I have been following some threads recently with heated debate regarding checklists, and I wanted to share with you one aspect of how we conduct ourselves with regards to safety at The Dirty Dozen Expeditions during a CCR Liveaboard in any of our destinations.I am under the strong belief of giving the experienced rebreather diver as much freedom as humanly possible, on the surface and in the water to rightly so, enjoy the hard-earned holiday they are on in the way that they see fit, within reason. However, experience operating technical diving liveaboards in remote destinations often paints a picture of otherwise role model CCR Diver:The diver has traveled for 30-70 hours to get to the destination. Even with a few days to rest, the individual is tired to start within an unfamiliar environment usually very eager to start their trip of a lifetime. This can be a cause of concern as you can find people assembling units at 3am (lunchtime in their timezone), skipping their usual routine of an assembly checklist, operation checklist or just not in the mindset or rhythm on their unit.To counter this we adopted this procedure in 2018 which has seen enormous success and has never left the boat since. I am not claiming ownership of the idea, it has been done before I am sure... but given the recent discussions, I felt it's important to highlight the enormous benefit of operators using these splash checklists.Our CCR splash checklist is a last-minute check that EVERYONE has to complete before every dive by a trained staff member that can spot errors before jumping in the water. It takes about a minute and covers the following:Has the unit passed its pre-dive check?Is handset on? (Show)Is DIL on? (Show SPG, Purge Gas)Is o2 on? (Show SPG, Purge Gas)Computers set to correct gas? (Show Handsets)Off-Board Bailout on and Functioning? (Visual Confirmation)PPO2 in the LOOP SAFE? (Show handset)with 12 divers conducting a total of 24 CCR dives a day on our trip with multiple units, this really simple checklist can and HAS prevented possible accidents. I want to underline that this is only a supplement. The diver is STILL responsible to follow their unit-specific checklists, pre-breath protocols as per their training organization.Sometimes people complain about it the first couple of days, but then, always at the end of the trip, they thank you for it, because they feel safe. At the end of the day, we are there to give you a safe and enjoyable experience.The following video has Jill Heinerth conducting the checklist on our trip to Truk Lagoon last week.I hope you are all having a great weekend!Best,Aron Arngrímssonwww.dirtydozenexpeditions.com

Posted by Aron Arngrímsson on Friday, February 14, 2020