Just a few comments from me;
One, never lose sight of your buddy, and always stay within your buddies sight. These buddies can be life savers. I have several times had to buddy breath, for multiple reasons. I will tell the best story at the end of this post.
Two, personally, I hate the integrated weight systems into the BCs. I have had a couple of buddies lose their weights while diving. I had to swim up quickly and help bring them back down. Once got hit on the head by a 3 pounder, looked up, and there was my buddy 5 feet above me. She was holding onto the lip of the ship we were diving. After all said and done, everyone laughed. But could have been very dangerous. And I would have hated losing my best dive buddy.
Three has to do with a previous post. As for being over weighted, what happens if your BC springs a leak? You will drastically start going down. Then in a panic or not, you will fight to go back up, burning your own air at a high rate of speed. This in its self could become very dangerous if you were to the low air point when it happened. But, what if you paniced and dumped your weights because you were sinking? Could spell bad trouble. You should never dive with more weights than you need.
Four; always have a whistle, and even as I do, I also have an air powered horn from my tank. It sounds like a sick duck quacking, but out of the water it can be heard a mile away. Makes a good attention getter while under the water as well. It attaches to the air line to your BC.
Mine looks simular to this one;
Six; always carry a knife, unless the dive boat you are with does not allow it. But it has been my experience that even though they post things like this, they never enforce them. I had a friend die about 20 years ago, and if he could have gotten to his knife, he probably would have lived. The story here is not only to carry a knife, but to keep it properly placed. If you are going to carry one on your leg, keep it to the inside part of your leg. On the outside, it can get bumped and you may lose your knife. I have recovered over 20 knives from dive areas over the years. But, the best position is for one of the smaller knives mounted on your BC. The reason for this, is the reason my friend died. He had a knife on his leg. He was diving for lobster in Florida (I was not with him). He got wrapped up in a net on the bottom. He could not reach his legs they said, and thus could not get to his knife. If he would have had it mounted on his BC, he probably would have survived. Personally, I carry one of the small cheaper knives on my BC, and I carry one on my leg.
Seven; always carry a bottle of ammonia or windex with ammonia, with you when you go diving. This is for those just in case times, if you should happen to get stung by something. Most jellyfish stings, fire coral stings, and many others can be counter acted and the pain stopped, with ammonia. If all else fails, you can even pee on yourself, hey it really works, I have done it after getting stung multiple times by a moon jelly.
Eight; when doing night dives, have at least one of your flashlights with brand new batteries in it. If it is your cheapo back up, so be it, but just make sure they are new.
And there are many more. The main point is, SAFETY FIRST. This is a great recreational hobby, but can be very dangerous. If you do not understand something about your dive, always, always ask questions. After all, by not wanting to look stupid or something, you could end up dead and stupid for not asking more.
Oh, I almost left out the most important thing about diving. After a heavy night out on the town, you want to buddy up with the most hung over person. The reason is, when you get down there, and they chum the water and feed the fish (which does happen a lot to those hung over people), you will be there to see it all. Make sure you have a camera at that time too. Makes great pics for great stories. LOL.
