Sometimes the experienced divers on this board want to sound like they're infallible so I thought I'd relay this story for your amusement.
Yesterday I went diving with two of my friends. Let's call them George and JJ for fun.
The dive was pretty simple. It was a location we knew well and conditions were good. It was the second dive of the day and the first dive had gone pretty well....
well.... almost. JJ forgot to fill his tank so when we got to the first divesite he had about 70 bar in his tank. We decided to make the dive anyway but for the first 50 minutes or so, JJ was hanging on my longhose.... It wasn't ideal considering that we went into the water in the full current to avoid a group of 2700 Belgian divers who were gearing up to dive at slack....(Belgians never do things in small groups)....
We took it in stride, though, and actually looked pretty good (aside from the major SNAFU) but at least I knew where JJ was and I didn't really have to pay much attention to him. To show you how relaxed we were, our *combined* SAC on the dive was 17.54 lpm (.61 cf/m) despite a 50 minute air share and diving in the full current before slack.
We refilled between dives and set off (a little late) to dive another site just after slack. As I said before conditions were good and we know the site well.
The plan was to descend to about 30 metres and then swing to the right and ascend slowly for some critter-watching. About 10 minutes into the dive, JJ started acting unusual... We were diving side by side, the three of us with JJ on the left when suddenly, he'd turn 90 degrees and cut straight in front of us and then loop around and retake his position..... the first time was unsual, the second time was *very* unusual and on the third time I was sure he was narced. I've made about 400 dives with this guy so I know what looks right and what doesn't.
I looked at George, he gives me the narced sign, I nod and we drag JJ back to the shallows. About then, we were overtaken from behind by two human silt-bombs and decided to get a little shallower and turn the other way to get out of their blast zone. So we did. AT this point JJ looked perfectly normal again.
About 20 minutes later JJ signs to me that he want's to head back to the exit. It's a little earlier than we planned but I guessed he wasn't having fun and wanted to end the dive a little early. So we turn, get in formation and check that everyone's going the same way (you need to do this kind of stuff if viz is generally limited) and .....
you guessed it..... no JJ. So we split up. I go deeper and George goes back were we came from.... no JJ.
So we regroup and decide to ascend to catch him up on the surface..... no JJ...no bubbles, nothing. In more than 400 dives with this guy, *this* is the oddest thing I've ever seen him do. I say this to George. He was looking narced, he totally wasn't with it, he wanted to turn the dive 10 minutes ahead of schedule and now he's missing.
Very weird.
We decide that we should do a surface search instead of just waiting for him. We split up again and start looking for bubbles. 7, maybe 8 mintues pass and no bubbles. We're getting very close to the point were we should consider this a missing diver. George had just turned his search and was just signing to me what to do when ....pop.... JJ surfaces about 20 metres behind me in the direction I was searching. One minute I'm thinking that JJ's wife isn't going to be very happy about this and the next minute he's explaining that he was just zoned out and swam for probably 5 minutes before he realised he was alone....
So there you have it. Three experienced divers and a *whole* bunch of slacking going on. Nobody infallible on *that* dive.
R..
Yesterday I went diving with two of my friends. Let's call them George and JJ for fun.
The dive was pretty simple. It was a location we knew well and conditions were good. It was the second dive of the day and the first dive had gone pretty well....
well.... almost. JJ forgot to fill his tank so when we got to the first divesite he had about 70 bar in his tank. We decided to make the dive anyway but for the first 50 minutes or so, JJ was hanging on my longhose.... It wasn't ideal considering that we went into the water in the full current to avoid a group of 2700 Belgian divers who were gearing up to dive at slack....(Belgians never do things in small groups)....
We took it in stride, though, and actually looked pretty good (aside from the major SNAFU) but at least I knew where JJ was and I didn't really have to pay much attention to him. To show you how relaxed we were, our *combined* SAC on the dive was 17.54 lpm (.61 cf/m) despite a 50 minute air share and diving in the full current before slack.
We refilled between dives and set off (a little late) to dive another site just after slack. As I said before conditions were good and we know the site well.
The plan was to descend to about 30 metres and then swing to the right and ascend slowly for some critter-watching. About 10 minutes into the dive, JJ started acting unusual... We were diving side by side, the three of us with JJ on the left when suddenly, he'd turn 90 degrees and cut straight in front of us and then loop around and retake his position..... the first time was unsual, the second time was *very* unusual and on the third time I was sure he was narced. I've made about 400 dives with this guy so I know what looks right and what doesn't.
I looked at George, he gives me the narced sign, I nod and we drag JJ back to the shallows. About then, we were overtaken from behind by two human silt-bombs and decided to get a little shallower and turn the other way to get out of their blast zone. So we did. AT this point JJ looked perfectly normal again.
About 20 minutes later JJ signs to me that he want's to head back to the exit. It's a little earlier than we planned but I guessed he wasn't having fun and wanted to end the dive a little early. So we turn, get in formation and check that everyone's going the same way (you need to do this kind of stuff if viz is generally limited) and .....
you guessed it..... no JJ. So we split up. I go deeper and George goes back were we came from.... no JJ.
So we regroup and decide to ascend to catch him up on the surface..... no JJ...no bubbles, nothing. In more than 400 dives with this guy, *this* is the oddest thing I've ever seen him do. I say this to George. He was looking narced, he totally wasn't with it, he wanted to turn the dive 10 minutes ahead of schedule and now he's missing.
Very weird.
We decide that we should do a surface search instead of just waiting for him. We split up again and start looking for bubbles. 7, maybe 8 mintues pass and no bubbles. We're getting very close to the point were we should consider this a missing diver. George had just turned his search and was just signing to me what to do when ....pop.... JJ surfaces about 20 metres behind me in the direction I was searching. One minute I'm thinking that JJ's wife isn't going to be very happy about this and the next minute he's explaining that he was just zoned out and swam for probably 5 minutes before he realised he was alone....
So there you have it. Three experienced divers and a *whole* bunch of slacking going on. Nobody infallible on *that* dive.
R..
