A dive supervisor's comment about my bailout bottle changed how I plan

I had a chat last week with a retired dive supervisor from the Gulf rigs, name was Jerry, and he pointed out that my bailout bottle was rigged for easy access but not for the worst case. He said, 'You plan for the bottle you hope to grab, not the one you will grab when your hands are shaking.' That hit me because I realized I'd been treating my backup gas like a checklist item, not a survival tool. Jerry showed me a dry run on the deck where he simulated a blown regulator at 90 feet and had me reach for my bailout blindfolded. My first reach was wrong, and my second took three seconds too long. Now I'm practicing every dive with my eyes closed and having my tender move the bottle on me so I have to feel for it. Has anyone else drilled their backup gas retrieval blind, or is that just a Gulf thing?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_chen3d ago

@webb.stella that was a light, not a bottle, so it's a different failure but same lesson.

webb.stella3d ago

Did my buddy Mark drill this exact thing after his regulator froze shallow, and he grabbed his light instead of his bottle?