What to do when you lose your way?

[scubatuba]

Hello everyone!

I jsut did my first open water dive this weekend post-certification. We were on a wreck at about 50 feet with about 15-ft. visability on top of the structure, which was at about 20 feet. My buddy decided (also first time diver) he wanted to go over the side of the wreck. I followed. Within about 30 seconds I was totally lost with no visability, but I still had my buddy. We descended to about 40 feet. He was telling me we should swin in one direction, but I thought it was the other. I was really scared about being lost, I did not want to have to do my first safety stop without a line. In any case, we did not swim really anywhere. We had no navigation coordinated to go off either. I wanted to go to the top, but buddy didn't want to because we would probably not be allowed to back down due to air supply. In the end, we did not find the structure again and we did the safety stop on our own. We were about 50 feet off the structure/dive boat, so nothing major, but I have been panicked about it since.

My question is this: What were we supposed to do? Should we have never gone over the edge (seems obvious to me) or is that usually okay to do? Then, should I have swam the way my buddy said, even though it seemed liek the wrong way to me (and we didn't have any visiblity to confirm)? Should we have just gone up?

Thank you for your help! I jsut want to understand what I was supposed to do and what to do if that ever happens again.

 

[miked]

Given all the details that you described, I'd say (assuming sufficient air supply), at that time, ascend slowly, looking for structure/line/landmarks, etc. IMO, this is better than risking heading in the wrong direction.
If you see any of those, head towards them. If not, continue up until you get to 15 ft, then do your safety stop. After the SS is done, surface, look for the boat/land/whatever you need to return to, and swim towards it. If your air supply permits, you could take a compass heading, assuming you have a compass, and descend to 5 ft, swim on that heading. Every so often, ascend slowly, and recheck your heading.

 

[RickyF]

I guess I'm a little confused by what you are saying. If you went over the top edge of the wreck, how did you lose sight of it with 15' of visibility? If you swam away from the wreck, did you have a compass? This is where a compass should have been used. You should have been taught basic navigation using a compass and fin strokes. Not only that but you should always be aware of where you are especially in low visibility. Was the wreck on your right side as you descended? As an open water diver, your depth is limited to 60'. Anytime you become so disoriented that you don't know where to go, do your safety stop and surface to get your bearings.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I am a nut about always carrying a compass and knowing how to use it. So should you be. Using a compass in low vis means constant monitoring by one of the two buddies. By the way, good for you for maintaining buddy contact. As to what to do when lost, if you have no idea in what direction you should go, I agree a slow ascent looking for a landmark or structure you have seen on the dive. If no located,. Surface. Locate the boat. Do this BEFORE traveling any great distance, even any little distance.
DivemasterDennis

 

[scubatuba]

I guess I'm a little confused by what you are saying. If you went over the top edge of the wreck, how did you lose sight of it with 15' of visibility? If you swam away from the wreck, did you have a compass? This is where a compass should have been used. You should have been taught basic navigation using a compass and fin strokes. Not only that but you should always be aware of where you are especially in low visibility. Was the wreck on your right side as you descended? As an open water diver, your depth is limited to 60'. Anytime you become so disoriented that you don't know where to go, do your safety stop and surface to get your bearings.

Hi Ricky, thank you for the advice. What happened was that the sid eof the wreck was jsut a brown mass and I wasn't touching it. I was very close when we went over, but I was on the very tip of the wreck so I think when I got pulled, it was just gone from me. We never took a compass reading (dumb) because I didn't know that I would get pushed so quickly and there was literally nothing else around to orientate myself again (same with my buddy, but he was convinced he knew which way to go, even though it looked wrong to me). The wreck was bascially right in front of me when I descended but since it was the very tip I was facing, I didn't have much to go on when I lost it. The visibility dropped significantly after I went over the endge, I don't know if it really dropped or if it just seemed like that since there was no longer anything distinguishable to focus on.

It sounds like it was better not to swim any which way, in the end we kind of floundered a bit then we had to do our safety stop anyway due to air supply, I was upset because we had to do it on our own for our first time ever. I guess the dive master said that risk of DCS wasn't an issue because of the depth but safety stops were being used as practice (we were all mostly first timers) but I was terrified that I would get DCS from doing my safety stop wrong!

Lesson 1 learned: don't go over the edge.
Lesson 2 learned: take a compass reading no matter what!!

