Practice reg retrievals at safety stop?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

If you want to practice AAS sharing... why not take a leaf from technical diving.... stop at 5m, get neutral, clear your ears, get coherent as a functional buddy team..... and conduct an 'S-Drill'....

An S-Drill is a brief air-sharing practice. In addition to the practice value, it also ensures that BOTH regulators (primary and AAS) are fully functional and delivering gas as they should be in-water. It's a win-win-win scenario.

I definitely like the dual aspect of the functional check.
 
should have been more explict about letting the DM know if there is one. honestly, on guided dives in my experience there is not much 'idle time', as there usually is quite a few people in close proximity. use your best judgment for the situation.

But, I wonder if anyone uses some hand signal that tells their buddy that they'd like to practice stuff. Something hat couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

index finger of one hand pointed to the palm of the other and rotated back and forth; y'know, like its drilling into the palm. then signal whatever drill you're wanting to do. ie, signal drill, signal ok, receive ok from buddy, then tap reg for air share / donate, then signal ok, receive ok, and start drill. this can also be signaled by drawing a large 'S' with your finger in the water, for S-drill as DD mentioned; the drill part is implied by signaling 'S'.

some divers will echo back the statement as well after the initial confirming ok, some will just return an ok signal. there's also the 'you watch me [whatever]' (point at buddy, point at eyes, point at self) sequence, but if you're diving with a permabuddy, that can be a bit verbose if you know how to 'read' each other.

another good one is 'reg switch', which is index and middle finger outstretched like a sideways 'V' and then rotated a half turn back and forth. so, signal drill, signal ok, receive ok, signal swap, signal ok, receive ok, then start process to swap to your backup / octo.

[edit] also, if you've been diving with the same buddy for a long time, there is the 'staged drill' procedure. point at buddy, signal drill, signal ok, receive ok, and then continue on with your dive. then anytime within a pre-dive discussed period of time, say 5 minutes, they can throw whatever drills your way they want without any preamble signal of 'drill'*. when the time period is over, buddy would signal 'cut' (moving index and middle finger open and closed like scissors) then 'drill', and its back to situation normal.

* any drill that would ascend at the end, such as OOA, the 'ascend'/thumb up signal during the process is replaced by 'drill'.
 
Last edited:
index finger of one hand pointed to the palm of the other and rotated back and forth; y'know, like its drilling into the palm. then signal whatever drill you're wanting to do. ie, signal drill, signal ok, receive ok from buddy

perfect! And simple as it should be. (All good information, just not quoting it all)

Awesome. Thank you all!
 
If I suddenly decide to change to long hose, I would have to spend a long time pre dive explaining the system to my buddies (who vary depending on availability) and what happens in the event of air sharing.
I tell any divers who will be near me that if anyone goes OOA on the dive, I will be donating the regulator in my mouth, and the one around my neck will not be available to them. It takes about the same amount of time it took you to read this.
 
I have to echo the view that instead of going searching for my primary immediately I would take my octo out and use that while I did the recovery. Absolutely no stress and hurry that way. Takes me about 5 seconds to deploy the octo. To my mind that would be the better way to train people. The way a lot of current courses teach it as a major issue is false, it really should be a minor inconvenience at worst.

I do sometimes wish that people would not treat the traditional "rec" set up as being somehow dangerous. If the traditional rec set up was that dangerous no agency would think about training on it. The main issue with either long or short hose is people not practising deployment and airsharing as they have been trained to do - not the systems themselves.

That's all well and good (and not "dangerous") so long as you can quickly find the traditional octo and get it into your mouth. I think this is what some have been saying here. I was never able to find an octo holder that did the job of securely retaining the octo in a predictable position in the so-called "triangle" on my chest when I wanted it to remain retained and releasing the octo easily when I wanted it released. I usually had to fumble around to find it, and then if I found it, yank it out of its holder, or if I didn't find it because it had slipped out of its holder, then retrieve it from where it was dangling. The bungeed secondary under my chin just made so much more sense to me.
 
That's all well and good (and not "dangerous") so long as you can quickly find the traditional octo and get it into your mouth. I think this is what some have been saying here. I was never able to find an octo holder that did the job of securely retaining the octo in a predictable position in the so-called "triangle" on my chest when I wanted it to remain retained and releasing the octo easily when I wanted it released. I usually had to fumble around to find it, and then if I found it, yank it out of its holder, or if I didn't find it because it had slipped out of its holder, then retrieve it from where it was dangling. The bungeed secondary under my chin just made so much more sense to me.
It was a story like this that got me to switch the rigging of my recreational gear years ago. I was diving with the long hose and bungeed alternate in my tech training with doubles, but I was still using a BCD and traditional regulator setup for recreational diving. Then I read a story of a woman who drowned when she went OOA, went to her buddy for his alternate, and could not get it because it had come loose and was dangling behind him. I spent a few bucks on some new hoses and made the switch.
 
Such as bubble rings :)

Taking buoyancy training. Instructor has me doing some exercises. I'm doing well and he is leaving me to myself as I practice. I look over and he is doing an "upside down" hover at about 8', holding position, blowing bubble rings. I am pretty pleased with my buoyancy and trim progress (I can now hover in the shallow end with bent knees and near zero sculling!!!) but I ain't eeeeeeeeeeven close to the "in trim (in context), upside down, neutrally buoyant, bubble ring" ballpark yet.
 
I practice my reg retrieval on the surface before I dive. I close my eyes and incorporate a few drills in with some stretching out. I try to picture possible scenarios and have my responses to them pre planned. I also practice skills on the safety stop and quite often whilst I'm just finning along.
 
My question is semi-related to the thread not long ago about surprising your buddy with a practice. I would NOT want to surprise a buddy with practice. But, I wonder if anyone uses some hand signal that tells their buddy that they'd like to practice stuff. Something hat couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Plenty of our practice dives in a local lake may have moments where nothing is going on. I could turn to the wife, give the I'm okay signal followed with the "wanna practice skills?" signal. She could reply that she is okay and the yes or no signal. We can obviously make up our own but is there any semi-universal signal for training/practice? We always knew in class because we got the 'you watch me' sign. That doesn't seem quite as obvious for an impromptu practice session.

For an S-drill, the common signal is an "S", followed by what you want to do, e.g., "out of air", "you" (pointing at buddy) to signal your buddy that he or she should pretend to be out of air. And signal the end of the drill with "scissors" for cut.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom