Blue Sparkle
Contributor
@Blue Sparkle: Why should they have no air in their BCDs? This implies that they had simultaneous BCD failures...or that they purposefully dumped all of the air in their BCDs prior to trying to ascend. Is this the way OW divers are taught to ascend?
Well, I admit it might be a stretch and was just one possible scenario. And I don't have cold water experience to go on. For my usual warmer water dives I probably would not have any air in my BC after about the first 1/4 or so of my tank was used up. So by the time I would be low on air (or, heaven forbid, OOA), I would not have anything in my BC. I realize it is probably different for cold water, which is one reason I'm asking tentatively.
I can't speak for how all OW divers are taught. I was taught to slowly/continuously let air out of my BC as I ascended because it expands (thus causing one to ascend too quickly). In practical use, because of where I dive, I don't usually have any air in my BC by that point in the dive, so to ascend I take a deeper breath and float slowly up (still breathing of course), or, if I need to give some oomph I swim up a bit (there are exceptions such as a thumbed dive early on with a fullish tank, where I might have air in my BC as I begin my ascent).
Would it be unreasonable to think that they were at depth with enough air in their BCDs to compensate for wetsuit compression? (In other words, that they were neutrally buoyant at depth at the time of the incident.
No, not at all. And I'm thinking it's likely they did have air in their BCs, since they presumably had lots of exposure protection on.
Unless.... say they were trying to share air or get started sharing air, and they were having problems keeping close enough together in the surge, maybe one of them was inhaling sharply because of being stressed and so started rising too quickly and they had relatively short hoses so they were getting separated while trying to share air, and so then they dumped air from their BC(s) to try to get under control and get to the same depth...
Maybe that brought them closer to the bottom and then it seemed easiest to get squared away on the bottom if they were close to it anyway after dumping air to get back together.... Clearly, I have no way of knowing. And I'm not trying to argue ridiculous scenarios that are so pie-in-the-sky that they are annoying. I'm also not trying to advocate or defend any position on weights (I have my opinions, but I'm not trying to be defensive, is what I mean). I'm just working through what I've been reading here.
As for your scenarios, I think they could spark some very useful discussion. Perhaps you could start a thread in the New Diver forum on it.
I will consider that, thank you.
Blue Sparkle
Last edited: