Donning Fins After Boat Exit

[AfterDark]

When shore diving sometimes I am able to walk into the water fins in hand and put them on in chest deep water, but those are the only times.

I dive from one boat, private, where the ladder can only be used finless, that is ponderous.

 

[TSandM]

Shore diving in Puget Sound, we almost ALWAYS walk in with our fins in our hands, and our masks on the backs of our heads (or in the fins), and most of the time with no regulator in the mouth, either. Again, it's a very predictable environment. You'd be as likely to be hit by a rogue wave in most Puget Sound dive sites as to discover your tanks miraculously transmuted into 18/45.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

My routines make me comfortable that I am not forgetting things - like going down the checklist. One routine that I have is to put my fins on prior to hitting the water or as AfterDark stated on a shore dive - waist deep or chest deep depending on the surge or current.
I don't see a benefit to changing the routine in jumping out of a boat without my fins on - I generally grab the geriatric line and fin to the anchor line or start my descent depending on the current. It just seems like I would be wasting gas on trying to put on my fins in the water while making sure I don't float away from the boat/anchor line.
Can it be done - sure - but I don't see the benefit... I like my routines and unless I find a significant benefit to changing my routine I prefer to put my fins on prior to the splash.

 

[jadairiii]

.....With fins in-hand, I'm fully prepared to dive - I'm just not fully prepared to propel myself .....

To paraphrase "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", this is obviously some strange use of the word prepared that I wasn't previously aware of.

 

[Max Speed]

Commercial divers worldwide jump in without fins. On scuba board....it'll kill you.

 

[Redshift]

Don't really see the point in jumping from a boat to the water without the fins on. In some situations I don't see why not, if someone wants, but I don't see an advantage.

Entering the water for a shore dive is a different thing, in many places it's impossible to walk to the water with fins on.

As for getting back to the boat, sometimes it's possible to do so with fins, other times it's easier without. I've seen some people not liking me taking off my fins before pulling myself to a RIB without ladder, but I can easily do it and it's much easier to go over the side float without them.

 

[Insta-Gator]

I slap my fins on right before splashing (thanks inventor of spring straps). I don't walk across a boat deck with them on.

Agreed. Spring straps are the best.

 

[jadairiii]

Commercial divers worldwide jump in without fins. On scuba board....it'll kill you.

Commercial divers also have topside personnel, attached to an umbilical with comms, chamber on board, qualified capt running the boat, etc. So what is your point?

Clearly some of you don't grasp that the 2 most dangerous times for a diver is when he/she are just entering and just exiting the water. At that moment you are the most vulnerable to injury and death from the very boat that brought you. There are a lot of commercial dive boats that still refuse to kill the engines when divers are entering and exiting the water on drift dives and others that feel the need to tie in stern first to drop divers, all of which put the divers at risk. Without fins to propel yourself away from these crayon eating idiots a diver could be seriously hurt or killed, very quickly. Just talk to some of these dive boat "captains" for more than 5 min and you would not let them operate a stapler much less a 30,000 pound dive boat! Lots of dive boat captains out there, very few good ones.

A little common sense goes a long way, just think it through.

 

[AfterDark]

Commercial divers worldwide jump in without fins. On scuba board....it'll kill you.

Sometimes with weights on their boots too!

 

[beester]

Depends on the situation:

Shore diving: Stepping in the water /surf with fins in hand or clipped off on the manometer. When I get about chest level in, put the fins on (springstraps).

Boatdiving: depends on the situation and the team. Current, wave and wind action (fetch), rolling and stamping of the boat, if we drop from an anchored boat or drifting to a dredged buoy, experience of the team, etc. This saturday I'll be taking a guy on his first North Sea wreck dives... so he's going to drop in fully set (mask on, wing inflated, reg in mouth and fins on). With an experienced crew I've dropped in stage/scooter and a fin in a hand, mask clipped off, hood pulled back knowing there was a lot of current. It doesn't matter if you act fast (put on fin, clip of stage) and start slowly finning against current. Having your hood off and mask still of helps with situational awareness in some cases (you hear and see better). This is North Sea and Medditeranean wreck diving.

Good trick if the boat is rolling badly is to put 1 fin on... and keep the other off... you'll have more stability and still have at least 1 fin on when you hit the water, saving time.

So it all depends on the situation... in any case things like valves shut, wing not working, etc are checked as a group before hitting the drink as a group.