Almost died today--Any captains out there???

[blueanchor]

Had you alerted the dive master he/she might have helped calm you down and you may have been able to finish the dive without incident. If he/she could not help you gain your composure they may have called the dive and had the whole group surface.

I can completely understand everything you said, but I don't agree with it. I was comfortable with the surface when I got in. It was when I got down that I felt uncomfortable and I was trained to alert my diver buddy and ascend. I was even reassured of that in writing when I signed the release form. Yeah, I didn't get the divemaster, but I wasn't in a panic when I was down there. I was just done. I wanted out. Do I have to make a scene in 80 feet of water and stop the dive for everyone? No, I don't think so. And why don't I? Because the boat is suppose to be watching the dive flag. When I ascended and I inflated my safety device the boat should have been there, and seen me. But, didn't because he decided to get the hell out of the storm and come back and get us in 20 minutes after our dive was up. While, someone may have had an injury on the surface or someone may have floated hundreds dollar of gear up to the surface. Whether it was me by myself or the entire group the boat was absent, and I have a problem with that. If a diver feels uncomfortable for any reason they have the right to surface. It doesn't have anything to do with being inexperienced. Whatever the problem could be I paid money to have that charter following us.

 

[vladimir]

Had you alerted the dive master he/she might have helped calm you down and you may have been able to finish the dive without incident. If he/she could not help you gain your composure they may have called the dive and had the whole group surface.

I can completely understand everything you said, but I don't agree with it. I was comfortable with the surface when I got in. It was when I got down that I felt uncomfortable and I was trained to alert my diver buddy and ascend. I was even reassured of that in writing when I signed the release form. Yeah, I didn't get the divemaster, but I wasn't in a panic when I was down there. I was just done. I wanted out.

Your instinct to abort the dive because you felt uneasy was good--most of the time that will be the right decision. What you now know is that the surface is not necessarily the safer place our instincts tell us it is.

Do I have to make a scene in 80 feet of water and stop the dive for everyone? No, I don't think so. And why don't I? Because the boat is suppose to be watching the dive flag. When I ascended and I inflated my safety device the boat should have been there, and seen me. But, didn't because he decided to get the hell out of the storm and come back and get us in 20 minutes after our dive was up. While, someone may have had an injury on the surface or someone may have floated hundreds dollar of gear up to the surface. Whether it was me by myself or the entire group the boat was absent, and I have a problem with that. If a diver feels uncomfortable for any reason they have the right to surface. It doesn't have anything to do with being inexperienced. Whatever the problem could be I paid money to have that charter following us.

The captain has to take the safety of each and every diver as well as the boat into account. In heavy weather, moving away from the area probably mitigated the risk of a diver getting run over, which is, in my mind, the greatest risk you faced. $100 worth of dive equipment doesn't factor large into the decision-making. As I said earlier, there is no completely safe way to conduct drift dives, or any dives for that matter. That is what Nintendo is for.

 

[Doc]

I'm a little confused by this. On the drift dives that I've done in South Florida, the boat won't necessarily come over to pick you up until you surface.

You are so correct! It all depends upon local protocol. I was refering to the common Asian/African/SoPac process of the DM hauling a float with a reel. If you wanted to leave the group early (or got separated) you would ascend, shoot the SMB and wait for the pick-up boat to come near. This is well a standard policy almost everywhere in the Galapagos, Maldives, Tobago and Red sea drift dives.

Some will advise you that when they draw near, swim out from the reef structures to meet them. This is not so much to avoid grounding as it is to minimize ground swell effect.

They will watch from a distance, and they may be watching more than one flag or SMB at the same time.

That's why you should mark it (see my previous post) with a distinguishing letter and show it to the boatsman so they know who it represents

So, you may not know if the boat is close until you come up.

If you can see (and hear!) them from your safety stop, you'll know that this is the time to come up. They will come to you when they are ready to do so- they pick up their divers in the smartest order for their operation.

Therefore, in the conditions described by the OP, it may be preferable to wait on the surface

And puke.

so that you can try to spot the boat (or another boat, or a mouring bouy) and wave to get their attention instead of waiting underwater and hoping that the boat doesn't lose you.

A man's eyes at the water surface can not spot anything beyond a few feet.. and so what if we did? Besides- they have long since spotted you, certainly even if your SMB is even lying limp on the surface. If you are close enough for them to hear a signal, they must be blind to have not seen you already. Your seeing them is irrelevant to the recovery. If they draw near enough for a pick-up, you'll surely hear the screws or gearbox. If you can't hear that- you can't swim to them, anyway- too far!

