Always leave 'em laughing!

[onthetrain]

Well look on the bright side Kirstie, you did the hard bit by yourself. Next time you just need to remember the little detail at the end

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

I've just started stowing the blob and reel ready assembled, which takes a bit of the faff-factor out of the process. ...

Maybe, but you have two things to deal with at once.

If you have a blob with a big tape loop at the bottom (Buddy etc) it fits nicely over an arm. With a little gas in it the blob is now out the way and both hands are free for the reel.

Clip the reel line to the split ring on the loop and bingo.

The self-inflate ones are good as they take away the risk of a free flow at a time you need it least. I'm not sure they are really that much easier as such - but then I've never tried one TBH. Sadly we don't get in the sea often enough to justify the expense

Chris

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by onthetrain

Well look on the bright side Kirstie, you did the hard bit by yourself. Next time you just need to remember the little detail at the end

Bloody thing. Why can't I just inflate it on the surface and waggle it around until the skipper notices me?

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

Bloody thing. Why can't I just inflate it on the surface and waggle it around until the skipper notices me?

Paul or the blob?

[wilbo]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

I've just started stowing the blob and reel ready assembled, which takes a bit of the faff-factor out of the process. I never put any air in to keep the blob out of the way. It's a handy tip that's been mentioned to me before, and one that I manage to forget in the excitement of each deployment, I'm afraid.

A bloke on the boat has a small fishing float attached to the loop at the top of his blob and he reckons this does the job as well.

could I suggest that you do a dive purely to practice this skill? if you take a couple of dsmb/reel combos and so does Paul - then you can send 4 blobs up before having to surface - deflate them, descend and try again.

Chris' point about putting a little bit of gas into the blob before you send it up - pretty much works with any type of diving your do - and any type of blob..

I use one of the closed circuit Halcyon dmsbs with a spool - yet I still blow a little bit of air into it orally - to stand the thing up and out of my face - before connecting my drysuit inflate to it..

[Dave Crampton]

Kirstie,

I use my forefinger to hook the black loop on the bottom of the DSMB whilst holding the reel in the same hand. This leaves the right hand free to push the reg in the gap on the bottom of the DSMB and purge to inflate. Once you feel tension, straighten the fore finger to release the DSMB.

Simple once practiced a couple of times.

Dave C

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Maybe, but you have two things to deal with at once.

If you have a blob with a big tape loop at the bottom (Buddy etc) it fits nicely over an arm. With a little gas in it the blob is now out the way and both hands are free for the reel.

Clip the reel line to the split ring on the loop and bingo.

The self-inflate ones are good as they take away the risk of a free flow at a time you need it least. I'm not sure they are really that much easier as such - but then I've never tried one TBH. Sadly we don't get in the sea often enough to justify the expense

Chris

My blob has got a big loop but the reel is attached by what I think is called a crow's foot - basically I pass a loop of line through the smb loop then thread the reel through that (hard to explain but I'm sure you know what I mean). It's stowed like that on my left-hand waistband D-ring.

One of the problems I have is that my hands aren't big enough to hold my reel (which is a huge Halcyon thing), put a finger on the line to stop it all unravelling and hold the blob open so I can put air into it. Paul has huge hands and can do all this with one of them, holding his reg in the other. It makes mid-water deployments a bit interesting for me, trying to juggle reel, line, blob and reg.

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by wilbo

could I suggest that you do a dive purely to practice this skill? if you take a couple of dsmb/reel combos and so does Paul - then you can send 4 blobs up before having to surface - deflate them, descend and try again.

Chris' point about putting a little bit of gas into the blob before you send it up - pretty much works with any type of diving your do - and any type of blob..

I use one of the closed circuit Halcyon dmsbs with a spool - yet I still blow a little bit of air into it orally - to stand the thing up and out of my face - before connecting my drysuit inflate to it..

That's a good suggestion, and we're doing just that this coming weekend

We're at Porthkerris for a few days and Paul wants to try out his KISS as he's been tinkering with his new HUD and Shearwater, so we'll need to be pretty shallow for that. I shall use the time to practice deployment over and over again, until I'm happy that I can remember all the steps.

[jorawley]

good for you for being honest and starting this thread, every diver i know has had 'interesting' times with blob deployment at one time or another.

the more practice you need, the more excuses you have for going diving....

[neilh]

Originally Posted by chrisch

If you have a blob with a big tape loop at the bottom (Buddy etc) it fits nicely over an arm. With a little gas in it the blob is now out the way and both hands are free for the reel.

It's probably just me but I wouldn't be happy with that. I hate the idea of being attached in any way to the SMB, I prefer to be able to quickly and easily let go of the whole lot if I need to.

This is also why I don't like the suit inflate SMBs - it brings the whole lot far to close to me for my liking. Again I like being able to hold everything out in front of me so I can see where the big floaty thing is along with the line attached to it

Another option might be to practice some of this on dry land. I know you can't inflate the SMB easily that way, but you can play around with different ways of holding everything and practice moving things around, unclipping, etc. I'm sure someone else could also hold up the SMB to simulate it being inflated - and you can talk through tricky bits along the way.