First unguided dive goes badly

[alicatfish]

Yesterday my husband and I did our first dive by ourselves. All other dives have been guided. Our first dive using Nitrox. It was the 26th dive for me; 27th for him. We planned to dive a wreck about 22m down, just off the shore. The plan, as I understood it, was to swim straight out to a buoy, and then head to the right where we would find the wreck. There was a slight current.

Problem #1 My husband led. As soon as we got in the water he headed off course and we completely missed the wreck. I figured, no problem, we'll just look at the pretty reef and fish instead.

Problem #2 Next thing I know, my husband is giving me the thumbs up. I signal "What's up?". Finally he gives me some signal as if to mean "Crazy" so I figure he thinks he is getting narced; I didn't think we were deep enough for that, but obviously something was up. We go up a little and I keep signaling "Level off, level off." He kept going up and up. Suddenly I started ascending automatically d/t the air in my BCD, by the time I dump it I'm at 2m. He was above me.

Problem #3 I give my husband the thumbs down. He nods. I start to descend - too fast. I was so focused on getting back down, away from any boats, down to where we could also do our safety stop, I completely neglected to equalize my ears. That sure hurt - still does.

We finally go down, swim back towards our starting point, do our safety stop 3 minutes, 5m, and then finish the dive.

On the surface my husband told me he had a panic attack. He looked at his dive computer and the depth wasn't changing. Then he looked at mine and the depth wasn't changing either. Why? He was looking at the max depth instead of the actual. I reminded him that the correct thing, should his computer fail, would have been to look at his depth gage. He told me he became worried about oxygen toxicity (and that it was causing his anxiety), getting lost, the current sweeping us away. He told me he felt that he just had to get to the surface - he was worried he might spit is reg out. He basically had become completely irrational.

Fixing problem #1&#3 On the surface we talked about our dive plan, and how it wasn't followed. I'm not really sure why my husband went diagonal instead of straight out to the buoy. He really didn't have an answer for that one either. As for my ears, I need to work on controlling my descents better.

Question for problem #2 Any thoughts on why he might have freaked? He thinks it could have been due to O2 toxicity (anxiety, irrational behavior). I think he just lost his head. And what should I have done differently?

 

[g2]

Hi Alicatfish,

Reading your description of the dive, my impression was that you're probably trying to master too many skills at once. This can easily cause anxiety and 'freaking out' (as with your husband) and lead to other mistakes (ears, buoyancy problems, etc). You don't say what your max depth was, but at 22m narcosis was probably not that much of an issue.

You did the right thing by talking with your husband afterwards and discussing what went wrong. Perhaps in future dives you could keep it simpler and work on one skill at a time: buoyancy, navigation, etc.

Keep going-- and Keep It Simple!

cheers,

glenn

 

[IceBergSlim]

Wow. There are a lot of issues there.

Sounds like you were aces while dealing with those problems. Still, almost none of the problems should have happened in the first place.

Almost everything in your post can be dealt with easy. I will leave other minds to address that.

The only real concern I have about your tale is the "Panic Attack". Those kinds of attacks are common on the surface.
As you can imagine there is no room for panic attacks under water. I would strongly advise you to look into that issue first.

peace,IS

 

[daniel f aleman]

And what should I have done differently?

Sounds like you and your husband need additional training.

 

[BKP]

Just sounds like a little too much task loading on your first unguided dive.

You could have surface swam out to the buoy, shot a compass heading 'to the right,' where the wreck was, and then descend, using the buoy line as an ascent/descent line. That may have relieved you of one navigation task, as well as the buoyancy control issue for your husband if you had to ascend quickly (using the buoy line as a marker).

If you both have been fine on your guided dives (which I assume you were), the only thing that would seem different here, was not having a built in navigator, or someone to mark your ascent and safety stop.

Take those variables out of your next unguided dive. Get comfortable diving alone without the extra task loading.

Dive safe...

EDIT: P.S. - If the wreck was 22m down (I'd guess the sandy bottom couldn't have been more than 33m, unless it was a huge wreck), your husband certainly didn't have an O2 toxicity issue (assuming you were diving 32 or 36%, at 1.4 ppo). However, a little happy gas euphoria might have been possible if you did, in fact, get down to 30 or 33 meters.

 

[emcbride81]

In my opinion, you should have surfaced if safely away from boats, and had a surface discussion. It was apparent he was freaking out, maybe getting up there and talking would have calmed both of you down. As far as boats go, were you diving with a flag?

Other than that it seems like you have figured out the other errors. What I do if we start off incorrectly is signal my buddy right away, surface and get back on course. All this said, there will be wiser comments I'm sure.

 

[emcbride81]

BTW you hubby may have freaked because it was your first unguided dive, and he may have felt pressure to be perfect and keep you safe, while not being totally comfortable...this is nothing for him to be ashamed of. I was nervous on my first one and it was a fresh water quarry with a max depth of 30ft!

 

[ce4jesus]

A little anxiety on your first, un-escorted dive is normal. Maybe your planning was a little aggressive and the additional tasks as described above were a little too much. My wife and I ease into new things. Additionally if there is a problem with the dive plan, we surface to discuss it but at a very calm, relaxed pace. Although the dive profile isn't optimum, surfacing from a depth of 22m and then returning to depth isn't forbidden. Furthermore, It sounds as though you were a little perturbed and stressed yourself. Maybe in a situation like this you exert that inner feminist and take charge. My wife and I can tell by looking at each other "something" is wrong. We've also worked on our underwater communication because in situations like this it helps to maybe stop, get close, face each other and do some simple communication signals. Then if the other still wants to ascend its no big deal, we get to the surface, discuss the issue then descend and continue the dive. Although your experience was not that good, shore dives with your dive buddy can be the best. Visit your local dive shop and they can usually give you a report on conditions and sometimes if they're real talkative they'll give you that all important dive briefing for the site. Cheers and dive safe.

 

[Henryville]

And what should I have done differently?

I agree with the earlier posters - you were trying to add too much at once to your experience base. Why not think about your next few unguided dives on a shallow reef where you can correct navigational errors more easily?

As for your question, what you could have done differently is respond to your husband's thumbing the dive correctly. The thumbs up is a command signal with only one response - returning the signal and beginning your safe ascent/exit. There is plenty of time later to discuss why, on the surface. By trying to figure this out on the bottom, you probably unintentionally added to his stress. You should discuss this and make sure you are both on the same page about this signal.

 

[spectrum]

alicatfish,

My wife and I have been unguided since dive one so I can't directly relate to the transition you are making. However after reading your post it's clear that your first independent dive was too ambitious. Something like a shore dive with a straight out and back plan would have been much better.

Suddenly being solely responsible for all aspects of a dive as a team represented a lot of task loading. You may have been going through the motions of navigation and so forth before but in the end it was the DM you followed. now it was for keeps and the dive was not trivial.

Being alone in the water no doubt provided a source of stress whether you recognized it or not. For many there is comfort in numbers, especially initially.

With that stress in the background I would say that a lot of little mistakes were made and to some extent your husband became fixated, especially with regard to the depth reading. Any way we look at it our brains slow down as we absorb nitrogen. The line between euphoria, impairment and being flat out narced is a fuzzy one. The anxiety of your first independent dive surely amplified the impairment. I can recall having moments in a dive where I made similar mistakes reading instruments where it took a moment to realize what I was doing.

You had a plan, errors were made and you recovered. You debriefed and identified what went wrong.

My suggestion is to return to the water in a less ambitious setting and give it another shot.

My definition of a good dive is on in which nobody got hurt, all of the gear came back and you learned something. You did good.

Pete