Watch out for falling Rock! Lesson Learned in Situational Awareness.

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

KCB

Registered
Messages
33
Reaction score
27
Location
USA
# of dives
100 - 199
So I'm diving in Guam, and I'm swimming along with my buddy at about 40-50 feet in clam conditions, and good visibility. There are multiple groups, and the boat that's moored to the buoy. There is a bigger family group of about 4 divers, doing their safety stop, above me on the line. I wasn't paying them much attention, (My Mistake) so I probably swam under them. Suddenly a laptop sized falling rock, dropped about a foot away from my head. I turned and looked at the group, who gave me the (Well you shouldn't of swam bellow us look), and then continued to do their safety stop like nothing happened.

I learned two things.

1. ALWAYS Look Up once up once in a while or when you are near an area, where divers are above you, or the more I think, about it, now I think I am going to try to avoid being below people incase its necessary. Because honestly, I didn't really think much of it at the time, but I could have been knocked out in the back of my head, underwater

2. And it reminded me, that sadly you can't trust that people on the dive boat are going to do normal things. I forgive you, if you have to drop weights or something. But seriously, you're going to try to bring a rock to the surface?

Who else has had similar experiences?
 
The size you describe could be a bit large for this scenario, but one possibility is that a too bouyant diver grabbed a rock on the dive for added weight in a BCD pocket, and then dumped it once at (or near) the surface.
I might not have thought of that, except that I am pretty bouyant for a skinny guy, and my instructor was sticking rocks in my pockets on my OW checkout dives. Or at least on the first one...
 
Years ago I was assisting on an ocean checkout dive. Can't recall the exact situation now, but a student lost 10 pound a pocket weight. I was on the bottom (15-20' depth?) searching for it. There was another student with me (can't recall why). ANOTHER weight pocket came down and almost hit us. What are the chances?
 
Years ago I was assisting on an ocean checkout dive. Can't recall the exact situation now, but a student lost 10 pound a pocket weight. I was on the bottom (15-20' depth?) searching for it. There was another student with me (can't recall why). ANOTHER weight pocket came down and almost hit us. What are the chances?

Pretty good, as similar has happened to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KCB
When I did my discover scuba in Aruba years ago and I was not properly weighted (or prepared). I was fighting to stay down, so the DM started shoving rocks into my BC. However, considering your incident occurred in Guam it’s possible there is something much more sinister afoot...

 
Oh, great, now I get to take my hardhat diving. No, wait, I can't do that until I take the PADI HardHat Diving course, can I?
If I take the Big Rock specialty we can be a buddy pair
:poke:
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

Back
Top Bottom