Pre-Dive Planning...

[scubainchicago]

How do you let others know your plans for a days dive in the event that something might not go as planned. And conversely, how do you follow up with those that may worry about you when back to the surface?

In a perfect world you would be diving with divers known to your loved ones and who's contact information is available in case a cellphone dies or doesn't get reception. If you're a solo diver, I would think a protocol of some sort would be in place for the obvious reasons. I would also be curious if you do anything different when diving with someone new (one who doesn't know your loved ones and vise versa).

[victorzamora]

If my wife is with me, I tell her that I'll be up in X minutes. If she's not, I just tell her I'll call when I can. I typically shoot her a text throughout the day, and then give her another call once I'm out of the water and done for the day. I don't really do much else.

[ARY]

Just thoughts for the discussion sake. I have a GPS tracker in a form of Android app on my tablet so that my sweethearts can look it up on Internet where am I spending time. I would switch it off when i'm doing something that may invite a trouble (like driving by dropzone etc.) otherwise it is automatically on. Any way, some mountain climbing community website has a service that would allow semi-automatic (Spot and other trackers) to check-in and check out for soloist venturing to outdoors. We could have something similar like mentioning the divesite, check-in, check-out time and auto removal from the list when team checks-out... It could be textSMS-2-email or email-2-service or mobileweb GUI....

[w ripley]

I post this on my dashboard, especially if solo.

[tmcdonal]

I post this on my dashboard, especially if solo.

That is very nice. Although non-RB, I'm going to steal that idea.

-Tom

[scubainchicago]

I post this on my dashboard, especially if solo.

That is pretty awesome....I like that it spells out for a search team that there's a good chance of a rescue vs. recovery if it every came down to it & where to look. Thanks for sharing.

[Sludge]

I don't like this for one reason: "I'm making a four-hour dive" is almost an invitation to break into your car.

[DogDiver]

I let my wife know of my dive plan and apx dive time. Then first thing I do when I get back to the truck is text. "Out of the water going to _____ for lunch".


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[tmcdonal]

I don't like this for one reason: "I'm making a four-hour dive" is almost an invitation to break into your car.

Hmmm. Good point.

-Tom

[w ripley]

I don't like this for one reason: "I'm making a four-hour dive" is almost an invitation to break into your car.

I've heard this before & so far it hasn't been an issue.

If no one is around to see him, a thief isn't going to worry about how long you're diving. Heck, you're under the water & in lots clumsy gear. And all he has to do is break a window, grab what he wants, and drive off.

Having lived in the city - and having had my vehicle broken into more than once - I've learned that if they can see it they will break in. Once I started hiding and/or covering my valuables, the break-ins stopped. If I leave a scooter in the back of my truck (it's a Suburban) I just cover it with a bed sheet - my interior is grey so I use a grey sheet - and it works. So, whether you advertise how long you're going to be gone or not, if they don't see anything worth stealing the odds are in your favor they're not going to break in looking.

One other point is, in addition to helping the rescuing (or recovering) team in finding you, that with the longer dives (over 3 hours) comes the tendency of people getting worried that you've been gone too long. Being able to look at a dive plan on your dash board, and knowing the time you plan on returning - calms those concerns & the need to call 911.