Full Service or Self Service

[SDAnderson]

Setting up your own gear is a good idea, as we've all seen from the posts here. If someone else sets up your gear for you, break it down and set it up again yourself. Then politely ask them not to make the same mistake again. The dive boats that set up for you do so because they think you're too lazy or incompetent to do it yourself. Show them that they're wrong and they'll be happy to turn the work over to you.

But the last thing every diver should do before he leaves the boat is to check every airflow device to MAKE CERTAIN that it works. You can get suprised if all you do is look at your SPG or give your regulator a quick toot. Take a couple of breaths from every regulator. Hit all the inflator buttons long enough to know that it works and that the device is actually inflating.

Dive safe.

Steven

 

[Kaffphine]

I always set up my own gear, because I don't even let other people touch my dive gear. First time anyone else touched my stuff was for a DSD, and my air wasn't completely turned on.... I was fine, but that was the last time anyone touched my stuff.

Once I moved up here (and after half a year), there is an extremely select handful of divers I'll let touch my gear... and that's still conditional on a few things.

 

[wetman]

DivePartner1 once bubbled...
Simply because someone else takes a 'first stab' at setting up your gear does not relieve the diver, or to a lesser extent the diver's buddy, from making sure your equipment is ready for a safe dive.

I don't understand being surprised by valves that aren't fully open at depth, unless the boat turned these off just before the diver jumped in. The diver--and buddy check--should never let anything this basic slip by, particularly if your valves are unconventionally set up.

Once i had already set my gear up with valve turned on, I assumed it wouldn't be touched. My gauge read full as expected before i jumped in and breathed quite well for the duration. I thought it was pretty well explained in the "I didn't see them do it" part of that comment. Had i seen them do it, i would have rechecked and fixed the issue.

steve

 

[otter-cat]

I can hardly imagine letting someone set up my gear without me watching them like a hawk. And afterwards, I'd want to check it all myself, anyway. So it's really less effort and worry to do it myself.

Since I've never been on a "full-service" dive boat, I don't think I'll have to worry about it any time soon. However, if I lived someplace where there were lots of "vacation" dive boats, AND I went diving with the same one regularly enough to get to know and trust the crew really well, I might eventually let them set it up. I'd still check everything thoroughly before getting into the water, though. After all, I'm the one who uses the gear.

In general, I don't want anyone touching my gear, not only for all the reasons mentioned in the previous posts in this thread, but also because I wouldn't trust anyone to be as gentle and careful with my gear as I would be myself. I'd be furious if some member of a boat crew dropped my regulator or something like that!

 

[Spectre]

I'm extremely meticulous in my gear setup and pre-dive checks. If they go and put my rig together, I'm going to have to take it all apart to go through my routine. If there's a mistake, I want it to be mine... and mine alone.

 

[DenverCoJeff]

I understand full service, and appreciate it, but I have my own method of setting things up. If it did get set up by someone else (i.e. Cathie's example) by necessity while I am holding on for dear life, then I would check it when I arrived at the site. Then go over my buddy's gear and have them go over mine and do the standard coverage of equipment familiarization and signals and discuss emergency procedures...

Peace and Bubbles,

Jeff

 

[Dee]

....I don't mind a boat crew switching my BC to a new tank but I will connect the 1st stage and complete the set-up. As was already mentioned, I have a routine for set-up that I follow, whether at our local site or on a dive boat.

 

[scuba-sass]

There is only one person in this world who I would truly trust with my life, and she is the only other person I would ever have set up my gear. This happened to each of us on a recent trip. We always set up our own, but once I was otherwise occupied with a "femminine emergency", so Lydia set up my gear. Later, she was close to tossing her cookies, so I set up hers. In each case, we re-checked our own stuff personally, and completed our usual buddy check.

Happy Diving,

Scuba-sass

 

[KC_Scubabunny]

My husband and I have always followed the self service approach but when we were in Roatan in January, we observed a diver who thought the boat was full service and quickly learned otherwise.

We docked back at the resort after the morning dives and this guy left his gear and tank on the boat and went to get something to eat or rinse off or something. The divemasters brought fresh tanks out to the dock and the rest of us switched out our tanks. The guy who left the dock area arrived back and was chatting with the divemaster for 15 minutes or so before the boat left. When we got back in the water for our afternoon dive, I observed this guy diving very shallow and staying near the boat while the rest of us headed for the reef. I asked him if he was okay and he replied that he was. I went on with my dive but noted that his buddy was proceeding with the rest of the group. Once back on the boat, he was very vocal that he thought the divemaster was going to switch out his tank and that is why he hadn't stuck around when the boat docked. This was a large assumption on his part as this was everyone's first day at the resort and we all went through the same briefing and full service was never mentioned.

Luckily this guy was not an air hog and did have 1200 left in his tank from the first dive.

KC_Scubabunny

 

[DivePartner1]

Guilty as charged, Dr. Lawrence. On Monday I jumped in and hovered at 24 for 5 minutes waiting for buddy and feeling light before I realized--no weigth belt. I'm more meticuous with air and follow your test and purge. The only way to defend what Reef describes--DMs 'helpfully' turning valves without your consent --seems to be to read them the riot act and hope they remember it. I still test breath before I jump in, even if it is sometimes without a weight belt.

Your right about integrated weights. I see divers lose those more than any other equipment erros.