Best Practice -

Best Practice

Article by Mark Powell

When I was learning to dive there were certain things that were drilled into me by my instructors. They may not always have been written down in a manual or part of a presentation, possibly because they were considered so obvious that it didn’t need to be written down, but they were stressed as the right way to do things or, to put it another way, as best practice.

Some of these are universal and I’m sure that we will all recognise them. Others may be more relevant in some regions or styles of diving than in others and may not be universally adopted or even agreed on.

Lay that cylinder down!

The first one that comes to mind is that you should never leave a cylinder standing up. An unattended cylinder should always be left lying down. This makes a lot of sense. An upright cylinder is at risk of getting knocked over and there is a chance that the valve could get damaged or even get sheared off completely.

The first link is a real video showing what can happen when a cylinder valve is sheared off. The second is a simulation and so is not as realistic but is a more concise summary of the issue.

If the cylinder is at height, either by being on the back of a truck, on a kitting up bench or a boat bench, then the distance to fall is greater, the impact has more force and the chance of damage is also greater.

Even if the valve is not sheared off there is still a risk of other damage to the cylinder if it falls over. If the full SCUBA set is assembled, then the regulator or other equipment can be damaged. When the equipment is assembled, it makes the cylinder less stable and more likely to fall over.

Considering all of these risks you can see why leaving an unattended cylinder standing up is a bad idea wherever you are in the world and whatever type of diving you do.

Reg in, Mask on!

The second example is more regional, although when I started diving, I didn’t realise it was regional and assumed it was a universal rule. For this reason, I was surprised when I started travelling and saw divers not following this “best practice”. I learned to dive in the UK where boat diving in currents and waves is common. For this reason, I was always taught that when you jump off the back of the boat you should be ready. Regulator in, mask on and fins on. That way you were immediately ready to swim to the descent line, and you were able to see and could breathe.

Equally, at the end of the dive I was always taught to keep my regulator in and mask on until I was back on the boat, or back on shore if I was shore diving. This is so that an unexpected wave did not end up giving you a mouthful of seawater or disorient you when a wave broke over your head and went in your eyes. My initial instructors would all splash my face as a reminder if I ever removed my regulator or my mask while still in the water.

The Law of Primacy says that we tend to remember these early habits or, to put it another way, it is hard to unlearn these habits and so, to this day, I still make sure I keep my regulator in my mouth and my mask in place until I am back on the boat or shore.

This is why I was so surprised to see that not all divers and instructors have the same habit. I have seen divers jump into the water with their mask and fins in their hand or with their mask on the back of their head. I have seen instructors remove their mask the moment they get to the surface. This was a complete revelation to me.

This is an example of different geographical regions or type of diving. If you are diving in an area where entry into the water is via a very shallow sandy beach with no waves, the risk of falling over in the surf is much reduced. I have also heard instructors say that they want to take off their mask and get their students to take off theirs so they can make eye contact while doing an in water debrief. If you are cave diving and entry is via a shallow head pool, then walking into the water with your mask on the back of your head, cooling off in the water for a few minutes before donning your mask and starting the dive is completely reasonable.

While I have said it is completely reasonable, don’t expect to see me doing this anytime soon. My approach has always been “plan for the worst”. If I surface after the dive and, through force of habit, leave my mask on even though the sea is flat and calm, then no harm done. However, if someone surfaces and removes their mask through habit and gets a mouthful of water, they will be in a much less comfortable position. The same applies with entries. I have entered cave head pools with my mask on and there is no issue. However, if a diver jumps into the water with their mask on the back of their head, they are quite likely to lose it or at the very least be disorientated until they can turn it around and put it on.

Best practice is still best practice even if you can get away without following best practice for the majority of the time.

First in, Last out

The last case I am going to talk about is specifically for dive professionals – DMs and instructors. One of the things I was taught on my very first instructor course (primacy) was that the instructor should be the first one into the water and the last one out.

This is so that they can keep control of their student at all times. If the student gets in the water first and the instructor is still on the boat or on land then they are not immediately available to help the student if they panic, have left their drysuit open, have a problem inflating their BCD or any one of a thousand things that could go wrong. They may be able to jump in quickly but there will still be a delay before they can intervene. Of course, that assumes the instructor is kitted up and ready to jump in.

Equally if the instructor gets out of the water while the student is still in the water, they have lost control of the situation and will not be able to spot or solve problems that might develop. The dive is not over and the professional’s responsibility to the student is not over until they are all back on dry land.

Of course, if an instructor is working with a DM, they can use the DM to control the students, so it is feasible for the DM to be in the water with one student while the instructor is assisting another student to enter.

The need to keep control of your students might seem obvious for entry level divers but what about more advanced levels or even technical diving? If you are training DMs or instructors, then you should still follow this same approach in order to show that you are acting as a role model and following best practice. If your DMs and instructors do not see you doing this, they will not do it themselves.

When teaching technical divers, we might assume that, as these students are much more experienced divers, and may even be instructors themselves, there is less need for direct control. This is an easy mistake to make but it is still a mistake. Even if they are experienced divers or even instructors, they are still students on a course. This means two things. Firstly, they are learning new skills and so are not as experienced in this particular area of diving. Even if someone is an experienced instructor, when they are entering a cave for the first time or are using a rebreather for the first time, they are complete novices at this task. As such, it is entirely possible that they could be making life threatening mistakes which you must be on hand to spot. The second implication of them being students is that you are responsible for them, even if they are experienced divers or even dive professionals.

Best Practice

If you are involved in training divers, it is important to drill best practice into them at an early stage so that they develop good habits rather than bad. If you are involved in teaching dive professionals such as DMs and Instructors, then it is important to get them to think about good and bad practice to be able to identify examples of each in their students in order to ensure that all of their students develop the habit of following best practice.

What are your favourite examples of “best practice” that you insist on with your students and which are the examples of “bad practice” that set you on edge whenever you see it in other divers?

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