Dive plan?? We don't need no stinking dive plan !!

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RICHinNC

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Location
RAEFORD. NC
I have read a number of threads since discovering this board about dive plans and how certain negative things would have never occured if there had been a dive plan....or the dive plan had been followed.

I can remember my instructor talking about dive plans, but dont remember the discussions being very detail. Just how detailed or complicated does a dive plan have to be? I can imagine the more "tech" oriented the dive the more detail needed, but what about the old regular non tech dive?

What goes into a ...or your...dive plan?? Lets say you are at a new location with your buddy, and you know just a little about the site. You know it gets no deeper than 65 feet...there are no currents....there is a lot of life down there....a possible "item" like a wreck or bus to see.

Possible plan....."ok John, the site does not exceed 65 ft. We will don our gear, check each other out and get in the water. Once in we will ensure both are ok and descend. You will lead until I get tired of following and then I will lead. There are no currents so that shouldnt be a problem. If we luck out and find the object down there....we will not enter it.....(or...we will enter it once we have tied off a line). At 1000psi we will ascend to 15 ...20 feet and hang for 3 to 5 minutes. Any questions.??""

I have dived off of Wilmington NC and a bit off St. Thomas and St. John. The briefing I got on the boats were often less detailed than that. So, what has been left out of the dive plans I read about here that would have prevented the negative event associated with the lack of a dive plan???
 
I like having a dive plan - it makes things easier on a dive.
We don't do a point by point, minute by minute plan but we do things like discuss what the basic dive site will be and what to do if we get seperated etc. We always decide on a time at the start of a dive, so for example we say 50 minutes or first to 100bar. whichever comes first. Things like that are what we do when discussing the dive. Nothing major but enough that we both know what we are doing and what to do if things go wrong. :wink:
 
I would have a bit more detail on emergency issues such as rockbottom gas limits, bottom time limits, a general search pattern and a skill drill and bubble check.

If I didn't know the buddy well, I would have had a much more invovled plan. Outlinning emergency procedures, skill level, comfort level, equipment config, dive expectations, goals and dive experince.
 
I do a site check with my buddy first before we gear up. Sometimes the dive has been thumbed right there because of water conditions, marine life in the way (thimble jellies, etc).

The dive plan we do: SADDD.

Sequence - who will lead the dive

Air - how much we have now, figure dissimilar tanks for turn pressure, or at what psi we will surface

Depth - what is the max depth for this location, what depth are we planning on diving to, what is out contingent depth plan in case we exceed our planned max depth, go to plan B.

Duration - how long are we planning on this dive. what is our turn time or time to begin ascent.

Distance - how far will we go (distance in a cave, how far from shore, etc)

We do equipment check. Do my regs work well, inflator works, yes my primary light is fired up.

Emergency drills - OOA drill etc.

Do an s-drill in the water and also a bubble check.

Review Communication - Light signals, hand signals, touch contact

Go over safety equipment - yes I got my wetnotes, pencil, cutting tool, safety spool, backup lights, dive tables, and surface marker, etc.

Note start time and dive.

Also any diver can call the dive at anytime for any reason.
 
How detailed the dive plan should be is dependent on various factors. They are objective, depth, experience level of the least experienced diver, current, seas, temperature (water and air), comfort level of all divers, topography and bottom conditions.
 
The plan must fit the mission. For example, if my regular buddy and I are diving the Black Bart on a warm calm day, a site we have been on a hundred times, the brief might be "see you down there."
The same buddy and I spent several weeks planning every detail and every possible scenario we could imagine for a dive on a wreck at 185'.
Rick
 
I def agree Rick....

I just find it interesting to come up with a detailed dive plan if neither of you have ever been to the site. Of course there would be the normal safety stuff....and that could go unsaid if you buddy up with someone you have dove several times with.

Please dont anyone missunderstand. I believe in a dive plan... i just believe it keeping it as simple as possible....and....often there is nothing more than (once the safety stuff is said) than lets just go down and see what we find.
 
RICHinNC once bubbled...
I have read a number of threads since discovering this board about dive plans and how certain negative things would have never occured if there had been a dive plan....or the dive plan had been followed.

I can remember my instructor talking about dive plans, but dont remember the discussions being very detail. Just how detailed or complicated does a dive plan have to be? I can imagine the more "tech" oriented the dive the more detail needed, but what about the old regular non tech dive?

What goes into a ...or your...dive plan?? Lets say you are at a new location with your buddy, and you know just a little about the site. You know it gets no deeper than 65 feet...there are no currents....there is a lot of life down there....a possible "item" like a wreck or bus to see.

Possible plan....."ok John, the site does not exceed 65 ft. We will don our gear, check each other out and get in the water. Once in we will ensure both are ok and descend. You will lead until I get tired of following and then I will lead. There are no currents so that shouldnt be a problem. If we luck out and find the object down there....we will not enter it.....(or...we will enter it once we have tied off a line). At 1000psi we will ascend to 15 ...20 feet and hang for 3 to 5 minutes. Any questions.??""

I have dived off of Wilmington NC and a bit off St. Thomas and St. John. The briefing I got on the boats were often less detailed than that. So, what has been left out of the dive plans I read about here that would have prevented the negative event associated with the lack of a dive plan???

Sort of. He're is how my buddy and I would approach it if it were just a recreational dive. It sounds a little long-winded in email but if you saw us do this it would all seem very natural.

