All good points/considerations. I have been diving 46 years, recreationally and professionally. I am a former/retired Instructor and Course Director. Here are a couple of additional considerations I recommend: 1) Safety Stops are precautionary. Do them whenever you can, but if there is an emergency or someone is struggling for some reason abort/omit the Safety Stop and go directly to the surface and establish positive buoyancy there - Safe Ascent Rates are more important than Safety Stops, so if you are going to abort/omit a Safety Stop it is still very important to maintain a safe ascent rate. 2) 15 feet/5 meters is simply the middle of the Decompression Zone (20-10 feet) so if you are on a crowded line coming up and need to do your Safety Stop at 18 feet or 13 feet don’t freak out. Ascend to that point at a safe rate, do you stop, then safely ascend from there. 3) Safety Stops on a line is a great time to assess/re-assess your buoyancy/amount of dive weight needed. You tank is usually at it’s lightest/most buoyant near the end of the dive (often below 1000 PSI), so hang onto the line, dump ALL the air from your BCD and gently let go of the line. If you still sink with no air in your BCD and a low tank you are wearing too much lead. Remove a little at a time (once back on the boat/shore) and re-assess each time until you are perfectly neutral during your Safety Stop with a low tank and no air in your BCD. 4) Once your buoyancy control is really dialed-in practice doing Safety Stops without hanging onto a line - just in the water column - its easier than you may think and gets you off the crowd on the ascent line. 5) If you get really low on air / run out of air don’t panic - there is a reason ESAs / CESAs are taught and practiced from 15 feet - and if you need to share air with another diver but don’t panic - just make the ascent as you were trained and establish positive buoyancy at the surface.
One thing I like to do at safety stops is switch to my octo 2nd stage and breathe it for a few minutes, just to make sure it works properly and give me some familiarity with how it feels in use. Maybe not every time, but every few dives.
Excellent advice as always!! Too many people think only the dive guide needs a DSMB. If you're diving open water you need to carry a DSMB. What happens if you get separated from the group and have to assend alone? If something goes wrong and you have to abort a drift dive, how will the boat know where you are? Take it in turns to practice DSMB deployment, get your buddy to watch you, he/she can see if you're doing something wrong and two DSMBs tangled together is never a good thing!
Happened to me recently . Was me a young girl and an instructor doing dry suit speciality. I was doing second dive of my drift diver. She was asked to hover and rocketed to the surface in 1metre Vis .the instructor trying to bring her down chose to ascend . Left me on the bottom in next to no Viz due to the sand she kicked up before she went up . I waited one minute .calmly remembered my dsmb in my dry suit pocket . Filled using my dry suit hose let her up . And made my safe ascent . On breaching the surface I could the boat and gave the captain the okay. He shouted to me well done . Il grab them and come back for you . Kinda scary being left but had previously completed dsmb specialty boat specialty and drysuit in the same location . It's true that training kicks in 💪
My teric will call for 5 min if a significant portion of the dive is around the 100 ft mark. Seems like rays, turtles, and sharks always show up at the beginning or end of a dive.
#ASKMARK. Good day. Could I use the orion signal flares in the event of getting left behind in ocean. Could be helpful at night in the dark. Was thinking of putting them in a steel screw able waterproof container. What would you suggest. Thank you and must say I enjoy all your helpful videos.
