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I had a minor epiphany last weekend.
We - that's my son/buddy and I - did a simple dive at the club's training site this Saturday. I had three reasons to get in the water: Firstly, it was a couple of weeks since our last dive, so it was about time to get wet again. Secondly, I was given an older, but perfectly functional back-inflate BCD this summer and have only had one dive with it yet, so I wanted to check if I had tweaked the setup the right way or the wrong way. Finally, the large number of diving fatalities in Norway this summer made me want to drill airsharing and securing positive buoyancy for buddy - including ditching weights on the surface - on a more regular basis than I've been doing it until now.
So, we're at 10m depth, and my buddy turns to me and gives the "drill" sign (right-hand index finger "drilling" into left-hand palm), and I reply "drill" "ok". He then signals OOA, and I grab for my octo. It's not there. I grab again, and it persists in not being there. However, I know my octo is still around somewhere, so I think "OK, screw it!", take a good breath of air, donate my primary and make sure that he's breathing from it. This gives me time to fumble around to find the d*mned octo. With my buddy's air supply secured I fumble around my right shoulder, locate my secondary fairly easily, put it in my mouth, clear it and give the "ok" sign.
Now, what had happened? I had gone from a (standard jacket-type) BCD with the octo hose bent double and stuffed into my right shoulder D-ring, to a (back-inflate) BCD with the octo hanging in a holder from the right shoulder D-ring since the D-rings on the "new" BCD were too small to stuff a bent hose through. That small, seemingly insignificant change in my gear configuration made quickly grabbing the octo rather difficult :shocked2:
I'm going to do quite a few more emergency drills before I feel really comfortable in my new old BCD...
We - that's my son/buddy and I - did a simple dive at the club's training site this Saturday. I had three reasons to get in the water: Firstly, it was a couple of weeks since our last dive, so it was about time to get wet again. Secondly, I was given an older, but perfectly functional back-inflate BCD this summer and have only had one dive with it yet, so I wanted to check if I had tweaked the setup the right way or the wrong way. Finally, the large number of diving fatalities in Norway this summer made me want to drill airsharing and securing positive buoyancy for buddy - including ditching weights on the surface - on a more regular basis than I've been doing it until now.
So, we're at 10m depth, and my buddy turns to me and gives the "drill" sign (right-hand index finger "drilling" into left-hand palm), and I reply "drill" "ok". He then signals OOA, and I grab for my octo. It's not there. I grab again, and it persists in not being there. However, I know my octo is still around somewhere, so I think "OK, screw it!", take a good breath of air, donate my primary and make sure that he's breathing from it. This gives me time to fumble around to find the d*mned octo. With my buddy's air supply secured I fumble around my right shoulder, locate my secondary fairly easily, put it in my mouth, clear it and give the "ok" sign.
Now, what had happened? I had gone from a (standard jacket-type) BCD with the octo hose bent double and stuffed into my right shoulder D-ring, to a (back-inflate) BCD with the octo hanging in a holder from the right shoulder D-ring since the D-rings on the "new" BCD were too small to stuff a bent hose through. That small, seemingly insignificant change in my gear configuration made quickly grabbing the octo rather difficult :shocked2:
I'm going to do quite a few more emergency drills before I feel really comfortable in my new old BCD...