Getting back to basics

Hey all!

We have been chatting a lot of safety and being able to call a dive when one is not feeling it.

Let’s talk a little about revisiting those basic skills~

When I hop on the boat in Cozumel for the day or if I’m at Catalina teaching diving at the park, one thing that I see consistently is the lack of the gear check.

On the boat, the guides generally set your gear up. I have seen many a diver strap on their kit without checking it, nor do they ask their buddy for a once over. On the boat, most of the time our guides catch a problem thankfully and we are able to correct it before ya’ll splash.

At the dive park, I am generally set up teaching to the side of the stairs, so I get to watch everyone waddle down the stairs and into the water. Mostly, I am looking at octos hanging off to the side begging to get caught on the last stair when the water surges. At the worse, I have seen a couple guys that had the tank facing the wrong direction in the BCD and the regs coming off the wrong side- to add insult to injury the tanks we coming out of the cam bands as well. When I (nicely as it was beginning of high season) I let the gentlemen in question know they had an issue and they may want to correct it before splashing, I was told- “I am an ADVANCED diver”“. Sigh.

Safety starts the second you decide you are going to go for a dive. That is when it is time to pull your gear out and give everything a once over. When was the last service? Are all your hoses nice or starting to look a little sun-baked and cracked? Did you orally inflate the BCD to see if it is holding air? And if you have a tank available to set the kit up and make sure all the things are working? When was the last time you pulled back those hose protectors and looked at what was going on under them?

Gear checks- I check my gear before every single dive. It is a quickie thing and can save oodles of in water issues. Gear has been known to fail and O-rings love to blow at the most inconvenient times.

Having a second set of eyes check you once your in kit is also key. Two brains are (generally) better than one. Insta-Buddy you don’t really trust- Ask the guide/DM to give you a quick once over.

On the surface- Before I descend, I take a few breathes off the reg as well and give the SPG another look. I make sure shoulder straps are snug.

Many of us get used to having this concierge service on dive boats. While it is lovely to have someone else do all our setup and breakdown, it is a disservice to divers. There are many divers I see during the seasons, and they have simply forgotten how to set up their gear and unsure about how to do a good check.

Now is the time to revisit that. Ask if you can get a gear setup review. Practice until you can do a full setup and check without prompting from the dive Pro.