How to perform a scuba safety stop like a Pro!

How to perform a Safety Stop like a Pro! As a new diver, do you ever look at the Divemaster or Instructor at the end of your dives and be in awe of their seemingly fishlike ability to hover motionless, staying at the exact depth for minutes on end during a safety stop? Well if so, Lyell and Josh want to give you some of their best tips and tricks on how to perform a Safety Stop like a Professional diver!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:30 What are we talking about on this episode?
1:22 What is a Safety Stop and why do we do it?
2:21 When should we do a safety stop?
3:08 Depth and length of time of safety stop?
3:38 Safety Stop hand signals.
4:10 How to know when you are at the correct depth?
6:02 Vertical or horizontal position during safety stop?
7:23 Emergency Regulator and Gas Management
9:24 Safety Bar. To use or not to use???
10:34 Hovering skils
12:52 Breath Control
13:18 More Hand Signals
13:41 How fast to ascend final 15 feet?
14:25 Leave us your tips and comments!

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[everythingscuba]

How did you learn to perfect your safety stop technique?
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[christopherambrogio]

This is The first vid I have watched from you guys. I Was really enjoying until you started talking about doing a safety stop in a vertical position. There is ZERO reason to be out of trim and be vertical during the dive, especially during the safety stop. For a few reasons.

1. This puts your body in a position where now all the tissues of the body are not off gassing at the same time. While likely minimal we are doing the safety stop to make sure we off gas safely so the whole of the body should be at the same depth to allow it to off gas at the “same rate”
2. It is building a bad habit to be in a vertical position during the dive, and remaining horizontal takes practice. You likely don’t have anything else to do during the safety stop, this makes the safety stop a perfect time to practice your buoyancy and trim.
3. As you mentioned in the video it takes less gas and less effort to stay in the same spot in the water column while horizontal because of surface area and drag, so why should we want to “work harder” to remain in the safe area to complete the safety stop.
4. While this relates to #3 it mostly speaks to newer divers, who Haven’t mastered buoyancy yet. As we come up we should be releasing gas from the BCD to compensate for gas expansion caused by the decreasing pressure as we go up, when we then adjust to a vertical position in this case for the safety stop we have now changed our surface area thus very RAPIDLY changing our buoyancy characteristics. Given that the greatest pressure differential is between that 15 feet and the surface this can very easily result in a diver bottle rocketing to the surface thus negating the point of the safety stop. And now we are risking DCS on top of lung over expansion injury.

Especially for newer divers I actually advocate that the safety stop should be completed at 20-15 feet, instead of 15 to 20. meaning ascend to 20 feet, before proceeding to 15. This gives time to assure they have better control of their buoyancy before they reach the more “difficult” shallower 15 feet. If you ascend to 15 feet and then attempt to get control over your buoyancy it’s likely by then you have already blown the safety stop.

Thank you guys for the video, I really did enjoy the content.

[kotro]

I'm a dive pro and this is all sound advice. For those asking about weighting, trim and buoyancy at the end of the dive on the safety stop....If possible, try to adjust your weighting (do a weight check) with an empty tank (500 psi) instead of using a full one. This might take some logistics in that you may have to borrow a somewhat empty tank to practice this and dial it in, but if you can do it, you'll have a lot more success at getting your weighting right. Manage your weight for the end of the dive when you weigh less, not the beginning! :)

[bloodymarvelous]

Since you're not doing much during you safety stop anyways, it's a good time to practice some of your fundamental skills. Do some OOG or mask clearing skills. Try your alternate air, can't hurt to make sure it works as well in the water as it did on the boat. Flip your buddy the bird and make a run for it, see who's faster (some hand signals work equally well in the water as on land).

[albertamato]

For any inland divers going to ocean diving for the first time. remember that if you need to throw up, keep the reg in your mouth. I was not taught that lake diving, but over heard it being said on a boat dive on a rocking boat. A few days later, I am glad I over heard that advice! Probably saved my life.

[diveinstructordaniel]

You should do your stop in an horizontal position that your whole body decompress at the same time. If your feet are below you your feet are decompressing at another rate as your upper body.

[dusdnd]

It is actually not a good idea to orient off of the master diver. Highly experienced people get EXTREMELY comfortable with what they're doing and their bodies become very tolerant to their environments leading to blind spots in their perception. This is why you're not supposed to rely on someone else's dive computer.

And just because you orient off of the dive master doesn't mean you're staying consistently at a good depth.

