on making noise underwater, I prefer the sound of a rattler to a tank banger. The noise is less abrupt and, at least to me, easier to get a direction on. Also Ikelite makes a clicker which looks to me to be a standard training clicker. I've never heard one underwater but its size is nice. You could probably just go down to petsmart and buy a standard clicker for less to do the same thing.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I don't thinks it's quite fair to insinuate she has poor buddy habits based on her comment. For all you people know, she may be in constant contact with her buddy but stumbled across a cool little fish and would like to share the find with another set of divers that she has made friends with on the dive boat. Ease up a bit folks...not every post on the board has to chastise other posters for not being a good enough diver. Anyhows...

I usually just give a couple of taps against my tank with my dive knife or a brass clip or something. The sound of metal on metal carries pretty well through the water.

I didn't notice any chastising.

you're right the poster might be talking about getting another buddy teams attention.

You're also right that sound carries well under water. So wee in fact that you can't tell what direction it's comming from. So...when they hear all this tank banging how are they to know where it's comming from or who?

 

[MikeFerrara]

...buddy a long time, they tend to pay LESS attention to you. My regular buddy Dave and I have about 35 dives together in a little over a year, and I tend to follow him around on many of the dives. Becuse of that, he doesn't check on me all that often. If I need to get his attention, I usually grab one of his fins and give it a tug.

When I have students that do this I'll often stop the diver in back to see if the lead diver will swim off and leave him. Sometimes in the middle of this I'll call for a air sharing excersize. I can't help it I'm always looking for openings like that to make things more interesting. It make for great debriefings.

 

[billseamon]

In Yap the dive master had a short piece of PVC with a couple of marbles inside with end caps on it. They could shake it like a rattle.

If Fiji the dive masters had a piece of 1/8" stainless bar that thy used to point things out, they also used it to bang on their tank to get other divers attention.

One of my dive buddies have the air powered noise makers that sound like a duck underwater. As long as he doesn't overuse the thing, it's not bad.

 

[dweeb]

a dive knife works nicely for this

But a spear gun is more selective of whose attention you get, cause you can aim it

 

[H2Andy]

:rofl:

 

[Tractor Tom]

When I have students that do this I'll often stop the diver in back to see if the lead diver will swim off and leave him. Sometimes in the middle of this I'll call for a air sharing excersize. I can't help it I'm always looking for openings like that to make things more interesting. It make for great debriefings.

...but Dave and I are a couple of OLD guys who are a long ways away from training and some of that stuff tends to go away. Late last year, I tried to institute a 'buddy check' with Dave, before we went into the water. Sometimes we remember, sometimes we don't. At Gilboa a couple weeks ago, he forgot something on every one of the first three dives! Fins, gloves...little stuff but I yucked it up at his expense and he just shook his head and grinned!

I may try hanging back a bit on one of our next dives and when he notices I'm not with him, give an OOA signal and see what happens. I expect he'll swim up to me and hand me the reg from my pony!!!!

 

[Zagnut]

..and I also don't like when other folks computer keeps beeping at them underwater, but a bang or two during a dive doesn't really rile me. I think if I were extremely sensitive to tank bangers, I wouldn't dive with groups... or at least I would stay pretty far away from other buddy groups to eliminate, or at least minimize the severity of the volume of the banging so I wouldn't get so worked up over it.

So...when they hear all this tank banging how are they to know where it's comming from or who?

I just give a quick glance at the other buddy teams. If, say, three other groups are either ignoring the sound or looking around as well, and someone in the fourth buddy team is motioning or pointing...I figure they are the one doing the banging...maybe not foolproof..but close enough for rock n roll.
Like you all, my buddy's attention is the one I'm primarily concerned with. I usually don't sweat it too much if I miss something on a dive that somebody else sees. I figure, yeah, maybe I missed what they saw, but they missed what I saw...or vice versa. I just dig diving.

If someone is clicking because they are in trouble, that's what their buddy is for. Now don't get me wrong on this, if I see another buddy team, or a diver that is not my buddy, in trouble, I will do EVERYTHING in my power to help them or assist in any way I can,... BUT, I am not an instructor or a dive master, and their safety is their responsibility, not mine. My responsibility is my buddy's safety, so thats where my main focus is. I do keeps tabs on other buddy teams when I dive with a group, but I don't spend a whole lot of time keeping watch over other buddy teams.

When I have students that do this I'll often stop the diver in back to see if the lead diver will swim off and leave him. Sometimes in the middle of this I'll call for a air sharing excersize. I can't help it I'm always looking for openings like that to make things more interesting. It make for great debriefings.

This is directly related to buddy teams..a sort of pop quiz for a student's buddy. This is a really good idea. These are the kinds of things that you do Mike, that tells me that your students get their money's worth when they hire you for training.