It's just a drill, or is it?

[Arnaud]

The poll is only half of the question.

The other half is for experienced divers. I'm interested in the way you regularly practice some drills with your buddy, if you create scenarios or push the envelope to try and simulate a stressful situation. Please provide as much details as possible.

 

[Big-t-2538]

I guess technicall we 'drill' on every dive by doing pre-dive, buddy, and constant equipment checks.....but I don't consider those drills, those are more of a habit.

As for drills (OOA, exits, submerged & unconscious, tired, stressed out diver, etc.), we help with the AOW and BOW classes, so we practice & demonstarte them once every month (give or take)

 

[wb416]

Arnaud once bubbled...
The poll is only half of the question.

The other half is for experienced divers. I'm interested in the way you regularly practice some drills with your buddy, if you create scenarios or push the envelope to try and simulate a stressful situation. Please provide as much details as possible.

Each Dive (I'm not saying we haven't missed a time or two):
Equipment Checks
Bubble Checks,
S-Drills,
Each person can pull at least one OOA at any time during non-"Game Day" dives,
Valve Drills,
Horizontal ascents with deliberate pauses/stops every 10ft

Practiced as targeted/discussed:
Shoot Bag,
touch contact single file OOA,
Line running practice,
Backup mask useage,
"Blind" Horizontal Ascents w/o mask and buddy contact/guidance.

That's what I can think of for the moment. For us, almost any dive is a skills dive.

 

[Arnaud]

cwb, can you please elaborate on :

Bubble Checks
S-Drills
Horizontal ascents with deliberate pauses/stops every 10ft
touch contact single file OOA,
"Blind" Horizontal Ascents w/o mask and buddy contact/guidance.

Thanks!

 

[Lawman]

practice our drill. We go to 60 feet and one
of us yells "FIRE!!". We all get in single file
and do a controlled ascent.

You can never be too prepared!

:wacko:

 

[wb416]

Arnaud once bubbled...
cwb, can you please elaborate on :

Bubble Checks
S-Drills
Horizontal ascents with deliberate pauses/stops every 10ft
touch contact single file OOA,
"Blind" Horizontal Ascents w/o mask and buddy contact/guidance.

Thanks!

For us, it means this:
Bubble Checks: Each person looks the other person over (while in the water) to look for any signs of leaks on hoses, fittings, regs, inflators, etc.

S-Drills: Technical, we do more of the modified S (Safety) drills. Each person deploys their primary to ensure that it's deployable (nor deplorable . Common problems can be drysuit inflator connected over primary hose, light cord routed over primary hose, extra hose tucked and snagged or trapped on something. We do it in the water, and this also ensures we can put everything back. Basically, ya wanna make sure that you can donate when called upon to do so.


Horizontal ascents with deliberate pauses/stops every 10ft: Main emphasis for us is controlled ascents and ensuring that we stay even with buddy, ready to assist, or watch their back as needed.

touch contact OOA Single file travel OOA with touch communication transmitted by hold buddy's arm or possible back of knee.

Blind Horizontal ascents: Trust and confidence builder with team members that if you lost your mask, you could accomplish a controlled ascent with your buddy communicating "up/down" signals and learning to "read" your ears better for depth changes.

I don't know if that was what you were looking for, but that's some of the stuff we do.

 

[Arnaud]

cwb once bubbled...

Blind Horizontal ascents: Trust and confidence builder with team members that if you lost your mask, you could accomplish a controlled ascent with your buddy communicating "up/down" signals and learning to "read" your ears better for depth changes.

I don't know if that was what you were looking for, but that's some of the stuff we do.

It's (part of) what I'm looking for. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm still not clear on the blind ascent. Do you close your eyes or just remove the mask? What do you mean by "reading the ears"?

 

[dc4bs]

Arnaud once bubbled...


It's (part of) what I'm looking for. Thanks for the explanation.

I'm still not clear on the blind ascent. Do you close your eyes or just remove the mask? What do you mean by "reading the ears"?

Just pay attention to how the pressure changes feel in your ears as you ascend. I don't know if everyone feels the same thing I do, but I can usualy tell when I'm moving verticaly in the water by even relatively small amounts. This gets more noticeable as you approach the surface because the pressure changes faster there.

Basicaly, everyone can feel the pressure build up on decent and equalizes to compensate.

On ascent, you prety much equalize automaticaly unless you have a reverse block or something. The feeling of 'slight' overpressure in your ears as you go up (it goes away if you stay at a given depth for a moment or two) can help give you a rough idea of how fast you are ascending without looking at your guages.

Good practice to try to get the 'feel' of it in case you ever have your depth guage fail and are forced to ascend without any other external speed reference (unlikely, but still...).

NOTE: It WON'T tell you how deep you are, it just helps give you an idea how fast your depth is changing.

 

[jbd]

is being aware of the sensation of pressure changes with small changes in your depth. You should be able to tell if you are descending or ascending by the feeling in your ears. Quite useful when you are diving with poor to non existent visual references

 

[Arnaud]

This is definitely a new one for me.