That feeling when you lose your gear...

[MaxBottomtime]

I dropped a camera rig that retailed for $18,000 from the surface into sixty feet of near zero visibility water. I dumped my wing and tried to sink as straight as I could with no visual reference. I landed on the bottom and found the camera about ten feet away.

My first wife dropped her Nikonos V in twenty feet of great visibility once near a sea lion rookery. She dropped immediately but could not find her camera. We looked for fifteen minutes where she dropped it. There was no current, great vis and shallow water but the camera was nowhere in sight. I continued with my dive, figuring it was a very expensive dive at that point. A few minutes later I saw her camera sitting in the sand a couple hundred feet from where she dropped it. A sea lion must have grabbed it by the leash and carried it away.

I'm two for two on camera drops. I don't want to try for third time's the charm.

 

[Mrs. B]

I dropped a camera once and this pygmy sized Paluan that chews betle nut all day dove down and made a mask with his hands (air pocket) and raced down and intercepted it at about 90 feet, very impressive

that is a tip move

 

[jonhall]

Dropped camera (forgot to put cord around my wrist) right after entry. Water was clear and others were still entering water, so I shot down to 65 ft and picked it up off of the bottom and got back to near surface in time to take off with group (Big Tunnels, Grand Cayman.)

Only losses were a noise maker, thank goodness, and unfortunately, a dive light I'd just purchased which was never found.

Too bad diving isn't like golf. At least when I hit my ball in the gunk, if I don't find it, I can still usually come out ahead finding several other lost balls.

 

[laikabear]

My Waterproof wetsuit has (had) a removable pocket that velcros on to the right thigh. I lost it once in a rough surf exit onto the rocks at Old Marineland where I got beat up pretty good, but found it in the surf. I thought maybe that was a fluke, but I lost it again on the wreck of the Caribsea in NC this past summer. One of the other divers found it and brought it to me on the boat. It had my wetnotes in it and he said he knew it was mine because he remembered watching me use the checklist before each dive.

Ditched the removable pocket and now just have one from DGX glued on the left thigh.

 

[KDAD]

About the first thread I couldn't read through.

I picked up a nice used reel for a real good price only to loose it the first time out. I was doing a drift dive in a current in 85 fsw and hanging on my safety stop low on air when I dropped it. Had to let it go. Makes me sick to this day.

The only find I had for it was paying full price for a replacement at my LDS.

 

[rhwestfall]

We were diving in Lake Ontario this spring in about 120 feet of water. Fair wind and thus current with the mooring. Dive #2 of the day. Guy jumps in, surfaces, and screams "F*%k!, my computer". He had forgotten to put it on, and the SW Petrel that was loosely clipped to his rig was gone! Captain quickly grabbed a shot line, and tossed it at the diver. Two other divers followed the line down, and just a short distance away from the weight was the computer!

Worst day in his life to best day in his life in a matter of minutes.....

 

[ReefGuy]

On one of my first dives, I dropped right down on a weight pouch (with weights). I was thinking how great it was that I had a spare, when my buddy grabbed it from me and put it back in my BC. Coincidently, I learned I didn't need even half the weight I was carrying at the time.

 

[matt86]

I lost my computer on one of my first dives after certification. Once I noticed it was gone, I started searching, but come up empty handed. I went back the next evening and found it. Now my computer has a 23 hour dive in the log.

 

[shoredivr]

I has a computer slide off my wrist when the stretchy black material unthreaded from the buckle. I noticed this at the beginning of the dive in 8ft of water.

It was a poor viz mountain lake in Alberta, and I just swam around until I ran I to it in the murk.

 

[David W Short]

My computer was knocked off my wrist in midwater whilst bringing a panicking diver to the surface from a depth of around 25m (82ft). Due to conditions and the current diving schedule I wasn't able to return and search the area for almost two months, at which point I had accepted the fact that I'd probably never find it. Six months later, a friend of mine stumbled across it and sent it my way.

After nearly eight months at sea I didn't expect it to work. Yet somehow, with a tap of a hammer, and a good twenty minutes shaking the sand out, it worked! minus a few pixels.