Critical hand signals for air or gas management for beginner scuba divers.

Continuing our series looking at scuba-diving hand signals, Lyell walks you through two handed and one handed hand signals that can be used underwater to communicate air or gas levels, Also we discuss and ask additional questions like, “When should we use the low on air hand signal?”. In addition, he talks about some of the differences in hand signals when using psi versus bar for pressure measurements!
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[@everythingscuba]

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[@brianc5212]

The Low On Air signal given at the Ascent Pressure or the Reserve Pressure depends on where you are in the dive and in the water column. At depth the signal would be given at the Ascent Pressure if you have not started ascending yet, and if ascending or during the 15ft (5m) safety stop the signal would be given at the Reserve Pressure.

[@cobaltlion4105]

For me, the "I'm low on gas, time to ascend" is 800 psi. That's the level I'm comfortable with for ascent plus reserve, and it's the level my dive shop teaches when we do our monthly trips.

[@mikloszakar5314]

Where I dive people are using the ✊ signal for 50 bars. (Not close to chest which = low on air) We use this to communicate pressure, so for example 160 = T + ✊ + ☝️

[@ManeaSayal]

many thanks for the great sharing ..

[@sirexilon]

For sure we use the ASL numbers, since one of my buddies is deaf, it makes more sense and to be honest I think it's easier since it is always one handed. You always have your hand up and join love finger with your thumb. For 6 you job your small five with your thumb, and next fine is 7 then 8 then 9.

[@SFROFRO-if4xj]

Thanks buddy

[@leopoldbloom4835]

Given there is another hand sign to ask for your buddy‘s octo, „low on air“ is for any situation in which I need to change the dive plan due to my remaining pressure.

[@ThierryC2373]

In France, when you dive with a guide, they always ask you to signal low air at 50 bars which, most of the time, occurs at the end of the dive. It happened to me to suck my tank down to 20 bars during a fight with a very strong current in the middle of a dive (my camera rig was too big and it was a hell of a drag), it is humiliating to be the only one to go back to surface tethered to one of the guide's octopus... he was not happy too to lend me his air.

[@chankwanting]

The one last method to signal to your buddy that you are out of air is to physically grab their octo and start breathing from it. 😜

[@everythingscuba]

Wierdly enough Katie in the few situations we have seen this happen the “out of air” diver generally isn’t polite enough to grab their buddy’s octo……we’ve seen out of air diver take regs out of other divers mouths…..hence why rescue diver course is very useful!!

[@bikeon143]

After taking a sidemount class, I can't understand why using 2 hands is even taught.

[@everythingscuba]

It is certainly easier isn’t it! Thanks for watching!

[@johnmontgomery2735]

I may be a little confused. Is this not the same video I watched last week?

[@everythingscuba]

We removed the older video and split it into two segments John. The first one dealt with gas planning for a dive and this one deals with hand signals. Sorry for the confusion. We thought it would make it more easily digestible for our viewers in shorter videos.

[@johnmontgomery2735]

Oh well that makes more sense. Can't wait for the next one!

[@391wombat]

Why is showing your spg to someone asking for remaining gas a last resort? In my mind its the simplest, easiest and most accurate way to convey that information. Just keep your spg in an easy to access configuration (which it should be anyway for you to check it yourself) and show it to them. Love this and prior related video. Just don’t get reluctance to show the damn spg on-this particular issue. Seems the most foolproof method to me.

[@whaleshark2625]

It's not necessarily practical if you're diving in current or physically distant from members of your dive group.

[@sirexilon]

Is not practical and you have to be one on top of the other too read it. Have signals is the best option. Is not that difficult, she after all is all life preservation.

