What skills to practice?

[sadn3sss]

My buddies and I are just starting to get more serious about diving after getting OW certified. Aside from just regularly diving, I was thinking that we practice a skill or two on each of our dives. I'd love to get comfortable with them before they are actually needed in an emergency.

We're currently practicing proper ascending/descending, performing weight checks on each dive, navigation, etc. We tried doing valve drills but none of us could reach our valves. Can you guys suggest drills/skills that we should be practicing? Something along the lines of mask flooding, don/doff bcd, etc. ..

Thanks.

 

[VR78]

Great that you guys understand the need for formal practice. I would suggest to start by working on buoyancy, balance, and stability. It would help a lot if you had access to a safe platform at 3-6 m which you could use as a visual reference, or a swimming pool. Practice stopping say half a meter above the platform/bottom, positioning your body parallel to it. Can you just hover there for a full minute without finning or sculling? If you close your eyes and continue hovering, will you become head-heavy or head-light? If yes, you may consider rearranging your weights. Once you are stable, ascend by about a meter and stop there. Can you regain the stability? Can you descend back to the platform and stop again without crashing into it? Can you move forward 1-2 meters and come to a full, stable stop?

Mask exercises are certainly helpful as well. Once you have stabilized your position, partially flood and clear you mask. Remove, replace, and clear mask. Can you do it while maintaining trim and depth? I frankly do not see much value in BCD doffing/donning drills, other that increased comfort and dexterity underwater, but others may disagree. I would most certainly recommend to NOT operate your valves underwater at this time unless you are 200% certain that your buddy can and will reliably donate gas in case you shut down all your gas sources. I would probably leave the valve drills alone for now. One thing that may indeed be helpful is the ability to check that your valve is open on land or at the surface. Being able to reach your valve(s) does help

Did your OW class include SMB deployment? Another very, very useful skill to practice.

Goes without saying that your buddy should watch you do the drill and be prepared to help before starting their own drill.

 

[NAM001]

My wife and I do a skill each dive. they range in a number of areas.
sharing air
rescue ascent
shooting buoy
lost mask
lost hose. No biggy with bp/w set up and lanyard hose.
obstacle course (for awareness of where you equipment is) going through hula hoop with out
catching the tank or other gear.
hovering as close to the bottom as possible without silting
compass use

 

[divad]

HERE are some stretches for reaching your valve/valves, posted by TS&M.

 

[Neilwood]

Personally for OW diving, I wouldn't worry about valve drills. The reason technical divers do them is that during penetrations there is a chance that the valve may be rolled off due to contact with the cave/wreck so it is important to be able to operate them underwater to restore your gas and it is important to be able to do that on their own as due to the nature of the penetration that their buddy might not be able to assist. For OW divers with no restrictions around them, virtually no chance of rolling off a valve and a buddy there to assist (with the valve and/or gas) there should be no need to operate them. Also there should be no way you enter the water without them open as that is one of the pre dive checks that you should be doing.

Getting into the habit of doing them is a very good habit to maintain - remember you might not always be diving with the
same buddies. I tend to do the checks for myself before even looking at my buddy ie I quickly run through the checklist (Bangkok Women Really Are Fellas - Buoyancy, Weights, Releases, Air, Friend). If possible try to do it one diver at a time so you can make sure your buddies checks are good (IE you know their checks are done because you have watched them self check).

Skill wise, buoyancy and trim would come very high on my list. Get them nailed early on (to the point you aren't actively thinking about them) and it makes doing other skills so much easier. The other main skills would be the most used ones such as mask clear, mask removal and replace, reg recovery.

One skill probably not practised by a lot of people is dive planning. Both you and your buddy should know roughly what direction you will head out in, what time you are planning (both dive duration & direction changes), what your turn pressure & what pressure you need to start your ascent at. Especially when diving with a larger group (3,4 or more) make sure you have clearly designated buddies.

DSMB - get some practise in with using one (preferably with an instructor, DM or someone experienced that knows how to use one properly).

 

[divad]

I had my single tank valve shut down by a well intended deck hand just before I stepped off the boat and found that I couldn't reach my valve, which sucked. I had to release the waist belt/crotch-strap and pull the valve up and forward to open it.

 

[Jack Hammer]

Work on bouyancy, hovering motionless. Safety stop is a good time for this.

Mask clearing, remove and replace.

Air sharing. Includes locating reg.

Basic kick techniques, try to learn a backwards kick.

Communication, hand signals.

Try to maintain bouyancy and be aware of each other while doing these.

Most importantly... enjoy your dives!!


ps: Valve drills can be dangerous for new divers, especially in a single tank configuration.

 

[Kharon]

The absolute best diver I ever met gave me this advice: "Your card is a learners permit. You need to practice all those skills you were introduced to till you have them down to a conditioned reflex. Do only one at a time till you perfect it before you move on the next. First buoyancy, then trim, then ... And always, ALWAYS minimize your task load."

In other words, limit what you try to do while you are still perfecting your skills. Don't add tasks that make the skills hard to perform till those skills become a reflex. And don't add a bunch of tasks at a time.

 

[Insta-Gator]

Buoyancy, trim, breathing.

You master those three and everything else will be a piece of cake. You can't perform other tasks properly if you are concerned with or struggling to maintain the "big three."

 

[CuzzA]

Some things go without mentioning, like proper weighting, mask clearing. Hell mask clearing is going to come whether you want to practice or not. It's just a part of diving.

There are a few things you can do while on a dive. For instance, during your safety stop practice air sharing. Get it down and then practice "while you actually safely ascend to the surface". Sharing air is easy, maintaining buoyancy and preventing an uncontrolled ascent is what's difficult, especially if one diver doesn't have their whits. Perhaps after a talk about the planned drill with your buddy and once you both feel comfortable each of you can practice controlling both of your BCD's while air sharing to mimic a more likely scenario with one diver not being responsive to maintaining his/her buoyancy as if they were in shock and froze.

Practicing DSMB deployment with a reel or spool is another important skill, IMO. This should be done once you've nailed down your buoyancy control.

Speaking of buoyancy control. Once you're neutral, practice using your lungs to make adjustments in the water and not use your BC.

That said, there's also a couple drills I would practice in a pool first or at a relatively shallow depth, again, once you have nailed down your buoyancy control. Clearing a mask is easy once you've done it several times. Try diving without a mask. A tip I learned on here is capturing an air bubble over your eye by cupping your hand over your brow. It takes some practice, but works amazingly well once you get the hang of it and it allows you to see underwater. This is important, IMO, if you lost your mask or it failed and you also got separated from your buddy. You want to be able to see your depth gauge or computer so you can safely ascend and surface.

I've also recently been practicing ditching my gear in my pool and surfacing while keeping my airway open. Mostly to minimize the time it takes to do it. Donning and doffing to me is not that difficult to spend a lot of time practicing on, but more importantly is being able to quickly ditch your rig and surface.