Time to hang up my wetsuit after near death on NYE

[FreeFlyFreak]

You learned a valuable lesson, learn it and move on.

Try some shore diving with your buddy.
I have had hit and miss success with DM led dives, mostly miss. I much prefer diving with just my buddy which usually means a shore dive.

Above all, in the end it is your decision when you go up. Never let anyone paint you into a corner.
You are the one responsible for your life.

 

[Blueringocto_73]

Scuba diving is almost all psychological after getting your training. You should not be in fear of being at depth underwater. You should be enjoying the fact that you are down there. And trained to know what hazards require you to react on your own.

Being at depth underwater is "bliss". You have conquered an alien environment. Get more diving experience. Learn to enjoy the alien environment.

 

[KenGordon]

I'm a newly certified AOW with 20 dives under my belt. On the eve of new year I decided to go for a fun dive with a dive center that had pretty good reviews on TripAdvisor.
I'm out with a DM who is new to the divesite.

The blind leading the blind. You are only half trained and very inexperienced and your DM should not be learning on the job with an inexperienced customer.

Learn to avoid such situations. Many accidents start happening before anyone gets wet.

Regardless of where you are diving you should be able to do the dive just as a buddy pair. Maybe the DM knows the way, maybe they know where the interesting life is to be found. Those are optional. The actual dive belongs to you. Low on gas? Go up. Being led into current which is too much? Leave the DM and do your own dive. Listen to briefings though, maybe there is a reason for apparently irrational DM behaviour.

 

[Aaron Harmon]

Lesson number 1. The dive ends as soon as you’re not comfortable. It’s as simple as that. Work on sticking by your dive buddy, signal the DM and surface when you need to. Get yourself a surface marker if you don’t already have one. Inflate and wait. I’ve had to surface with my wife 30 minutes into a planned 60 minute dive on more than one occasion. I’m always happy to do it. Her comfort, safety and faith in me is more important than any dive. I’ve noticed a lot of new divers are not great at sticking with their DB, especially on some of the bigger trips I’ve been on. A Dive buddy is no good if you have to swim 100 feet to get to them. my wife is rarely more than 10 feet from me and more often than not, close enough to touch if needs be. I wouldn’t call the way you’re learning “the hard way” but it’s more nerve racking than it needs to be.

 

[Bagoose]

I'm a newly certified AOW with 20 dives under my belt. On the eve of new year I decided to go for a fun dive with a dive center that had pretty good reviews on TripAdvisor.
I'm out with a DM who is new to the divesite.
On the first dive everything goes well, we dive at 18m the currents are pretty strong but we pass the strong currents just once.

On the second dive, the DM takes us through multiple sections of high current zones where we're swimming against the currents. This is honestly new to me as I've never dived against such strong current and my air consumption is higher than normal.
At around 20mins into the dive I'm reaching the reserve levels in my tank instead of reaching the reserve at 45 mins as is my usual air consumption.
I signal the DM that I'm low on air and she doesn't take notice. I look around for my dive buddy in case I need to swim to him to share air.
After a while I've reached my reserve and I indicate to my DM again that I'm low on air and she just asks me to swim in another section of high current.
Now a sense of panic sets in, I decide to swim into the current straight towards her and show her a low air directly on her face. Now I have 20 bar air left but I'm a bit relieved because she's got the message. We share air but because my tank is so light it drags us both up.
In my sense panic and the rapid ascent I forget to control my buoyancy and we both surface without a safety stop.

So there we go, that was a traumatic ending to 2019 and in all honesty I've decided that scuba in general is too risky for me to pursue. I love swimming and snorkeling is a better alternative for me.
The DM had her version of the story but I was in a state of shock and I didn't argue with her. I was the customer after all.

I completely understand... I had a similar experience on my 5th dive after my OW certificaion and I didn't dive for three years after that. I realized I didn't have the skills to stay safe and I couldn't count on divemasters to pick up the slack. But after years of absence I took a refresher course and did a couple of dives in the Bahamas. The conditions were exceptionally benign, but I still realized that if I'm going to do this I need more experience. I found an amazing instructor. And most of my dives for the next couple of years were course dives - AOW, dry suit, wreck, rescue and more. Still, with 100+ dives, I wasn't entirely confident in myself so I decided to "go pro". It wasn't until I became a Divemaster that I felt I had confidence in my skills.

My point is, there are many types of divers. Some are (unreasonably) comfortable right away and some keep thinking "what if" to absurdity. As some have pointed out, diving is all about self reliance. Only you know your limits and only you can make the decisions that keep you safe. If that feels overwhelming, then maybe diving isn't for you. But if you decide to dive again you will have to leave the "i was the customer" mentality behind. The DM made a mistake, but as a diver that must not affect you.

Snorkeling goes a long way. But as a perpetual "what if":er I feel I have to tell you: never go snorkeling alone.

 

[oly5050user]

I'm a newly certified AOW with 20 dives under my belt. On the eve of new year I decided to go for a fun dive with a dive center that had pretty good reviews on TripAdvisor.
I'm out with a DM who is new to the divesite.
On the first dive everything goes well, we dive at 18m the currents are pretty strong but we pass the strong currents just once.

