Archangel
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Dear All:
I am now foolhardy enough to call myself an "experienced" diver. I neglected the basic and foundational lessons learned in basic OW class; and I wish to share this with all of you to remind us all that fundamentals are just that.
I was diving with two other excellent divers, the diveleader being much more experienced than I. We had dived all weekend and this was the dive first thing Sunday morning. Having dived numerous times with these two, we all could sense and anticipate what each other were doing, as well as each others needs. This is what makes diving great.
Welp, Murphy of Murphy's Law was alive and well and ready to kill me on the surface before the dive. I helped Murphy as all of us neglected the pre-dive safety check.
We had done it so many times before, that we neglected to do it on this particular dive. We didnt check each other's air. Without going into the specifics of HOW it happened, my valve wasnt completely turned on, and on the surface, my regs both breathed normally.
Not until we descended to 107 fsw did my reg start to breathe hard. Being rescue trained. I stopped, breathed, thought. . . checked my lines to make sure that they werent kinked. Again, Murphy was watching as I neglected to check my valve. The ONLY thing that assisted me in not advancing to panic and bolting to the surface was my training.
So for 25 minutes we did staged ascents. I breathed carefully on my reg and watched the needle on my SPG bounce. We did psi checks all the way up and I never let my divebuddies know what was going on.
Wrong!
At any point in time, I could have buddy breathed and made a slow controlled ascent.
That was my ego, being narc'd and bravado at play here.
Also, as I have learned, it is not one thing that kills you, it is a series of things that overwhelm the diver.
Murphy was setting a trap for all of us.
Because every tech, DIR, and deep water diver has been taught you float an ascent line when going deep.
Well, we didnt, and the strong current pushed all of us out into the open ocean. . . right into the shipping lanes.
We "experienced divers" leveled off at 15 feet for five minutes. . .
at any time, a pleasure boat or ferry could have cut us in half and chewed us to pieces.
Not until breaking the surface, did I realize that Murphy was in full swing.
I informed my buddies about my reg breathing hard, and was told that we would NOT descend. We now needed to surface swim out of the open ocean, back into the dive park, fighting a strong current.
One of my buddies almost dropped his weights we were having so much trouble surface swimming.
Again, I write this as a lesson to us all. I have learned from my mistakes and ask all of you to learn from them also.
I have realized that if you can make it past your first 12 dives without killing yourself, you are golden. The second chance you have to kill yourself is between 50-100 dives.
The fundamentals have been culled from accident analysis. They are inviolate rules to keep us alive.
Happy and safe diving to all,
I am now foolhardy enough to call myself an "experienced" diver. I neglected the basic and foundational lessons learned in basic OW class; and I wish to share this with all of you to remind us all that fundamentals are just that.
I was diving with two other excellent divers, the diveleader being much more experienced than I. We had dived all weekend and this was the dive first thing Sunday morning. Having dived numerous times with these two, we all could sense and anticipate what each other were doing, as well as each others needs. This is what makes diving great.
Welp, Murphy of Murphy's Law was alive and well and ready to kill me on the surface before the dive. I helped Murphy as all of us neglected the pre-dive safety check.
We had done it so many times before, that we neglected to do it on this particular dive. We didnt check each other's air. Without going into the specifics of HOW it happened, my valve wasnt completely turned on, and on the surface, my regs both breathed normally.
Not until we descended to 107 fsw did my reg start to breathe hard. Being rescue trained. I stopped, breathed, thought. . . checked my lines to make sure that they werent kinked. Again, Murphy was watching as I neglected to check my valve. The ONLY thing that assisted me in not advancing to panic and bolting to the surface was my training.
So for 25 minutes we did staged ascents. I breathed carefully on my reg and watched the needle on my SPG bounce. We did psi checks all the way up and I never let my divebuddies know what was going on.
Wrong!
At any point in time, I could have buddy breathed and made a slow controlled ascent.
That was my ego, being narc'd and bravado at play here.
Also, as I have learned, it is not one thing that kills you, it is a series of things that overwhelm the diver.
Murphy was setting a trap for all of us.
Because every tech, DIR, and deep water diver has been taught you float an ascent line when going deep.
Well, we didnt, and the strong current pushed all of us out into the open ocean. . . right into the shipping lanes.
We "experienced divers" leveled off at 15 feet for five minutes. . .
at any time, a pleasure boat or ferry could have cut us in half and chewed us to pieces.
Not until breaking the surface, did I realize that Murphy was in full swing.
I informed my buddies about my reg breathing hard, and was told that we would NOT descend. We now needed to surface swim out of the open ocean, back into the dive park, fighting a strong current.
One of my buddies almost dropped his weights we were having so much trouble surface swimming.
Again, I write this as a lesson to us all. I have learned from my mistakes and ask all of you to learn from them also.
I have realized that if you can make it past your first 12 dives without killing yourself, you are golden. The second chance you have to kill yourself is between 50-100 dives.
The fundamentals have been culled from accident analysis. They are inviolate rules to keep us alive.
Happy and safe diving to all,
