Dives You Regret

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Easy. One "worst dive ever" here in NS Popes Harbour. 6' depth and silt that flies up and attacks you. As well, every shore dive in Mississippi (ever hear the Dixieland song "Mississippi Mud"?) except one at Cadet Pt. in Biloxi, which also sucked big time except that I did get a few nice Southern Drill shells amid the rubble of Katrina.
 
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I have had a few over the years. Some I will share and others I won't. I did a solo dive in Cozumel at the Del Mar Aquatics pier right across from Casa Del Mar. I did a giant stride entry off the end of the dock. It's maybe 6-10 feet to the water. All was well I swam out to about a 20-30 foot depth and settled in for some picture taking. I have done that dive hundreds and hundreds of time with never a current. Well, one sprang up this day. I would have ended up at Villa Blanca and the Barracuda Hotel in just a couple of minutes. It was ripping. There was no way to swim against this current. Fortunately, I had my lion fish spear with me and I stuck it into the sand and would hold on and then hand over hand slowly back to pier. It was like an ice climber with an ice axe. I was exhausted. I wrapped my arms around the piers pilings and managed to get to the other side. It is in a protected area and the current was significantly reduced. I couldn't even handle that. I let go and started to drift when I saw one of the dive boats re-positioning. I signaled I was in trouble and they threw me a rope and ignominiouslydragged my sorry butt up into the shallows. I gave them the okay signal and then floated in 3 feet of water until I caught my breath. The worst part was yet to come. After getting out of the water and starting to clean my gear, the areas on my arms and legs where I had grabbed the pier pilings started to rash. By the time I got to my room I had a full fledged, fire coral thing going on. It took 3 months for it to finally go away. I never did find out what it was; but, it was nasty.
 
Just one. I took my wife on an NC Wreck Dive long before she was ready for it. All of her dives previously had been pretty shallow, super clear, no current, etc. It would've ended poorly had I not been there....and I've told my wife neither of us are allowed to dive ever if we can't make the dive without our buddy. BIG lesson learned.
 
I regret the one I didn't do , lol , good thread

You don't learn from regrets only from your mistakes and from others
 
I was diving solo with a mild sinus infection... I could still breathe out of my nose okay, so I figured I was good to go.

Did a 40 minute dive at a max of about 50 ft. I found a couple of nice bottles.

As I came up to do a safety stop, it felt like someone was applying vice grips behind my right eye socket.

I gripped to my diver buoy line like crazy and descended about 5 ft...the pain went away. I sat there for about 10 minutes and drained my tank down to about 300 psi. I slowly hand-over-handed my ascent, only for the pain to come back... I had no choice but to ascend.

At about 5 ft, I heard a "SQUUEEEE PPPOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" through my right ear and immediately got massive vertigo. I felt like I was in a tilt o'whirl. I surfaced and floated there for about 10-15 minutes trying not to vomit. Then I slowly swam back to my car. I felt like crap for hours and couldn't dive for about 2-3 weeks.
 
We all love diving, but I'm sure everyone has a dive they regret making. What's yours?

I was dieing to get my new double 14Ls wet (steel 100s), and anxiously checked weather and swell models all week. A typhoon in the Philippines was screwing up our weather, but it looked like Sunday would be much calmer. So I woke up early and headed to the nearby seawall--a site usually filled with divers, but this morning there was not a single diver in sight. Only 100 or so surfers. I took a look at the waves smashing into the stair entry, and then the beasts the surfers were riding a little further out, and thought "eff this."

But having already suited up, and waited all week, I couldn't give up. I stayed around, watching for a couple hours, hoping the waves would die down like the swell models said they would. Finally I geared up and headed down the stairs, but lost confidence that I could make it without slipping and losing my fins with the waves pounding into me. A dive guide and two students soon appeared behind, and after seeing me retreat the dive guide started second guessing herself, and went back to call her boss. He showed up 20 min later, said it was fine, and got into freediving gear to help the 3 divers in and hold them steady. I watched them swim out, ragg-dolled time and time again by 7 ft waves they couldn't get under since it was too shallow. And once again I thought eff that.

