Thalassamania(Offline)

I hope that you do not mind fielding another question. Something came up in discussion on another board that raised a question issue that I though might have some light shed upon it here.

In immitation of my old oval Swim Master Wide View mask I glue a small (perhaps ½” x 1”) neoprene pad in the nose pocket of my current masks. My nostrils are completely, but gently, occluded by this pad. If I exhale gently, air goes by, but if I exhale more forcefully (or push my nose … well actually the nose pocket of my mask) against anything (forearm, instrument housing, back of my hand, etc.) I can close off my nostrils and equalize. I learned this using old style oval masks and commercial gear (Band Masks and Helmets). This lets me stay ahead of the need to clear by keeping slight positive pressure in my pharynx (during exhilaration) whenever I descent.

I suggested that this might help some folks who are task loaded with suit inflator, wing inflator, a scooter, etc., and find that they’ve “run out of hands.” The question was raised as to if it “was DIR” to “modify” your mask in this manner.

Any thoughts that I might share?

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JohnKendall(Offline)

It certainly isn't DIR to do this. You are adding extra equipment to make up for something that could be solved with skill and practice.

What happens if the pad comes unstuck? What about your backup mask? What about your team's backup masks? What happens if you give a team member a backup mask with this pad added when they are not expecting it?

If you are worried about trying to clear your ears while doing other tasks, there are other ways of doing it other than by using the valsalva manouver.

HTH
J

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TobyFish(Offline)

the best way to clear your ears whe task-loaded up to your eyes - is to yawn nonchalantly (better still if you can wave your hand over your open mouth)

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Thalassamania(Offline)

You think of a 1/2" by 1" piece of neoprene as "extra equipment?"
What happens if a wet suit seam lets go, about the same chance. But anyway if the pad were to come unstuck it would still be in place until you took your mask off, and worse comes to worse where's always your backup mask.
Actually that's happened and they did not evey notice.
There are folks (not a problem for me) who can only clear their ears with valsalva, I made this post on behalf of a Physician and DIR diver who can not clear any way other than valsalva.

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lizardland(Offline)

I had to modify the nose bar on my Mk1 Divator in this way as I didn't find it particularly easy to get a good seal. On the times I've dived a KMB it's even worse.

Don't have it in your backup. It's not an essential, it's a luxury, you'd still be able to pinch and clear normally.

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Joe Hesketh(Offline)

If you happened to be installing this because your nose pocket didn't, or didn't easily, allow you to effectively pinch your nostrils (eg protruding lenses and/or thick gloves) then I'd agree it wasn't a good idea (or not DIR whatever). If it does dislodge, etc. what are you gonna do?

If it's just to give you an alternative way to do a valsalva, then what's the difference between that and having alternatives to the valsalva itself (ie other techniques)? It's never going to make it into the starting lineup of standard DIR equipment, but if it's just in your primary mask and you're not reliant on it (which from the OP I got the impression Thalassamania wasn't) then what's the problem?

Joe

Thalassamania(Offline)

Just to be clear, we started off with this:

According to JJ's DIRF book the corrugated hose "should be just long enough to allow for ear clearing and potential dry suit inflation while actuating inflator, but not so long that it drags or entangles easily."

I asked about this recently in another thread and was told that you need the left hand for clearing and inflation since the right hand is holding the scooter. However, I still don't see why you cannot just first clear your ears or inflate the drysuit and then inflate the BC or vice versa. I prefer to do one thing at a time, and clearing while holding onto and pressing the power inflator button just seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Also I cannot imagine a situation in which you absolutely need to inflate both the BC and the drysuit simultaneously rather than a few second apart. …

There were some good answers, some making a case for hands free clearing.

Then there was a post by a physician (who dives DIR, has done Fundies and DIR-1):

Hands free ear clearing is anatomy dependent. I cannot do it. I wish I could (and I've tried all the described techniques I could find) because it would reduce task loading on descent a ton.

I made the suggestion of the wee pad glued in the mask and you’d have thought that the sky was falling. It was soon clear that some folks wouldn’t cotton to such a thing without a fatwa from JJ, at the minimum.

Their reaction seemed a bit extreme to me. I glue such a pad in my mask because if I’m a tiny bit stuffed up can’t use one of the other methods (e.g., Frenzel, Toynbee, BTV, Roydhouse, Edmonds, Lowry, Voluntary Tubal Opening, or Twitch) then I can always fallback on valsalva, hands free, if that fails its time to thumb the dive.

So I thought I’d ask here, but the initial response seems to indicate that my friend would need said fatwa, so I’ll have to get a hold of JJ and see what he thinks.

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Joe G(Offline)

Most of your equalizing is on descent. During this time for the most part your stages are not an issue, your hands may be occupied by a scooter and light, which the light is designed with goodman handle to handle(pardon the pun) the issues of drysuit inflation, wing inflation and equalization. Of course if you switch gasses at greater depth, equalization requirements become less required with greater depth.

Personally I'd have to say a person having difficulty with equalizing teqniques while task loaded may lack the experience for the given dive.

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Thalassamania(Offline)

From Peter Steinhoff:

I can't see any problems with that modification. I sometimes use a similar technique because I let my mask slide up a bit so that the nose pocket is close to my nostrils and I can to some extent equalize the same way.

One has to remember that equalizing is different for different divers. Some can do it by just wiggling their jaws and some have to use a proper valsalva or other technique. With your modification one would just have added another way of doing it in addition to the rest - another tool in the toolbox so to speak.

To keep in mind though is that we in general strive for ambidextrous operation of our equipment, even if we have a default like light in the left hand and scooter in the right. A proficient diver should be capable of riding a scooter both left and right handed, be able to use left or right hand for operating the wing, holding the primary light, reels etc. As long as the mask "modification" is not used as an excuse to NOT develop these ambidextrous skills there are no problems. To use a favorite buzz word in the dir community we could say that we still need to be "thinking divers".

feel free to post my response wherever you see fit.

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“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson