DIR - about kit?
Al, Frase and I dived the Salsette a few weeks ago. It was the day after Frase and I had got back from the Red Sea and I think I’m right in saying we didn’t manage to speak to Al until we got to Weymouth.
We didn’t need to discuss what gas we would be diving, what deco we would be doing, what the minumum gas was for safety. We didn’t need to run through each others kit, what signals would be, etc. We did agree, on the way out, who would run deco, who would lead the dive and who would bag up - but this took about half a minute and we went back to teasing Al about looking green.
On the way down the shot we were in light contact with each other the whole way down, ready to stop the descent if anyone had a problem. On the bottom, we gave our first signals to each other, that we were all ok and which way we were going to go. On the dive, I relaxed and, whilst keeping an eye on Fraser’s light to check he was OK, had a good look round.
All too soon I reached minimum gas and flashed my light for attention to the “thumb” This was the first non-passive signal on the dive, since we reached the bottom. Immediately, Al and Frase responded, and within only a matter of seconds we were on our way to the first deep stop.
We dive without written plans or runtimes, but each of us will have a pretty good idea based on the dive of where the stops will be and how long for, and Fraser called a stop bang on where I was expecting it. He managed the ascent to 24 meters, on leaving this stop we each started to deploy our stages ready for the switch at 21.
As soon as Frase gave me the signal to switch I did so in order that I could then concentrate on putting the bag up. I kept an eye on Al whilst I was doing this as I knew he would keep his depth for me to use as a visual reference.
We settled down into the classic triangle, close enough to monitor each other, back-kicking if necessary to keep the triangle even, and chilled.
The stops took Fraser’s preferred pattern but neither Al nor I would have varied this by more than a minute here or there so all was well. Until he tried to play silly buggers and called very shallow extra stops - when we both told him to sod off and surfaced.
Back on the boat we nattered about a fun dive. Just like 1,000s of other divers. Only difference is I could do this dive in this exact same way with a DIR diver I’ve not met before the dive.
Kit? I hope I’ve just shown you, it’s about so much more than that 
