Safety in poor visibility

[pingshui]

Where I live, far from the ocean, we mainly depend on muddy lakes with a visibility less than 3m for our diving. My question is, how to I best watch my buddy under these conditions?
We seldomly go any deeper than 15-20m, since the lakes are not that deep and we just started freediving last summer with an AIDA**. Would it make sense to meet my buddy at 10m when he is coming up? Since I can't see him I would have to guess where he is and hope that I meet him somewhere, hopefully withou swimming into each other Or should I wait at the surface and only go down when he exceeds his usual dive time?

 

[sgnips]

hi pingshui,
once i was in your very same conditions with my buddy and we went up this way:

1- lanyard is mandatory
2- i'm on the surface and start the stopwatch when the diver's dive begins
3- the diver firmly pulls the line when turning on the bottom: my hand is on the line and i can recognize the signal so i check the dive time and give the diver the same time for resurfacing plus few seconds
4- if the dive time goes longer than this, i dive FIM style to rescue, trying to avoid collisions of course

be sure to declare what are you going to do on the bottom i.e. 20" stop, etc and give signals each time those activities begin and end

my 2 cents

 

[pingshui]

Thanks for the quick answer, what you say really makes sense to me.
The problem is though, that we dive at plattforms constructed for scuba divers, where a lanyard doesn't work with the vertical rope. Instead we just keep one hand at the rope at all times.
But for safety reasons we should consider getting a buoy that works with lanyards

 

[sgnips]

the fact with lanyards in poor visibility is, when you're rescue diving you're not diving to find the diver itself, but the lanyard instead: the diver is just 1m away from the rope

what is the problem with the rope you're actually using?

 

[pingshui]

Well, it is the anchor chain hooked to the plattform and a buoy. "Rope" was a misleading description I guess

 

[sgnips]

"Rope" was a misleading description I guess

well, it was

buoy + rope is the ultimate solution
i guess you can find lots of threads here on how to build one

bye

 

[chrismar]

We train in possibly even worse visibility during the week here. Buoy + line + lanyard is compulsory if you want to safety properly. What sgnips said is pretty much the same as what we do, but we actually dive down and wait. When you feel the turn, you dive down to whatever depth is appropriate (1/3 nominated depth is a reasonable rule of thumb) and wait just off from the line. I try to keep far enough from the line that I won't be hit by the diver, but close enough that I can see if the lanyard/diver is going past. Where we dive, horizontal viz is much better vertical looking down, so I look outwards not downwards. Once you've found them, you safety as per normal.

 

[pingshui]

Thanks for all the good advice! I already found instructions for making a proper buoy and a lanyard. Something to do for the weekend

 

[apneaboy]

Small torches on the head are an option to see an upcoming diver. Also they can see the plate at the bottom.

Have the Karabiner on the main rope made of a very bright colour so its harder to miss so if the diver is coming up on the other side of the line you will see the Karabiner pass as long as you can see the rope.

Lanyard is compulsory. If you come of the line in bad vis not only do you not know for sure which is route 1 back to the surface, but you may miss your buddy. That is bad for you AND puts them in danger looking for you, and also in those sorts of places you may end up underneath something. Squeaky bum time!

One thing I do is to get neutrally buoyant at the waiting depth, lying flat, put my left hand in front of me pretty close to the line, some days touching initially feeling for the diver. I am looking straight down and slightly forwards. My right hand is behind me so if the diver ends up directly underneath me I scoop my right hand forwards and move out of the divers way, you have to be quick!! If the diver is on the other side of the line even if I dont see them the Karabiner touches my finger or I see the flash of it passing.

Its very important to have a watch and know when the diver is likely to be at your depth, with practice you can get within a few seconds of the correct time even when they turn early.

Dive safe buddy

 

[Jouskari]

Here in Finland we use small pen lights attached to the mask strap. This way the diver have som viz of the rope and the safety diver can see the light a bit in advance so no collision occours.

2AAA Xenon Pen Light - Waterproof, High Impact Case Underwater Kinetics

I´ve also been thinking about painting the sphera masks top frame white so that the safety diver can see it more easily.