This week I'd like to discuss the buddy check and more specifically, why the buddy check taught in your open water certification is only a starting point.  The common focus of a buddy check is to perform a pre-dive safety review with your buddy to make sure the basics have been accounted for prior to jumping in the water.  In PADI, the acronym BWRAF is used to remind us of the items we should review.

As a refresher, BWRAF has us focus on:
Buoyancy Compensation Device
Weights
Releases
Air
Final Check

While this is a good start, the first issue is that its often neglected once the diver is certified.  That's not to say nobody does it, but the number of times i've seen divers about ready to jump in with their air turned off or hoses disconnected or  trapped under an arm strap or waist belt is scary.  

What we teach is a more extensive, pre-dive check.  To start, even before our buddy check, we've all been taught to ensure that our regulators are working by turning on our air breathing off of them, inflating/deflating our BC to ensure there are no issues there and checking our pressure gauge to make sure we have adequate gas for our dive.  Another check we should be doing before we even turn on our gas is to try and breathe thru both our primary and alternate 2nd stage.  Why is this important?  If your exhaust port is damaged or folded over, you will be able to pull air into your lungs on the surface.  However, what this means underwater is that water will leak into your 2nd stage and your regulator will minimally breath "wet" which is certainly undesirable and can also cause choking or other issues during a dive.

At this point, we perform our basic BWRAF check, but then we also have the buddies step back from each other and look their partner over: top to bottom and left to right.  Are all hoses clear of entanglements, is all equipment appropriately clipped off and tight to the body so it doesn't lead to more issues underwater, does your buddy have ALL equipment necessary for the dive including mask, fins, compass, computer, cutting device, etc. and do YOU know how all your buddies equipment works and where things are.  Remember, the more preparation above water, the less likely there will be an emergency underwater and IF there is an emergency, the more likely you can address it quickly.

Another gap of the traditional "pre-dive" check is that it leads to the assumption that since we've done our safety check, we are all set.  The trouble is, we aren't.  While we might notice or be able to hear an air leak above water, it is just a likely we won't.  This brings us to the final, in-water safety check, the bubble check.  While common in technical diving, it is just as important in recreational diving and easy to perform.  Once you and your buddy are in the water and begin your decent, you should pause 5-10 feet below the surface and look at your buddy to ensure no bubbles are being emitted from anywhere they shouldn't.  This includes hose connections, the hoses themselves, the connection between the 1st stage and the tank and finally between the tank valve and tank itself.  Bubbles coming from any of these locations is a sign of an issue and could be signally a imminent catastrophic failure.  I've seen tank/regulator o-rings quickly progress from a small leak to a rush of expelled air in a matter of seconds.  Catching these issues just a few feet below the surface is easy to address.  Having them fail at depth is a much, much more serious issue.

For your safety, your buddy's safety and the safety of other divers around you, I urge you to consider adding  these more comprehensive checks to the start of every dive.  The added time can be the difference between a glorious dive and serious accident.

For anyone that has spent time underwater, you quickly realize there is a lot of stuff down there that can easily entangle a diver and quite a bit of it is manmade. In many cases, it takes the form of fishing line, abandoned nets, mooring or trap lines lost in storms, wire and a variety of other materials ready to loop around an unsuspecting diver. 

So, here is a question for you.  Do you carry a cutting device with you on every dive and if so, how many and where do you carry them?  A little backstory on the inspiration of this post.  I was on a recent dive trip where a couple of experienced divers found themselves wrapped up in some metal leader fishing line (probably for shark or barracuda fishing) and did not have a way to free themselves.  Luckily for them, our team always carries cutting devices and were able to free them before things escalated.

With the cost of scuba equipment, cutting devices are probably some of the least expensive yet most valuable pieces of gear you can carry underwater.  Cutting devices come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from the EEZYCUT Trilobite cutting tool, to stainless steel dive knives to surgical style sheers.  

As divers, we should always be thinking about redundancy and the same goes for cutting devices.  The first thing I want to dispel is the image of the massive dive knife strapped to the leg like you might see in an old James Bond 007 movie.  While it looks cool for the big screen, it is not a particularly good option for diving.  Why you ask?  Well, first is the positioning of the knife.  A knife strapped to the lower leg is difficult to reach under ideal circumstances and even more difficult if you are already tangled up.  Second, that large knife and it's holster are an entanglement hazard themselves and just perfect for capturing fishing line or a net as you swim past.  

This is why I use an EEZYCUT attached to my waist belt (they have several attachment options) as my primary go-to cutting device.  The EEZYCUT will slice thru fishing line, webbing and netting up to nearly 1/2" in diameter.  You should alway have your primary cutting device attached within easy reach, typically in the area between the chest and waist.  This ensures that should you find yourself entangled, you can always access it.

Since the EEZYCUT can't handle all situations, I also carry a modern dive knife.  These knives typically are made of stainless steel or titanium, have a blade length of 3-4" and feature a blunted tip (for prying), line cutter and smooth and serrated cutting blades.  My knife of choice is the dive knife made by Benchmade.  It has all the features I need in a compact package that I can store in either a drysuit or wetsuit dive pocket...again for easy access by myself or my dive buddy.

Hopefully, this post has provided you some useful information regarding the need for carrying an underwater cutting device and its placement should the need arise.

Have a great day and safe diving!!!