Equipment Exchange

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So Jason, care to share your score on this skill?:)
 
When I had to do equipment exchange, oh man, what a SNAFU!

Never wear weight integrated for THAT skill! LMFAO. I learned the hard way that a weight belt is just better for some things! Although, since I was the smart hiney that brought a weight integrated BC, I had to do equipment exchange with a weight integrated BC as well as one without and wearing a weightbelt. Nothing like trying to perform a skill upside down to wake ya up!

My first attempt at scuba bailout was nearly as humorous. If ever I looked like an idiot, it was at THOSE times!

*cracking up*

jepuskar once bubbled...
I did my equipment exchange skill last night with a fellow DMC.

That was fun in a stressful way. I was pretty much out of air about 2-3 times during the skill, but managed it well....I want to do it again though.

My buddy kept floating away because he didnt wear enough weight to keep his arse on the pool bottom..heheh

Any one else have any experiences they want to share with this skill?

:eek:

Jason
 
When I did my Dive Master, we showed up at the pool one day and the instructor sprung the equipment exchange on us. We had five minutes to organize with our buddies. Of course, my buddy and I figured we didn't have much to organize, so we just winged it. We did all right, but since then I learned the best way to do this skill. I also promised my Course Director that I wouldn't spill it, but here it goes:

Start off with your buddies gear on! Mask and all. Taking gear off is easy, but putting it back on is much easier if it's your own gear!
 
When I did it - our intstructor told us we had to exchange weight belts too. So we did. We managed it OK. Even though she had a lot less weight then me, we grabbed each other so together we didn't float up. We also had to take it all back off and exchange it back again - so wearing my buddies eqpmt first wouldn't have helped. I guess doing all this extra stuff gave me more confidence. When we found out that we didn't have to do that much I felt kinda proud.

I don't think the instructor meant to be hard on us. He was a new instructor and I think that's how he thought we were supposed to do it. :)

My advice to anyone about to do this skill is to take your time with it and focus on the buddy breathing - everything else you do, comes when you feel confident with the breathing. If you don't manage to finish something before your buddy has taken their two breaths - forget it, take your breaths and try again. Another cool thing to do is help your buddy as much as possible. Put the reg in their mouth for them if they don't have their hands free or can't see the reg cos they have their mask off.... take it in turns to help each other out.

You shouldn't short cut anything like wearing your buddie's stuff first really. The point of this excercise is to build confidence underwater and prove to your instructor and to yourself that you can think and act quickly underwater and solve problems without freaking out. So making it easier on yourself is only dealing yourself short of a valuable excercise.
 
What is the point of the Equipment exchange?

The best I can figure is that it's a comfort underwater thing. Or do "they" actually think that a divemaster sometimes runs into the situation where they have geared up so quickly that they hit the bottom and realize they have donned all of their buddy's gear?
 
saying once bubbled...
What is the point of the Equipment exchange?

The best I can figure is that it's a comfort underwater thing. Or do "they" actually think that a divemaster sometimes runs into the situation where they have geared up so quickly that they hit the bottom and realize they have donned all of their buddy's gear?

Like Bermudaskink said, it's about building confidence. It's about multi-tasking and dealing with a stressful situation. I don't think it has a regular practical use beyond that really.
 
It is meant to be a comfort skill and a problem solving skill.

It really has no practical purpose in real life other than this. If you need to exchange gear underwater for whatever reason, the chances of you buddy breathing at the sametime is soo far out there it would be like Uncle Pug taken me off his ignore list, it just aint gonna happen.

As far as score goes, I think it is just a complete or incomplete.

As far as the skill circuit goes, I got an 85 for the 18 skills :)
 
jepuskar once bubbled...
As far as the skill circuit goes, I got an 85 for the 18 skills :)

Nice work. Congrats. It must feel good to get them over with. How much further do you have to go? Have you done your dm conducted programs?
 
This skill is meant to test your problem solving skill under stress. The buddy breathing is meant to induce the stress and the equipment exchange is the problem that needs solving.

Students are not supposed to practice or plan. That defeats the purpose.
 
Jason,

Congrats and thanks for sharing your experiences, my equipment exchange exercise is scheduled for a week from Monday. BTW, on the skills circuit, isn't it 20 not 18 now?
 

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