Reminder: Always do an S-drill before or at the beginning of your dive

[jonnythan]

I went on a pretty casual boat dive the other day. It was a shallow dive from a friend's boat in a calm lake on a bright, clear, sunny day. It was one of those dives that feels so casual and easy it's easy to forget how dangerous it can be underwater.

Anyway, at the end of the dive I got some weed caught in the loop of my long hose near my hip. I switched to my backup, intended to extend the hose to make clearing it out easier. I couldn't get the primary more than a foot or so away from my face, though. Turned out that when I put my backup around my neck, I had trapped the long hose under it. It was a simple matter of feeding it behind my head out from under the hose, but in a stressed emergency situation it would not have been so easy and those 5-10 seconds could have been the difference. This would have been found immediately if I did a quick and simple S-drill on the surface before descending, or immediately upon reaching the bottom.

Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear. You don't want to wait until your buddy is actually OOA at depth under a shipping channel to realize that you can't effectively get a regulator into his mouth.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Or...a thorough buddy check to look for something like intertwined hoses might also work. Even after hundreds of dives together , Debbie and I do this because sometimes something is not situated just right, and a buddy can see what the diver cannot.
DivemasterDennis

 

[g1138]

Yup, always a good idea. I myself have crossed my long hose under the loop of my bungee backup. But I've always caught it before I even make the loop over my head.

Easiest way for me to avoid this is to trace my long hose and then place it as the very last thing when suiting up. Even if that means undoing it and re-doing it.
After that, ask your buddy if any hoses are criss-crossed. Even if you and your buddy do a self-guided buddy check, it's always a good idea to still look over each others' gear, preferably before entering the water.

 

[TSandM]

This is why I irritate all my dive buddies by insisting on the head-to-toe gear check before diving anywhere but in a swimming pool. Last steps are to check that the long hose is deployable, and to do a bubble check. I do the deployment of the long hose last because, if any OTHER issues come up during the gear check, you may have changed something that affects the long hose (for example, hooking up the drysuit hose and trapping the long hose).

 

[Hawkwood]

I went on a pretty casual boat dive the other day. It was a shallow dive from a friend's boat in a calm lake on a bright, clear, sunny day. It was one of those dives that feels so casual and easy it's easy to forget how dangerous it can be underwater.

Anyway, at the end of the dive I got some weed caught in the loop of my long hose near my hip. I switched to my backup, intended to extend the hose to make clearing it out easier. I couldn't get the primary more than a foot or so away from my face, though. Turned out that when I put my backup around my neck, I had trapped the long hose under it. It was a simple matter of feeding it behind my head out from under the hose, but in a stressed emergency situation it would not have been so easy and those 5-10 seconds could have been the difference. This would have been found immediately if I did a quick and simple S-drill on the surface before descending, or immediately upon reaching the bottom.

Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear. You don't want to wait until your buddy is actually OOA at depth under a shipping channel to realize that you can't effectively get a regulator into his mouth.

Maybe for the benefit of those who do not know what an "S-drill" is, you could enlighten them (us). After all this is the New Divers Forum and folks might not be familiar with what your are suggesting/reminding.

Bill

 

[jonnythan]

I thought I summed that up with "Moral of the story is to do a quick mock air share, including deploying and breathing off both regs, every time you don your gear." but I see your point.

 

[Hawkwood]

I apologize, I did not realize that an "S-drill" was a "mock air share".

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I apologize, I did not realize that an "S-drill" was a "mock air share".

No need to apologize, the term is not intuitively obvious.

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As a couple posters noted above, success in the S-drill is facilitated by ensuring the long hose is the last thing you put on.

Over time I managed to discover most of the creative ways that I could potentially trap my long hose in back mount when gearing up, then I switched to side mount - but retained the long hose/bungee back up hose arrangement for a variety of reasons - and managed to discover even more ways to potentially trap it.

What I've learned is to be hyper conscious of the long house routing when gearing up and at the start of the dive, but also during the dive to ensure that reg switches, use of stage and deco gasses, etc, also do not create the potential to wrap or trap the long hose.

 

[redacted]

Just to be clear, the source of the problem was that the bungeed octo was put over your head after you put the primary in place??

 

[jonnythan]

I imagine that's what happened, yeah. I probably thought I had my bungee on when I put the long hose around my neck. Then when I went to breathe both regs to make sure they both worked before dropping into the water, I realized the backup wasn't there so I put it on, trapping the long hose.