[@tobiashartung856]

I've never used your low on air signal nor have I ever seen it. Why would you? You should always be close enough to your buddy so that you can share. Also, what does "I'm low on air" mean? It means "we go up", so if you are low on air, you thumb the dive. Since you are communicating with your buddy throughout the dive, your buddy should be aware that you are getting to your ascent pressure, so when you thumb it and no calamity seems to have happened, then this is the only reason for me to assume why you called the dive. And if I'm wrong and you haven't called the dive because you are low on air, then so what? Anyone can call the dive at any point, so we're going up anyway.

[@sirexilon]

If you give me things up I'll ask why? Or are you ok? Which will only waste time. More on air is use I've seen it a few times socially when diving with new drivers, and it gives tone for the group to understand why we going up.

[@tobiashartung856]

@@sirexilon If I'm not ok, I'm telling you that I'm not ok. That might immediately be followed by a thumbs up signal, but at that point it is the important information to give, so I give it. So, if I simply end the dive without being visually in distress and without giving you a distress signal, then I am ok and I am consciously telling you that this is the end of the dive. Also, too many people reply to an action with "OK", so you just giving me an OK signal would be very easily understood as, "cool, we're going up then". To ensure that I understand you are querying my thumbs up, you would have to explicitly show "question OK". But all of this is moot because you get no further information out of me than you already have. I've already told you at multiple points throughout the dive how much gas I have left. If I'm down to 150bar after 20 minutes, down to 100 bar after 40 minutes, and at 50 minutes I give you an end dive, do you really need to ask why? If we have briefed to not go into deco and your computer shows 5 minutes NDL, but I haven't given you a 100bar or so left, do you need to ask why we're going up? You should already have all the information you need to understand why I am ending the dive if there is no distress situation. If you get surprised by a routine end of dive because I am low on gas, then you are not working well as a buddy pair. There is some communication issue that you need to figure out, because I know pretty much exactly when my buddy will hit 100bar, 70bar, 50bar and if I am leading the dive, I double check gas with them a couple minutes before I expect each of these points to be. Same for myself. I check my gas to confirm that the amount of gas that I have left is what I expect it to be. If I (or my buddy) have a lot less gas left than I expect (or a lot more for that matter), then I know something is up. Is there a gas leak? Is an SPG busted? I need to know what to expect in terms of gas remaining, so that I can identify an issue when it happens. This applies to myself and my buddy. So, I know when my buddy is low on gas, because I know how much gas my buddy should have at any given point of the dive.

[@sirexilon]

@@tobiashartung856 off the are only 2 divers and you have been constantly sharing info i will know how close you are, but if there are more divers or if something happens that you used more air in there last moments. Still doing a 4 divers session and sharing info i had a buddy that used a lot of air trying to swing against current when's he didn't need to. And while I'll to that point we were in similar air. Conditions he all the sudden went to 800 psi while i was in 1300 and we usually get out with the same air left, so he use the signal . Ok don't see why making the signal is such s problem when it's specific information.

[@tobiashartung856]

@@sirexilon In the situation you are describing, I would argue it is the wrong signal in the first place. Before you argued the signal should be given if everything is ok but you are low on gas, so end the dive. Now in the example you've given, the gas consumption of one diver massively increased without apparent reason. This means something is not ok. The diver could have a catastrophic gas loss. You should not be saying "all good, let's go up". It should be "Something is wrong, my gas is now low, let's go up." But in this case, "my gas is now low" is a bad signal. How low are you? Tell me exactly what you have, so we can take the necessary actions. I'm not opposed to using the "low on gas" signal per se. I just don't see a reason for it. If it is unexpected, then I want to know how much you actually have because we are now in a distress situation. If it is expected, then I already know that you are low on gas, so just tell me that we end the dive now.

[@sirexilon]

@@tobiashartung856 i have you the reason. Diver that is out of practice tried to swim against a very strong current to get the the other pair instead of riding the current and adjusting position, he was with me all the time nothing was wrong. He used more gas than he should. I signals the DM as me and him started to go up slowly to the safety stop. We talking about recreational divers both tech. You can say anything you want, butt most divers approve the signal and find out useful.