A brag by way of a funny story

[TSandM]

So -- you have to know that one of my idols is Danny Riordan, who was my Cave 1 instructor. I call Danny "negative space in the water" -- he never moves except to a clear, defined purpose; otherwise, he's just a motionless shadow. I have worked for years to achieve the motionlessness that Danny has without even thinking about it.

So today, Peter and I are doing OW dives with a student. On Dive 3, we are doing an ascent up a line. We get to the 15 foot stop; viz is awful, so I am hanging out, keeping a weather eye on the student, but otherwise about half asleep. The student starts to swim toward me, so I back up; Peter intervenes, signals the student to get back on the line, and we finish the stop and surface.

Once we get there, the student says, "Well, we were at the stop, and Lynne was SO STILL. I'd been reading last night about unresponsive diver retrieval, and I thought you guys were throwing a drill at me!"

Hooray for me. I'm so motionless he thought I was dead.

 

[TMHeimer]

Great story. When I DM the usual OW weekend course and must get up at 5-5:30 Sat. after 5-6 hrs. sleep, I often appear the same way. But not related to my buoyancy skills....

 

[Doc]

I was diving from the Nekton off of the USVI. Everyone else had ended their dive, but I was laying in the sand at 35fsw, transfixed by some impossibly small, microscopic critter. Just laying there watching it's behaviors on the coral in front of me. The dive crew noted my very long BT, so a DM went into the water to have a look for me. He spotted me, lying motionless and not breathing below him.

Quite a relief for him, a good laugh for both of us.

Being very quiet is a good thing. It not only conserves air but it makes creature behaviors more observable. Looking like you are dead is one of those side considerations, though.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

An excellent proof of buoyancy and trim. Now you just need to get on CCR and learn to do it all over again without being able to fine-tune with breath control

 

[rongoodman]

It seems appropriate.

 

[nolatom]

Well, you could warn them, "If I haven't spit out my reg, I'm just meditating".. ;-)

(inspired by a DM who once joked, "if you really want to get my attention, spit out your regulator and go limp")

 

[TSandM]

It reminds me of a past incident. I was working with Andrew Georgitsis on skills. Andrew quickly recognized that I was a total mess if in midwater with no visual reference (I get bad vertigo in that situation). So he had learned that, when he wanted to end a dive, all he had to do was take my mask off in midwater, and I'd lose buoyancy control and generally cork. (Realize these were very shallow critical skills dives.). On this particular occasion, he had taken my mask off and I could not find a teammate to get into touch contact with. The vertigo set in, and I knew from long experience that, if I tried to stop the somersaulting I was sure I was doing (and I wasn't), that I would end up on the surface. So I decided to relax completely and NOT MOVE. Apparently, I appeared to go limp, and then slowly rotate until I was almost totally vertical and head down. Andrew was sure I had lost consciousness. It would be my guess that it was one of the rare occasions where a student has actually shaken his composure!

 

[decompression]

So -- you have to know that one of my idols is Danny Riordan, who was my Cave 1 instructor. I call Danny "negative space in the water" -- he never moves except to a clear, defined purpose; otherwise, he's just a motionless shadow. I have worked for years to achieve the motionlessness that Danny has without even thinking about it.

So today, Peter and I are doing OW dives with a student. On Dive 3, we are doing an ascent up a line. We get to the 15 foot stop; viz is awful, so I am hanging out, keeping a weather eye on the student, but otherwise about half asleep. The student starts to swim toward me, so I back up; Peter intervenes, signals the student to get back on the line, and we finish the stop and surface.

Once we get there, the student says, "Well, we were at the stop, and Lynne was SO STILL. I'd been reading last night about unresponsive diver retrieval, and I thought you guys were throwing a drill at me!"

Hooray for me. I'm so motionless he thought I was dead.

That's funny.

 

[undrwater]

Kudos to your student as well whose situational awareness was on point, and, ready to respond.

 

[tbone1004]

I love it when I go to help with OWT and the students have never seen me in the water and ask how I can stay so motionless, it's rather comical to watch their faces when we usually respond "I'm a ninja, no unnecessary motions are ever made". I hear you on blue water vertigo, it still screws me up if I have no visual reference. I can stay within a foot or two of where I'm going but it's not fun.