New equipment familiarization?

The wife and I are going to the local pool this weekend to try our new gear. She bought a Diva BC and Atomic Reg, and I bought a Malibu BC and Atomic Reg. This is my first back BC, and our first personal equipment (non-rental).

We have two objectives:

1. make sure everything is working OK.
2. familiarize ourselves with the new stuff.

What should we do while in the pool? I'm trying to put together a checklist.

1. experiment with weight position (how do I do this?)
a. try back swim
b. try upright floating
c. try hovering upright and supline
2. exercise all bc valves, become familiar with pull-cord locations
3. practice switching from primary to safe second.
4. practice floating on surface upright (especially for my malibu back bc).
5. practice getting neutrally buoyant, and hovering in different body positions

What am I missing? Anything big? Thanks for any input.

Try everything with your eyes closed. Practice until you can find and manage everything with no vis. That is the biggest advantage for me with my gear. I haven't changed my gear configuration in years because I can manage everything blind folded.

What are your diving profile? While testing in pool is useful, there is certain limitation on what you can do. I would test out the equipment first, making sure everything actually works. After, familarize with your gear, dump valves, etc. Then I would take it out for a spin in the real world. The first few dives should be relatively shallow (30 - 40), since you want to dive a few more times. Try to maintain bouyancy at different depths. After that, enjoy the dives.

Scottri:

Try everything with your eyes closed. Practice until you can find and manage everything with no vis. That is the biggest advantage for me with my gear. I haven't changed my gear configuration in years because I can manage everything blind folded.

Click to expand...

I get the mental image of Luke Skywalker with his helmet on and the eye shield down, sparring against the little drone robot while Obiwan looks on...

1. experiment with weight position:
Basics can be done in pool for trim. Actual OW dives will teach you where (and how much) it REALLY needs to sit.

a. try back swim:
Why? Unless you are going into overhead (single file even) environments, dont try this yet (it is a good skill to have, but not sure it is needed at this point and could frustrate you). First get very good buoyancy and trim. Backward finning sometimes pulls people up..... with not so good buoyancy.....

b. try upright floating
c. try hovering upright and supline:
you mean neutral buoyant right?...... buoyancy control.

2. exercise all bc valves, become familiar with pull-cord locations: yes! Know where you can dump gas from

3. practice switching from primary to safe second: yes, but make sure your buddy watches you, so that in case you do not make the switch, your buddy can assist.

4. practice floating on surface upright (especially for my malibu back bc). yes, a lot of people inflate too much........this puts them on their back or face down at the surface...

5. practice getting neutrally buoyant, and hovering in different body positions: The only real position to be in is horizontal, with good trim, you will feel at ease and breathing will go down.

Additional things to think about: cutting device, SMB (and practice using it), lost buddy protocol, lost boat/long time before pick up (bring a bandana for these cases to cover head from scorching sun)

Have fun and be safe!

We did the same thing after we got our gear. I am really glad we did. Not only did we get familiar with the gear we knew everything worked. On our first trip with the new gear (Coz) the second day out on the boat there was a person there from Germany also with all new gear. He had not tested it yet and guess what, his regulator did not work. If he knew this before he went out the dive operation would have set him up. Instead he got to sit on the boat all afternoon while we did both dives.