But eventually I convinced myself to head in. Now it was low tide, so shallow that it was more rock climbing than diving, latch onto rocks and pull forward just to keep from getting tossed up and back to shore. I'm not sure if it was the stress, or Japan makes bizarre positively buoyant steel tanks, but even with full double 100s, in a wetsuit, I could barely sink. If I got within 20ft of the surface I would pop up instantly. Tired of fighting the swell and buoyancy issues, I called the dive after 12 min. Planned on crawling back through the shallows, but buoyancy issues took me to the surface further out, and I rose right in the middle of a giant wave, with a surfboard grazing my head. That could've been really ugly. I lectured myself all the way back to shore, and got to enjoy crawling hands and knees up the stairs. Beach crawl exits, sure I don't mind those, but stairs? At least I had a new experience.

Not the worst dive I've had by any means, but just one of those lessons in learning to listen to your instincts. I know plenty of people have died diving in conditions they shouldn't have, because they drove a long way to the site and didn't want to waste their time, etc. For me the lesson was that new gear and ****ty conditions just don't match. There's always tomorrow, no shame in saying screw it and heading home. Blowing bubbles isn't always worth it.

HaHa, I have been there and done that! Sunabe, Junk Yards, Maeda,Horse shoe or Zampa (Bolo point)? So here are mine. 1) Bolo point, Okinawa, Jp. My buddy and I were going to do a night dive there. we have dived this site maybe 50 plus times before. We climbed down the cliff and jumped in. No problem. Dive was no problem and you really have to see the lighthouse light underwater to enjoy it. Well, some time after jumping in and planning our exit, Bolo started to go off. If you have never been there before, I can tell you that the waves can hit the cliffs with enough forse to send sea spray over 70 feet in the air. We were at 20 feet and could see the washing machine effect on the surface and feel the surge 20' deep. We said our goodbyes knowing that we were on our own at that point. We both made it out with a lot of cuts, lost gear and a profound respect for this site. 2) A shop was going to the Cooper River for a couple of days and was selling spots on the boat. I had been there maybe 8 times before. They, the boat operator and shop owners, were there the day before and never called to let me know the conditions. So I drive all the way down by myself and we meet up at the hotel and we hit the rack. So the next morning we head out with the coldness and pissing rain all day which has been going on for several days. We finally pull close to the bank and we splash. It was the worse vis I have ever seen in the Cooper. 3-9" at best. I did one dive and found nothing to bring back. I am back on the boat (pontoon) and eating the advertised surface snacks (damp bread with ham and a coke zero) while one of the shop owners / boat crew members decided to dive. While he was underwater the tide was going out. That left us high and dry on the back and night coming on. We got off the boat and tried to use tools to get us off the mud with no use. We finally had to call for help from one of the other boat operators on the river to assist us in getting off the bank. We made it back to the landing and I went home wet, cold and pissed!
 
Tony, where do you recommend for seeing sharks? I love Sunabe since the parking is super convenient, the air fill shop is right there, and it's a short drive from where I live. As beautiful as the miles of soft coral are, I'm hoping to see larger animals.

I listened to instinct today; got off work early, and really wanted to try another dive since the conditions look perfect...but my ears and sinuses are messed up from a cold. The pressure change simply going down a hill was painful, so messing around 3-4 ATA sounds like a recipe for dead ears. Going to get into night diving soon, just because it's frustrating only having time to dive on the weekend, and being out of luck if conditions suck. Will be nice to cruise Sunabe alone after work.
 
There is one dive that stands out for me. I'm not sure I regret it, but I certainly learned a lot. It was a dive I had no business doing. I got my OW/AOW certs months earlier, and had another twenty or so mostly Caribbean dives to 100' under my belt by then. My LDS suggested I should go on a weekend of wreck diving in the Great Lakes with them. I was a bit apprehensive, but there were several very experienced divers with instructor ratings on the trip, and they'd watch out for me. They were out of larger steel tanks, so AL80 it was. Fortunately, I was able to rent a pony. First time diving with one. The first dive was down to a wreck with the deck at 115', in 40F water. No real dive briefing, I felt like I was thrown off into the deep end. I sucked through my air quickly, and ascended on the line without problems. But I was definitely very tense and didn't enjoy the dive at all. The next dives were a bit shallower, and I got the hang of it, but that first dive was definitely outside my comfort zone and closer to a trust-me dive than I should have done. Lesson learned: I am more susceptible to peer pressure and my own desire to perform than I would have thought, and need to keep this in mind for the future.
 
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