I'll wait patiently underwater (in choppy water) until there's 200 psi in my tank, then I'll surface, even if there is no pick-up boat. Nice to have a few psi in it as you have to go under water and come up to a ladder for reboarding (the obviously preferred method versus approaching a tossing ladder from the surface).

At this point- if they haven't deployed a drift line with float, I'll reach out and hand them my SMB and make sure I keep my end of that 30' line. A smart boatsman will figure that out pretty quickly, but you might have to remind him to pull the line if you have issues reboarding.

The plan, agreed to in advance, is the key.

On this portion of the thread, we are all having problems communicating what one might do on calm water versus rough, but again it pays to have the gear, the training, and the plan... in advance.

 

[Hoomi]

Well, so far my wife and I have had a pretty easy time staying together anyway, and if we need a more tangible connection while swimming along underwater, there's always the old-fashioned (gasp!) holding hands.

Of course, we could also tether ourselves together with a long piece of bungie cord, then one of us swims ahead enough to stretch the cord, and the other slingshots by to repeat the process. It could even help my wife do boat dives, since I could climb into the boat, and she could pull herself down the anchor line, and then fling right up out of the water, up over the side of the boat, to land gracefully back on the deck.



(If you haven't guessed, that second paragraph was completely facetious)

 

[*dave*]

One thing to consider is the difficulty in spotting exhaust bubbles during a storm. Even the flag can be tough to track when it gets rough. Just because you can see the flag doesn't mean you can track the divers and motoring close enough to see the flag during a squall could mean being on top of divers, which is hardly safe.

Sorry you had a bad experience, but it sounds as though the captain did nothing wrong in this case. Bailing from the group without notifying the DM was a mistake.

Had you alerted the dive master he/she might have helped calm you down and you may have been able to finish the dive without incident. If he/she could not help you gain your composure they may have called the dive and had the whole group surface.

I can completely understand everything you said, but I don't agree with it. I was comfortable with the surface when I got in. It was when I got down that I felt uncomfortable and I was trained to alert my diver buddy and ascend. I was even reassured of that in writing when I signed the release form. Yeah, I didn't get the divemaster, but I wasn't in a panic when I was down there. I was just done. I wanted out. Do I have to make a scene in 80 feet of water and stop the dive for everyone? No, I don't think so. And why don't I? Because the boat is suppose to be watching the dive flag. When I ascended and I inflated my safety device the boat should have been there, and seen me. But, didn't because he decided to get the hell out of the storm and come back and get us in 20 minutes after our dive was up. While, someone may have had an injury on the surface or someone may have floated hundreds dollar of gear up to the surface. Whether it was me by myself or the entire group the boat was absent, and I have a problem with that. If a diver feels uncomfortable for any reason they have the right to surface. It doesn't have anything to do with being inexperienced. Whatever the problem could be I paid money to have that charter following us.

 

[MMM]

Have read all posts. I understand your anxiety as a new diver and expect you've learned something. Here are my learnings in having dived both WPB and lots of dives in Coz, which are remarkably similar.

1. Weather can come up quickly.
2. You're better off below the surface in bad conditions until boat is ready to pick you up.
3. In rough conditions boat may not be able to see and/or approach you. So be prepared for a wait after you've shot your sausage from depth.
4. If you're thumbing adive let DM know. That way the captain knows he needs to backtrack after he picks up those with the dive flag.
5. To stay connected with your buddy, hang onto his/her tank valve. No tethers etc.
6. You and your buddy need to stay together - not one playing Sea Hunt below you.
7. Sounds like you dropped your weights too soon. You'd have been better off at 15 feet.
8. I didn't learn all of this in one dive. Whenever I've experienced a problem, I've asked the DM "What should I have done to prevent X".

All this will come with experience. I don't tink you almost died. Might have felt like it at the time though. Glad you posted and hopeyou come away with new learnings. You will never learn everything you need to know without lots of learning experiences such as this one.

 

[SurDo2]

You didn't, "almost died today"... trust me on this one.

 

[Slonda828]

"Well, yeah I was with a divemaster on a pro dive boat, and I was obviously separated when I came up with my friend. It was a drift dive in PB, and I had a 5 foot bright orange sausage I blew up in the midst of being tossed and turned with 3-4 foot waves.

While the rest of the four divers were under the thunderstorm was on top. Probably the reason the boat was not present like you wrote. I went down because the captain, the divemaster, and the rest of the passengers all thought the storm was heading north and we would have time to finish up our last dive. The captain makes the final decision, and he made one that almost cost me my life."