[TheCavecrawler]

One lesson I learned recently is that ascending whilst reeling in a ratchet line for an SMB adds another task to the ascent and tied up both hands making ascent control much more difficult. Definitely a skill to practice more. Great vid guys!

[heinpkoi]

Love the way you handled the comments, I'm subscribing to your channel because you seem open minded and I believe you'll teach me great safety technique with your pool of user comments as a added benefit! congrats on this great mindset!

[rKdugernaut]

thanks Dive Talk, now im sat here at 2 in the morning watching everything scuba safety. i dont even dive...

[edwardlandry]

I have been diving for 40 years now and I thought I would just mention something on the section about know when you are at the correct depth. I just recently starting using a cpu, call me cheap or old school (can't believe I waited so long so nice having one). I always had a marker @ 15 ft on my smb or dive flag ( if I am shore diving). I agree as with the safety bar if there are high swells your smb or flag will go up-n-down so this method may not be best for beginners but I thought you might like the input.

[markshoub]

I will sometimes use the anchor rope as a gauge if it isn’t moving much. I can see if I am moving up or down. If it isn’t moving, I may grab it at 15 ft., while I wait my 3 min. If it’s moving around, I stay clear of it, and depend upon my dive computer for depth.

[MichaelWerle]

Hi guys, just saw this after your follow-up one.
First of all, super-gratifying to see you talk about speed of ascend during the last 5 meters - I see far too many divers just shoot straight up as soon as they're done.

I do have a comment on the "no sculling/finning" point though. While, yes, in general, that is absolutely the approach to have during a dive (the less effort, the less gas usage), during the safety stop we're actively trying to off-gas. Especially after a nice relaxed (and possibly cool) dive, our circulation will have slowed down quite a bit, particularly in our extremities. So being a bit more active during the safety stop to increase overall circulation to encourage offgassing might not be a bad thing. Personally I'll flex and stretch my fingers, arms, legs etc. even if it doesn't "look good".

Thoughts?

[leopoldbloom]

Especially for new divers the safety stop is a good time to train skills like bouyancy control or deploying an DSMB (no reason not to do so, even if someone else has already). It’s a couple of minutes when your dive is done and you can focus on practicing.

[noriwklee]

after the safety stop, even though I tried to slowly adjusting my breath to allow me ascend slowly.. still my computer warned me most of the time that I ascend too fast....

[friggincanvee]

I think if you're adding air to maintain buoyancy at the end of a dive, fair to say you're overweight right? Regardless whether upright or prone.

[briantaylor]

A question I have is how to perfect my center of gravity so I can hold my position in the water? I’ve tried to “Buddha” in the water and I keep tipping over causing me to scull and kick. My BCD has limited places to put trim weights.

[davewme]

I’m from the north In Saskatchewan. But dive in Florida in winter.. I’ve learned to watch prop chop or small critters, floating in the water as a hang guide for safety stop. Good vid tho, I enjoy your channel:).

[maxtorque]

One reason NOT to ascend too slowly from athe last stop is because once shallower than around 5m you are at risk from boats and other surface vessels! If you are diving in crowded waters, be sure to keep an eye and ear out (you'll hear a boat before you see it especially in poor vis), and use a SMB or dSMB to show your position to surface users (as well as your own boats captain who hopefully is looking out for you! (top tip- mark the top of your SMB with a unique marker, your name in big letters, or coloured tape and show your captain what it looks like BEFORE you dive over the side so they know precisely who to come scoop out of the water). If it's really busy and there can be a lot of boat traffic at popular dive spots, then i would extend my 5m stop by a few minutes, try and get as close as possible to "my" boat (top tip, after your intial bubble check at say 3m, take a look at the hull of your boat from below and try and remember what it looks like, colour, identifiying features etc, if the captain is using a hang bar, then ask them to mark that bar with an identifiying feature, ie bands of coloured tape or similar) and then surface at a reasonable rate, say around 10 to 20 sec to do those last 15 feet. This also helps stop any surface currents from dragging you away from your boat too! If you are really pro, note which way the current was dragging you when you went in, and surface up current of your boat, and allow the current to push you closer! Finally, if in big group, before you hog the ladder to try to get first back on board, ask if any other diver needs to go first, someone might be sick, tired, or cold, and welcome being able to get back on board first :-)

[jmpublicvideos]

What is special at the 15ft point?

I thought it would make sense if you had a 3min at each bar during accent