PSDiver Monthly Issue 76 Greetings – tread water for at least 30 minutes or longer without struggling. Over the last few months I have had the opportunity to conduct two training seminars and three different training Pay attention to body position in the water. Be attentive classes. Conducting these seminars is a long term goal I to hand motion and timing kick cycles. Remember your have had and what I intend to do after I retire from the lungs are balloons – get them close to the surface and fire service in a few years. I enjoy teaching and sharing they will help support you. Be attentive to breath control. information and occasionally learn something new and Use a small side stroke and swim in small circles to useful from my students. change muscle groups if you get tired. Find a comfort zone and try to stay in it. So far this year, I have had the opportunity to observe the basic scuba skills of over 50 skilled divers. It surprises If your team can tread water for 30 minutes without me sometimes at how “rusty” those skills are. These are stopping or struggling, go 45 – toss a ball around but do the same skills our divers complain about having to do not let anyone touch the bottom or sides OR support their each year in an annual skills review yet they do not seem body with the ball. If they can make 45 and are not to improve. struggling, they have likely found their comfort zone and have their timing, buoyancy and breathing under control. So, this month, instead of an editorial rant I want to offer some training ideas and suggestions that may help 800 meter swim with Mask, Fins and Snorkel tighten up some of your basic scuba skills. Remember, Unless there is a need, for example, Dive Master these basic skills are entry level skills that had to be Certification qualification, I do not recommend doing this mastered at one time or another during a diving career. for time – just completion. These drills should be conducted using basic scuba gear During this exercise, work at getting the maximum or your full PSD kit and a basic scuba mask – not a full efficiency out of the dive fins you are using. There are so face mask. This means your divers may need to relearn many styles and types available now it is getting hard to how to reconfigure a first and second stage regulator. A keep up. But it is important to know how each fin works review of first stage regulators, high and low pressure and how to maximize the efficiency of each type of fin. ports may be in order before you start. For the most part, the biggest difference in fins is Treading Water. between paddle fins and split fins. Split fins work more This is the most basic of in-water self rescue skills. This is efficiently with smaller, quicker strokes while paddle fins not survival floating or dead man float, rather the ability work as efficiently as they can using a longer downward to keep your head above water and even converse. stroke. Trade fins with someone during the swim. Instructors can even use the tread water time to conduct mini lectures. Each team member SHOULD be able to While you are doing the swim, practice keeping your toes pointed behind you, your knees slightly bent and your PSDiver Monthly Issue 76 2 body relatively parallel to the surface. If you hear or feel Blacked Out Cutting Drills you feet splashing, you are bringing them too far out of It is amazing to me to see just how much the agencies the water. have been able to do to increase the need and sense of urgency for multiple cutting devices. If you get tired or as you get farther along, notice how your knees are bending. Are your legs still relatively I once described how and where I placed my cutting straight or are you starting to bicycle more? If you are, devices on a particular dive and was ridiculed for carrying force your legs behind you, tighten your knees and point so many. I had 6. I will normally have no less than 3 and your toes. require no less than 2 on any of my divers. I prefer 3 but it is hard to force the issue when someone else is having Use your snorkel. Keep your face in the water. Relax. It is to pay for them. 3 should be your minimum! not a race, breath normally. If you can, put your hands behind your back and use only your body and fins to But the interesting thing is what the divers choose to move and turn you. Every time you reach the deep end carry. I usually see a knife, EMS scissors and occasionally break, breath hold dive to the side of the pool and surface heavier shears. As effective as these tools can be, when I clear your snorkel without lifting your head out of the do entanglement drills, the divers usually go for the water. wrong device. For this drill, have no less than 5 different devices. You might have to get inventive or experiment. Mask Clearing I have yet had a diver in any of my PSD classes not be Black out your masks. Get some nylon twine. Tie loops able to clear a mask. Mask clearing is one of those skills in it and make a noose. Have your divers tangle in the that once learned, seems to stay with you. line and watch which tool they choose. Pay attention to how they retrieve it, how they use it and how it is stored In my Open Water classes, to show they have mastered back into proper position and secured. If you see what I the skill, I ask my NEW students to clear a fully flooded see, you will discover that your divers are NOT proficient mask at least 5 times on a single breath of air and at zero vis entanglement clearing and are not proficient at surface clear a snorkel without lifting their heads out of retrieving, using and securing their tools. the water. ~ Yes, I really do. While you are doing drills, watch your other divers. You Can you do that? It takes practice. If you cannot do it will learn by watching the efforts of others, their now, the challenge will be to relearn how to clear a mask mistakes, their struggles and their triumphs. And before using as little air as possible AND maintain breath control. you ridicule or criticize, make sure YOU have mastered the skill! You can equate this to a diver who just realized he is out If you would like to discuss this of air and must deal with the issue at depth. Breath Stay Safe, topic or any other, join our control and confidence with breath control go a long way Mark Phillips discussion group at: towards panic control. Editor / Publisher CLICK HERE TO JOIN PSDiver Monthly Issue 76 3 improper or SPECIAL to PSDiver Monthly compromised equipment and a Hurricane or Flood Response – general lack of understanding force Are You Prepared? teams to make life By Mark Phillips thretening decisions that should not have When we have a hurricane approaching our emergency response programs start kicking in. When this occurs, those in charge of planning, to be made. Why? No or too logistics, administration, etc., little funding and support during instigate those parts of the the year. program that involve those of us who perform the work. Recognizing we do not know everything is a first step. Being For us, the planning, staging, able to “man up” and admit a cost analysis and logistics of job may be beyond our preparing for a hurricane capabilities is another. Having response is beyond our the preexisting condition control and above our pay allowing us to make that grades. However, it is we who decision is not always apparent. are expected to be able and When lives are at risk, we tend to forget that we have capable of responding limitations; where and what they may be. to water rescue or Training is always an issue. How do you train for a water assist with a water evacuation when the only time conditions exist to train evacuation effort. are when the need is present? How do we justify Exactly how well simulation training and preplanning when we have no prepared are we? budget allotment for this discipline of water response? Inadaquate funding, How do we adapt our other equipment to safely work in inadaquate training, flood conditions and how do we safeguard out team? PSDiver Monthly Issue 76 4 Let’s take what I believe is a logical look at the issue. Let’s consider First you need a boat. You need a boat suitable for the what we can do job with a trained boat operator and at least one spotter to prepare for or extra hand that is familiar with the boat. That requires next year. training. If you only have one boat operator and he/she is involved in another aspect of the hurricane aftermath or First let’s preliminary evacuation, the boat is useless. No boat – no identify what flood rescue or evacuation. So, more than one water we could be response team member should be able and capable of called on to do. operating the boat. That takes time and training before the need arises. It takes a budget. If the boat is called out to assist We could be called to: or perform a water rescue, Evacuate before a storm those responding should have Evacuate after a storm self rescue skills to keep Rescue during a storm themselves from becoming Rescue before or after a victims or statistics.