Leading the tour in poor visibility

[herman]

I often lead OW groups on the tour part of OW checkout dives. First off SLOW DOWN. It never ceases to amaze me how fast some divers go, esp students, by slowing down I keep them closer together and hopefully teach them to slow down at the same time. Wear bright colors. My fins are yellow, not because I really like the color but rather they are a lot easier to see in low vis than black ones. I also use a modified frog kick that is ment to be easy to see. Basically, on the outward stroke I flatten the fins and have their entire surface exposed to the students, not the most efficient kick but it does create a large yellow waving sign in front of the students for them to follow. Look back OFTEN, like every few kicks, to make sure the front team is in sight. If you can tour backwards great, otherwise look back between your legs. It may look weird but it's the easiest way to check behind you. Another good idea, or at least I think so, is to have something on you to distinguish you from eveyone else. Some use a funny/unique hood, I use a school of plastic fish that I take out for a swim during the tours. It's not hard to tell who I am by the yellow fins and the school of colorful fish I have tagging along with me.

 

[tracydr]

I often lead OW groups on the tour part of OW checkout dives. First off SLOW DOWN. It never ceases to amaze me how fast some divers go, esp students, by slowing down I keep them closer together and hopefully teach them to slow down at the same time. Wear bright colors. My fins are yellow, not because I really like the color but rather they are a lot easier to see in low vis than black ones. I also use a modified frog kick that is ment to be easy to see. Basically, on the outward stroke I flatten the fins and have their entire surface exposed to the students, not the most efficient kick but it does create a large yellow waving sign in front of the students for them to follow. Look back OFTEN, like every few kicks, to make sure the front team is in sight. If you can tour backwards great, otherwise look back between your legs. It may look weird but it's the easiest way to check behind you. Another good idea, or at least I think so, is to have something on you to distinguish you from eveyone else. Some use a funny/unique hood, I use a school of plastic fish that I take out for a swim during the tours. It's not hard to tell who I am by the yellow fins and the school of colorful fish I have tagging along with me.

Good tips.
It will be cold enough soon for my brightly colored drysuit. I may add some yellow, reflective tape to the drysuit as well. I've noticed that I can really see the reflective tape on my husband's drysuit from long distances. I wear light, pink fins.
I found even while very slowly frog kicking last weekend that I ended up back kicking frequently. I was amazed at how slow I will need to go! ( I was in the rear)

---------- Post Merged at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:26 PM ----------

Rereading this, I was reminded of my first tour in my own OW class. The viz was pretty poor (and I'm sure I wasn't helping it any) and my instructor had a Light Cannon which was clipped off on one of those phone-cord lanyards. He handed me the light, which a) gave me a way to see something and b) attached me firmly to the instructor. The lanyard was long enough for me to swim as far away from him as was safe for me to do, anyway, and the whole setup was incredibly reassuring.

Now that you mention this, I remember reading about it in your blog.

 

[TSandM]

Yeah, visible things are important in murky water. I have to say that those orange SeaWing Gorilla Nova fins they put on special for teaching staff are darned easy to see! (I'm getting used to the things, to my surprise, too.)

 

[CamG]

Great tips about low vis tours.
Keeping the team together is a must.
We liked to keep buddy teams together swimming off the right wing of the DM or Instructor.
If it was really bad say 8'-10' of vis we would sometimes have the lead student hold onto our left d-ring while the other student maintains touch contact with his or her buddy.
These dives were conducted with students who had demonstrated good buddy skills and navigation skills before any low vis dives would be attempted.

These were training dives but always kept to fun levels as it was our goal to keep it fun but serious at the same time.
Non silting tech. were also covered in our classes OW / AOW / etc. our focus was on fun but safety because causing a silt out is a hazard or so we taught.
We helped students understand that contact with the bottom will happen but the response to that contact makes all the difference in the world.
It was rather successful.

CamG Keep Diving....Keep Training....Keep Learning!

 

[herman]

One other thing, if possible, use bottom structure to your advantage. If you can take your tour by a wall or other bottom contour that limits their travel you can keep other DMs/staff on the outside of the contour, basically pinning the students between staff and the structure. DO NOT use a wall or ledge that has a bottom deeper than you intend to go, adding another direction for them to disappear off into is not a good idea.
In my earlier post I mentioned touring backwards and I realized that maybe I needed to elaborate, I do not mean back kicking but rather rolling on to your back, face up and head remaining in the direction of forward travel. Obviously you need to watch for obstacles so you don't run into them but it is a good way to check the group without stopping. It's certainly not the most efficient position but you can easily see behind you and just as importantly, above you to look for that student that is loosing buoyancy and headed up. If all is good, with a simple barrel roll, you are again in the proper diving position. Depending on the class and conditions, I may roll over every 30 feet or so to make sure everything looks good.