Day before the dive:
--------------------------
check tides, currents, weather, especially expected rainfall and wind but also water temp etc if relevant. These are all essential inputs to your dive plan. Tides will tell you currents and direction and when it's good to dive, weather will tell you about visibiilty and surface conditions.

Assume it turns out, as you say, no current (non-tidal) and the Weather is going to be partly cloudy with a SW wind force 4. Assume the shore is on the South and the divesite is not directly adjacent to a shipping lane but it is a public waterway allowing motor boats of a moderate size.

Hit the internet and see if we can find a description of the site with a contour map of the bottom. Assume we didn't find one but we found a story about a small wreck and a maximum depth of 65 feet.

Fire up GAP and work out some kind of profile that works within the limits of gas consumption and NDL. In this case I might skip this step because I've done a gazillion shallow dives like this so I know I have lots of air and NDL to spend an hour on this dive with 40 min on the bottom and 20 min shallower than 40ft. That will be my starting point for planning unless I'm really trying to maximize bottom time.

Decide which gear to take. It's a shallow shore entry but we're not sure about the bottom contour. There is a possibility of getting disoriented because the site is shallow which means most of it will need to be flat. We'll take a dsmb just incase we need to make a mid-water ascent and possibly to signal any boats.

Take a slate to make a few notes about the dive, for example compass heading to the wreck if we find it, depth, orientation, etc etc.

Take a marker buoy so we can mark the location of the wreck for a possible second dive and to make notes about distance and compass direction to the wreck from the entry.

For the rest assume we take std gear including a light and a compass.

Decide when to dive. Assume we meet somewhere to head to teh divesite at 9:00am. Maybe we'll be finished at 12:00 with the first dive so I'd jot down where to take the tanks for filling (if relevant) and see if I can find somewhere to go/somthing to do during the surface interval.

Day of the dive:
---------------------

9:00am meet buddy, head to divesite.

Once at dive site check compass directions. Is the shore really on the south as we thought? Is the wind really from the SW? Is it really a force 4? Is the weather what we expected?

Walk along the shore. Check shoreline for obstacles. Can we see buoys? Are there people fishing? Are there bow-nets in the water? How far away are the boats passing by? Where is a good place to get in? How do we get back out again? Is the shoreline clearly sloped or level? Watch the waves to see if they can tell you anything about the bottom contour.

If there are other divers around talk to them. What can tell us? do they know how the viz is? Do they know where the wreck is? that sort of thing.

Assume for this example that there are no other divers, nobody fishing, the conditions are the way we expected them and the entry/exit doesn't look too complicated.

Decide where to enter and exit. Maybe set up a flag on shore to mark the exit incase we can't see it easily from the water and to warn any fishermen coming after we get in that there are divers in the water. Discuss the plan as we walk. For example "We get in here, we'll head to the North until we reach the end of the sloping shoreline. The maximum depth is 65 feet so most of the bottom will have to be flat. Max dive time will be an hour, at least 10 min of which will be shallower than 40ft. We'll decend to the north along the shore line. Once we hit the flat part we'll run along the bottom to the West for 10 min. If we don't find the wreck we'll go a little deeper and run to the east for 20 min. If we don't find the wreck then we'll go a little shallower (along the same line we took to the west) and go back another 10 min. If we don't find the wreck then we will be 40 min in to the dive and close to where we entered. After 40 min if we don't find the wreck then we'll give it up for this time and zigzag our way back up along the sloped side of the shore and after 5 min we'll be shallower than 40ft. At 55 min we'll head to 15 ft do a safety stop and get out. "

If we do encounter the wreck then we have plan B. Note the direction and run time from the entry, depth an bottom features, possible current etc on the slate. Fire off the marker buoy for later and take some time to explore the wreck and run back to the entry point (the same 40 min point in Plan A), trying to be there at 40 min. The rest is the same.

So, now we head back to teh car and get kitted up. As we're kitting up we go over the plan again if necessary but we usually just end up joking around.

The rest is the "dive your plan" part.

Once back on the surface we note the location, direction and distance of the marker buoy (if necessary) on the slate for future reference and go recover the marker buoy unless we're planning on diving the same site again. To make recovery easy you shouldn't tie off the marker to the wreck, just anchor it (not too deep) in the bottom so it won't float away and you can pull it out from the surface without having to bounce for it.

So, that's planning for puddlestomping 101.

Tek planning is a little more complicated but you'll see some of the same elements.

R..
P.S. I showed this example with run-times in minutes but you can do run times in pressure too. Ideally you'll be able to predict your pressure at the end of every leg so you can check your gas consumption and know if you need to skip a leg to get back on your consumption etc etc. I generally find it easier to work with time but in some cases, like simple out-and-back patterns, picking the turning point on pressure is easier. I'd say just use what works but what ever you do check your pressure regularly.

R..
 
I agree with ithers the plan needs to be adequate for the dive. A good plan can be very simple and leave room for following your interests during the dive. If the dive plan is too detailed for the dive you'll just break the plan anyway or just not enjoy the dive as much. I think the plan should always cover the basics much as Wendy described...

predive checks
Limits - Time depth and gas
decompression
Emergency procedures
communications
and what Wendy, I think called sequence (how the dive is conducted)

With a familiar buddy diving a familiar site the plan may require little to no discussion.

As Rick pointed out other dives require far more detailed planning.
 
Technical Dive plan -

"deep as we can for as long as we can....when we take our last breath, orally inflate the BC, ditch the belt and shoot to the surface like a rocket."

Seems to work for us
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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