No-viz touch contact communication

Lost Yooper asked about touch communication in the light-doubling note. Since it’s another topic I figured I'd start another base note.

LY, you're going to make me write an entire book in here, aren't you?

I’ll give you a straight cave answer. I’m going to also assume that it’s a three-man team and the entire team is on the line. For each diver one hand is on the line and the other is holding the preceding diver’s UPPER leg. You don’t want to hold the lower leg because that’s needed for kicking. You’re also all on the same side of the line.

If you’re all stopped, the tail diver initiates forward motion by shoving forward on the leg of the middle diver. The middle diver in turn shoves forward on the leg of the lead diver and then and only then, the lead diver starts forward. If the middle or tail diver needs to stop, you squeeze the leg of the diver in front of you. If you’re the middle diver and your leg is squeezed, you pass the message on. Of course if you’re the lead and you need to stop, you stop and the folks behind you will get the message.

If you need to back up, you pull back on the leg of the diver in front of you. So if for instance you’re the tail diver and you get entangled in the line and need to back up, first you’d squeeze the leg of the middle diver and they’d squeeze the leg of the lead and you all stop. You’d then pull back on the middle diver’s leg and they’d pull back on the lead and you’d all back up until you squeezed again to stop everyone. You solve the entanglement and give the middle diver a shove and you’re off again.

On the way back if the lead diver needs to switch sides of the line (quite common) you stop, slide your line hand back until it encounters the line hand of the middle diver, grasp it and twist it over to the side they need to move to. The middle diver passes this signal back to the tail diver and you let go of each other (the line hand is going to become the diver contact hand and visa versa) and switch sides. You then regain touch contact and wait for the tail diver to start up again via a shove forward.

About the only thing left is an entanglement problem you can’t solve alone. The hand signal for “line” is crossed fingers, like you’re wishing for “good luck” or you’re going to promise something to someone but you really aren’t going to follow through.

If you can see, entanglement is the line hand signal moved in a figure 8. But in zero visibility you can’t signal that way, so you take your crossed fingers and jam them into the line hand of the diver that could help you most. Then, by touch the other diver does the best they can.

Oh, one more thing. Out of air. Easy. You go to the nearest diver, find their head, then their mouth and simply take the regulator from their mouth. They have their backup slung around their neck and it’s snap for them to go to their backup.

This single OOA example is why the “golden triangle” of having your octo “somewhere on your chest” is a horrible solution for OOA emergencies.

Hope this helps.

Roak

Thanks for taking the time, Roak! That was just fabulous! It was simpler than I thought it would be.

Take care.

Mike

LY,

Please note that these techniques are used to get OUT of no-viz situations. If the viz is that low at the start of a dive, you don't dive.

Roak

Roakey,

I've never done this, so I'm trying to picture it in my head.

If you're holding onto the upper leg of the person if front of you, aren't they whacking you in the head with every fin kick? Even a frog kick seems to have this effect whenever I try to figure this out.

Obviously, you're not moving fast when using this technique, so maybe the kick is not an issue.

Thanks,

Jack

I've been pawning that one over as well. In a wreck, we just pull ourselves along and don't kick at all. Quite interesting.

Mike

Some more points I think worth mentioning. I believe you can hold one's arm as well, which I have done in a wreck, but use whatever it takes to get out of the area with the viz problem, I think maintaining contact is the goal here. Also if you lose viz I would tie off my reel and leave it, do not try to remove the line as you get out you can get all fouled up in the line. Another thing make sure all on the team know the touch and hand signals. Hate to point out the obvious but it is what MURPHY so enjoys to play with.

I learned in my class that you hold the upper arm of the diver in front of you. This way you don't get kicked around. The other 2 divers in my class did the leg holding thing and they ended up in a fight, aborting the drill, and one ended up wearing only one fin. Needless to say if this was a for-real OOA lights out emergency they both would have been dead.

I've seen both the upper-arm and the upper-leg techniques used. I personally prefer the upper-arm technique for several reasons: (here, "gripping arm" means the arm you're using to hold onto or signal your buddy, and "line arm" means the arm you're using to encircle the line)

1. The upper arm is easier to hold, because your hand will fit around it better. The upper leg, being larger, is more difficult to grip.

2. The upper arm is more sensitive than the upper leg, so it's probably easier for the gripped diver to recognize signals.

3. If you grip the upper arm, the divers are necessarily angled somewhat toward the line. Consider the following: if the line is on the right of the passage, the divers are to the left. Each diver's head is closest to the line, with the right hand making the OK sign around the line. Each diver's feet are several feet to the left of the line. The angle between the divers' bodies and the line leaves a nice place for the rear diver to scoot up and use their left arm to grip the lead diver's right arm. The angle provides a nice place for the rear diver to swim in, plus helps reduce the number of times each diver gets kicked in the face by his leader. Being kicked in the face is unfortunately common to all types of zero-vis exits; holding the arm, in my experience, helps it happen less frequently.

4. Your gripping arm will be closer to the line if you grip the leader's arm rather than the leg. In the unlikely event that you lose the line with your own line arm, it's easy to slide your gripping hand down your leader's line arm, find the line in his hand, and get it all back to normal (after stopping, of course). If you were gripping his leg instead, you'd have to feel your way up 4' of torso to get back on the line.

Some would say that these points are fairly minor, but they make the case for arm-gripping for me. In the end though, just make sure all three teammates agree to the method before submerging.

- Warren

LY,

You can get kicked in the head, but use your free hand as a "blocker" and in the end it is all about getting out of the cave.

Eric

That reminds me of the buddy system we use up here regarding bears and hunting. If a bear gets good and pissed, ya trip your buddy and run away. You know, I see this being applied nicely with gater infested Florida caves too ! Who says the buddy system doesn't have some merit, eh?



Mike