---------- Post added October 7th, 2013 at 09:18 AM ----------

Given all the details that you described, I'd say (assuming sufficient air supply), at that time, ascend slowly, looking for structure/line/landmarks, etc. IMO, this is better than risking heading in the wrong direction.
If you see any of those, head towards them. If not, continue up until you get to 15 ft, then do your safety stop. After the SS is done, surface, look for the boat/land/whatever you need to return to, and swim towards it. If your air supply permits, you could take a compass heading, assuming you have a compass, and descend to 5 ft, swim on that heading. Every so often, ascend slowly, and recheck your heading.

Thanks Mike! I wanted to get up to about 15 to 20 ft. and look around again since it felt like the deeper we went the less visibility we had but I don't know if that's in my head... I couldn't communicate that well enough to my buddy who just wanted me to swim in the direction he was pointing and that seemed like a bad idea to me!

Thank you for the advice - I hope I am never in that situation again but if I am, it seems like ascending to about 15 and regrouping is the best bet.

Also - is it accurate that at that depth a safety stop is not REQUIRED? My buddy says the dive captain told everyone that there is little risk of DCS and safety stops aren't actually necessary but we were to do them anyway for practice UNLESS we got lost, then we were jsut supposed to come all the way up slowly (we did the safety stop on our own anyway, thought who knows if it was "perfect" or not, our bouyancy control isn't that great yet!) Thanks!

So glad I found this board!

 

[genxweb]

Early in my diving career I made that mistake. The preventive solution in this scenario would of been to run a wreck line along the wreck. You would of tied off near the ascent line and ran it along the wreck. One of the many skills practiced in the wreck diving specialty. Did the capt give you a orientation of the wreck which way if the bow and stern so you could use a compass if you could not find the wreck?

What I would of done in the scenario and I did do years ago was to start my ascent and look for the anchor line or a reference and swim towards it. I could not see the line so I deployed a lift bag with reel and used that as my marker and ascent line. This informs the captain of my location and that I am on my way up.

If you are worried about making a free ascent you may need additional practice or you could carry a smb and reel so you can create your own ascent line. If your buoyancy is good making a controlled free ascent and safety stop is a very trivial task.

 

[scubatuba]

I am a nut about always carrying a compass and knowing how to use it. So should you be. Using a compass in low vis means constant monitoring by one of the two buddies. By the way, good for you for maintaining buddy contact. As to what to do when lost, if you have no idea in what direction you should go, I agree a slow ascent looking for a landmark or structure you have seen on the dive. If no located,. Surface. Locate the boat. Do this BEFORE traveling any great distance, even any little distance.
DivemasterDennis

Thank you Dennis! The fact that I didn't take a reading on my compass was a major mistake and I won't make that one again! I can't believe how FAST I was lost how fast there was just nothing, not even a fish, near me. I felt like I knew how disorienting underwater can be so I didn't trust my buddy when he said to swim in the direction he pointed, which was "lighter" than the way I thought we should go (I thought the "darker" water would mean the side of the boat in front of me but who knows if that's the case or not).

I wish we just hung out deck-side, there is nothing cool on the side of a barge anway! We did get to see a group of about 7 barracuda a big school of bait fish that we would have missed otherwise and we were ended up safe so it wasn't a total loss.... plus we LEARNED!

---------- Post added October 7th, 2013 at 09:28 AM ----------

Thanks genxweb! I didn't have the items you mentioned and I think I did the safety stop fine, I did have the computer to help with that and I was only at 39 ft. at my deepest to begin with. I still didn't want to try out the free ascent on my first ocean dive but that's what it was! I do want to try the line you mentioned in the future if I'm in that scenario again. I'm not sure I'll dive with this buddy again though, I'm not sure if I can shake off the PTSD attached to him!

 

[bumcikaz]

Run a reel next time so u wont get lost again

 

[Kharon]

I could be wrong but taking a compass reading at/near a wreck could be more than totally useless. The iron of the wreck would give a false reading and once away from the wreck it would be correct. Using the 180° of the wreck reading would take you no where near the wreck.

 

[BDSC]

Also - is it accurate that at that depth a safety stop is not REQUIRED? My buddy says the dive captain told everyone that there is little risk of DCS and safety stops aren't actually necessary but we were to do them anyway for practice UNLESS we got lost, then we were jsut supposed to come all the way up slowly (we did the safety stop on our own anyway, thought who knows if it was "perfect" or not, our bouyancy control isn't that great yet!) Thanks!

So glad I found this board!

You are correct. A safety stop is not required and I agree with the captain that there was very little risk of DSC at the depths you are talking about. Of course it's always a good thing to do them anyway but there could be situations where just coming to the surface would be a better idea. If I was in that situation and not sure where the boat was, I'd slowly surface, find the boat, and resume the dive.