On the second dive, the DM takes us through multiple sections of high current zones where we're swimming against the currents. This is honestly new to me as I've never dived against such strong current and my air consumption is higher than normal.
At around 20mins into the dive I'm reaching the reserve levels in my tank instead of reaching the reserve at 45 mins as is my usual air consumption.
I signal the DM that I'm low on air and she doesn't take notice. I look around for my dive buddy in case I need to swim to him to share air.
After a while I've reached my reserve and I indicate to my DM again that I'm low on air and she just asks me to swim in another section of high current.
Now a sense of panic sets in, I decide to swim into the current straight towards her and show her a low air directly on her face. Now I have 20 bar air left but I'm a bit relieved because she's got the message. We share air but because my tank is so light it drags us both up.
In my sense panic and the rapid ascent I forget to control my buoyancy and we both surface without a safety stop.

So there we go, that was a traumatic ending to 2019 and in all honesty I've decided that scuba in general is too risky for me to pursue. I love swimming and snorkeling is a better alternative for me.
The DM had her version of the story but I was in a state of shock and I didn't argue with her. I was the customer after all.

Problem as I see it is that you did a "trust me" dive with the divemaster.. YOU are responsible for your safety, not the DM, not your buddy , only yourself. Too much current for your abilities or comfort cancel the dive. Do you own a computer? If answer is no then why not? You are responsible to keep track of depth/ time / no deco information not the divemaster or buddy. No one to blame but yourself here. Already using divemasters alternate air source, safety stop is actually optional in that situation as it only adds a bit of conservatism and better to surface and not drown than maybe however unlikely need a ride in recompression chamber. I see no reason to quit diving. Take this episode as a learning experience and move on forward.

 

[AfterDark]

IMO your story is at least in part a result of the diver training model used by a lot of agencies. IMO anybody with as few as 20 dives should not be AOW certified, that's just not enough diving experience IMO. The DM wasn't doing the job either. If you had not been AWO would the DM have taken you on those dives? Asked another way were there OW divers on those dives? Currents are to be avoided or used to the divers advantage, not to be fought against.

If I'd been on that dive I'd have grabbed my buddy, waved bye to the DM and let the current take me back to the entry point. IMO that's what an experienced AOW diver's reaction would have been. Pick your dives and do those you think you can do safely, if a DM can't tell you what to expect on a dive(s) find someone who can or consider not going. Be proactive, find out what the tides are doing during the times you are diving, try to find and talk to people that dive there. Have a set of self enforced dive thumbing rules; for example, if I find a small leak in my rig that I can't fix I don't dive. Why? Small leaks can get big sometimes fast. Why take the risk I ask? You need to manage your diving yourself.

Sorry, if I sound harsh but diving can be harsh. Your experience is a learning one not a quitting one.

 

[Addicted2H2O]

First and foremost, I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience that could possibly have ruined diving for you. And with a dive professional at that. Let me give you a couple of things to consider:

First off, okay, you have a near out of air situation, but you handled it underwater as per your training and although it may have been a little uncontrolled because of your panicked state, you made your ascent with a regulator in your mouth and unless there's other information you're not sharing you didn't experience any signs of DCS afterward. I didn't have an OOA situation, but my first dive in Cozumel I surfaced before I meant to without a safety stop. Safety stops are recommended guidelines....not set in stone. It's not something you need to get into a habit of doing but if you happen to miss your safety stop for whatever reason, it's not anything to let ruin diving for you. You just have a little longer to spend on your surface interval to expend the nitrogen built up in your system. So if you take a step back and really look at what happened, were you really in any imminent danger when you surfaced? If you didn't experience any signs of DCS, then I'd say that answer is probably a No.

Second, yes your DM should've paid closer attention to your signals. But what you don't understand if you're not a DM is that he/she probably knew what was going on and just didn't realize your consumption was so increased, likely exasperated by your panicked state. Shame on him/her but us DM's are still only human and we make mistakes, too. There is a certain amount of pressure that comes with being a DM and leading other divers, especially in unfamiliar territory. It could be that the DM was familiar with the site but not yet experienced on actually being a DM and leading other divers around. It can be a very daunting task until you get used to it. So while yes the DM can take some of the blame for not paying better attention to his/her divers, YOU are the diver and YOU are responsible for yourself underwater.

 

[Scuba-74]

So there we go, that was a traumatic ending to 2019 and in all honesty I've decided that scuba in general is too risky for me to pursue. I love swimming and snorkeling is a better alternative for me.
The DM had her version of the story but I was in a state of shock and I didn't argue with her. I was the customer after all.

Good call. Be safe.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Do not be pressured into doing anything that you are not comfortable with. Peer pressure in diving is not a good thing whether it comes from close friends or absolute strangers on an internet message board.

If you make an independent choice (free of any pressures) that you will continue with it then here are some suggestions.

1. For the first few dives, choose dive sites that are less challenging as good vis, no current etc.
2. Having a DM is good though in your case it did not work out well.
3. New divers think that they are being supervised and lack confidence in their own decisions. They think that even when it comes to going up while low on air, they need to have the decision approved by a DM. Understand that while the DM is there to address a lot of problems, you have control over things such as terminating the dive and just ascending.

What happened in your case was quite typical. People swimming against current consume more air. When they turn low on air, they signal the DM and go up. If the DM does not get it after an attempt or two, you are not violating any rule in scuba diving to go up. That is all there is too it.

All the best.