Someone either failed you in your training, or you need more experience, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm a divemaster and there's things that I elect not to do. I dive West Palm and Panama City all the time. Abernathy's, Narcosis, and Dive Locker all have an SOP where if the visibility gets too bad then they do not risk HITTING YOU WITH THE BOAT by trying to find you in bad seas or bad viz. The skipper of that boat may have saved your life by not hitting you with the boat. You can think that many of us are being "harsh" as you alluded to earlier, but when we are generally in agreement that the skipper did the right thing you ought to listen to that. Sometimes reality isn't pleasant, but don't let it ruin your experience of diving. You've probably had bad days at work (unless you have a nancy job), and I bet you didn't quit that.

 

[Slonda828]

I don't think it is bad advice for every situation.

While I'd never have myself clipped of in our SoCal surf zone, I would certainly consider it safe should my buddy and I get separated from the dive boat for reasons beyond our control and we were faced with a several hour long bobbing around on the surface interval.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dave. There are situations where have a buddy line is paramount to the safety of the dive.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

And you're assuming it's clipped on both ends, tethering is really, really bad advice, especially for new divers in a potential panic situation.

The key is New Divers. I don't let my students on my watch carry tethers or long reels. They are begging for trouble. I have been in long waits for the boat pick up and everyone grabs another's fin. wagons circled. Tethers can go south with a quickness.

A good lesson for new divers - always carry a sausage.

On the boat in Roatan last month, a couple of people kinda questioned why I always carry a sausage on a reel...... The best answer came from another diver...."Ya but when the ***** hits the fan, I want to be diving with him...."

ALWAYS carry a sausage. BUT!! A 5ft sausage is next to useless in 4ft or more seas.... You can wave all you want adn may not be noticed depending on where you are in the trough, when the people look your way.

No, I don't think so. And why don't I? Because the boat is suppose to be watching the dive flag. When I ascended and I inflated my safety device the boat should have been there, and seen me. But, didn't because he decided to get the hell out of the storm and come back and get us in 20 minutes after our dive was up. While, someone may have had an injury on the surface or someone may have floated hundreds dollar of gear up to the surface. Whether it was me by myself or the entire group the boat was absent, and I have a problem with that. If a diver feels uncomfortable for any reason they have the right to surface. It doesn't have anything to do with being inexperienced. Whatever the problem could be I paid money to have that charter following us.

You are SO wrong. The boat is not supposed be on top of you to make you feel better. It is supposed to be a safe distance and ready to pick you up when it is time. Now, the fact that you ascended early, means that the boat would not be looking to race over and get you.

You obviously have been misinformed about appropriate expectations. as I understand it, this storm rolled over very quickly. He had to find a place to safely hold position which would not be close enough to cause an ascending diver harm, and I bet he was first in the area where you should have come up had you done the entire dive.

You were scared. I get that. You are a brand new diver who needs more time and instruction in dive planning and risk management. So, go back and look at it again.
This whole thing would not have been a problem for one who was ready to be in that possible situation. You knew there was a storm nearby, you knew this was a drift dive, you should know the water vis. You were responsible for deciding if this dive and any scenario that may arise during it, were within your ability and experience levels. Please practice doing this from now on. Do not listen to your boyfriend who has a boat...... yadda yadda. He is speaking form his viewpoint. You listen to Your inner voice and find out information on your own. Do not trust him to make the decision to dive. I would bet That has something to do with you choosing to dive that dive too.

One last question, on a drift dive, with possible storm weather, with a raw dive buddy, Why was your boyfriend carrying his speargun? And don't feel sorry for him "protecting" you during the surface wait. It was not necessary. He was amping your fear levels, but doing nothing to protect you.

Someone either failed you in your training, or you need more experience, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm a divemaster and there's things that I elect not to do. I dive West Palm and Panama City all the time. Abernathy's, Narcosis, and Dive Locker all have an SOP where if the visibility gets too bad then they do not risk HITTING YOU WITH THE BOAT by trying to find you in bad seas or bad viz. The skipper of that boat may have saved your life by not hitting you with the boat. You can think that many of us are being "harsh" as you alluded to earlier, but when we are generally in agreement that the skipper did the right thing you ought to listen to that. Sometimes reality isn't pleasant, but don't let it ruin your experience of diving. You've probably had bad days at work (unless you have a nancy job), and I bet you didn't quit that.

Yep. What he said.