Every open water dive has a briefing before the dive. Here in Belgium at a quarry or lake its a brief discussion with your buddy about who takes the lead, dive time, dept and direct. We all know the dive locations, know who has the 100% oxygen in his car and know our buddy so it only takes a minute.
When diving abroad or in open sea a briefing is very import, should be thorough and can save your life. The dive master makes a drawing or has a map and describes the dive site and dive plan. It doesn't matter if you have a guided dive or dive on your own with a buddy, you should listen and know the dive plan 100% .
In case of a guided dive a briefing informs you about what to expect, how the dive site looks like and what the emergency procedures are. You never know what will happen: your dive guide can have problems or has to go up with another diver in problems, you can loose sight of the group, a strong current can scatter the group, ...
When you dive alone the briefing is extra important because you and your buddy have to navigate by yourself. Where is the reef, how does the reef looks like, how much current is there, where is the current coming from, what is the maximum dept, will the boat move and wait at another place, what's the maximum dive time before they start to worry, where are the sharks, ...
Here are some typical examples of briefing drawings of dives I made:
Shark alert, yes we found them!!! :-)
I remember one case were I was sloppy. On my first dive on my first live-aboard I didn't pay that much attention to the briefing.
I was appointed an experience buddy, was used to dive with a guide or instructor and trusted on my buddy's guidance. But my buddy misunderstood the direction of the reef we had to follow and we ended up on the other side of the reef, upcurrent with the waves smashing us against the reef. A zodiac had to come and drag us out of there. Since then I'm always concentrated for the briefing and I ask questions when something is unclear.
Diving is a serious sport, so a briefing is very important. And it is good to know what you can expect. A lot of divers trust the guide to much.
I am mostly diving with my husband. Guides and other divers can do what they want, if we don't think it is safe, we go our own safe way. Safety first.
Courtesy of @aschatria this post received 100% FREE UPVOTE for quality post submitted to Die Hard Steemit Discord group. Thank you for being our valuable member and active content creator on Steemit.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by pieter87 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.