Segue from the smb thread

While drift diving yesterday we briefly (for 20 minutes or so) had a lost diver. Kudos to the captain for his knowledge of the currents and his ability to locate this diver. This diver appeared to be diving solo (planned to stay with the divemaster), but got separated from the group and opted to surface rather than stay at depth. The issue however, was that he didn't carry a smb and had been at the surface for over 50 minutes before we located him and picked him up. So, this diver was a long ways (I think about a mile) from where the rest of us surfaced, had no marker for us find him, and was in a high boat traffic area with no signalling device to alert boats that a diver was in the water. I heard the crew state several times, do NOT enter the water without a smb. This was stated by the captain as we were on our way out to the dive site, and the crew asked more than once whether everyone had a smb. I'm glad that this was just a brief scare for everyone on the boat and that he ended up having no issues, but I hate to think about what could have happened to this guy.

Lucky person.

Starting in January of this year, we have started to include an SMB and whistle as a standard part of our students' "crew pack". Adds a bit of cost to their course, but at least they start off having one of their own.

I was pleasantly surprised to see PADI added it to their OW program.


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I think, if I were a dive op in those conditions, I would politely let the diver know he was no longer welcome on my boats. Lying to the dive op about having a piece of safety equipment, to me, would be enough to be blackballed.

It's one of the reasons I require solo divers to have a card, either PADI self reliant or SDI solo. They are taught and some instructor verifies that they have a SMB and know how to deploy and use it.

Water Weenies don't count as SMB's

Wookie:

It's one of the reasons I require solo divers to have a card, either PADI self reliant or SDI solo. They are taught and some instructor verifies that they have a SMB and know how to deploy and use it.

Water Weenies don't count as SMB's

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I would think that anyone who was ready to solo, with or without a card or even at the beginning thoughts of taking such a course would already be proficient in basic things, like launching a SMB. I will differ, having taken now the SDI course, such courses do not teach one how to solo dive, they merely act as an accesment tool to help the diver/student understand (maybe) what is being undertaken and how to judge one's readiness. The skills, experience, judgment do not come from a canned course, they take many dives in varied conditions and circumstances to develop. No course of any sort can deliver that.

I do not understand "water weenie" as I assume you must then mean one of the larger SMBs intended for underwater inflation (bell mouth or overpressure relief) as opposed to the surface type that are simply blown up. I suspect either would have assisted the captain and crew to locate the errant diver.

In any open water dive or any dive requiring surfacing in areas where there might be boats, for whatever reason or where there are currents that might take the diver away (which is just about every dive I can think of) there should be a SMB/float/spool/whistle and possibly a (small) signal mirror. The diver was wrong to disobey the captain and dive without one, each diver must have their own float.

N

I agree, depending on the instructor and the level of the diver. When I teach the solo class, there is very little teaching involved when it comes to gas switching, gas planning, and SMB deployment if the diver is a tech diver, cave diver, or has 1000 dives or more, then it becomes an assessment of skills and an evaluation of thought processes. Not that anyone's thought processes are wrong, but sometimes I learn things I wasn't aware of before. I sometimes have to teach others gas planning, rule of thirds, redundancy, and SMB deployment. I'm happy to do either.

A water weenie is the little surface float I hand out to divers to blow up when they get away from the boat. To me, an SMB is larger, sticks up farther, and I can see it from the wheelhouse a mile or more away. A DSMB is the same thing, only meant to be deployed from underwater while on the 60 foot stop or so...