Here's a situation that happened to me last year. Throw it out there for comments on how you would have handled it...
Was doing a planned deep dive on a wall at a favorite site. The site is a shore dive (rocky entry with mild surf), lots of other divers in the water and shore fishermen on the cliffs. Water was coldish (50 or so), drysuit diving.
Our target zone required a 200 meter snorkel, then descent down a deep wall to around 120-130ft. This site has some great soft coral beyond 100 ft and occasional larger fish. My buddy (perhaps 40 dives together) was taking pictures and when we buddy up for photos, I usually act as his chaperone, kinda like a wing man.
He is a much more experienced diver than me, though I have always had the feeling that he sees diving safety "rules" more as guidelines. Occasionally in the past, he has pushed air return limits we have set in pre-dive plans.
This was our first really deep dive together alone (though we have been with others before on deep dives). We were down at 120 and found some kind of shark (looked like nurse family, but still have not identified it) and buddy was taking photos. As always I was keeping a close eye on depth, air, and N2. Buddy crept down to 125. Forgive me that I do not remember the exact numbers, but at this point, I realized that it was about time to start our slow ascent due to our bottom time and air remaining. We had decided ahead of time on bottom time and/or air time to turn back. I showed him my computer with a thumb up to ascend. He looked at me kinda puzzled then went down a few feet more to snap another shot of a huge soft coral. Damn 128...
Now I was beginning to sweat. He is older, bigger, and more experienced than me. How forceful could I be, I wondered to myself. I looked at my computer again, nitrogen bar clicked up one more notch to just below the deco indication, and knowing my air consumption moderately well, it was just enough for a slow ascent and safety stop.
I went down and grabbed his computer for a look. It was lit up like a pinball machine, lights flashing, arrows pointing up, beeps...I shoved it in his face and motioned up one more time. He looked at me puzzled again, then turned his head at another growth of soft coral a few feet down the wall. S##t! Was he narced or what?
Now I knew I had to make a decision, I figured I had about 3 choices that I could recall: Stay and possibly die, try to drag him up and possibly die, or just leave him to possibly die. None of them sounded particularly good. I was just about to let go of him and signal that I was going to surface, when he gave me the surface signal. Relief! After slow ascent and safty stop, I think I had about 300 psi left in the 14 L steel tank.
Anyway, the lessons learned on that dive were too numerous to list here. In our "debriefing", buddy played down the seriousness of this incident. Since joining the scuba board recently, I am now more certain just how serious it could have been.
Unfortunately for me, the choice is often to dive with this buddy or not at all. However, for sure, if and when I dive with this buddy in the future, I will consider myself a solo diver, and spell out ground rules for when we turn back (time, depth, air, N2) and more importantly, what happens if one person decides to overstay those limits.
JAG
Was doing a planned deep dive on a wall at a favorite site. The site is a shore dive (rocky entry with mild surf), lots of other divers in the water and shore fishermen on the cliffs. Water was coldish (50 or so), drysuit diving.
Our target zone required a 200 meter snorkel, then descent down a deep wall to around 120-130ft. This site has some great soft coral beyond 100 ft and occasional larger fish. My buddy (perhaps 40 dives together) was taking pictures and when we buddy up for photos, I usually act as his chaperone, kinda like a wing man.
He is a much more experienced diver than me, though I have always had the feeling that he sees diving safety "rules" more as guidelines. Occasionally in the past, he has pushed air return limits we have set in pre-dive plans.
This was our first really deep dive together alone (though we have been with others before on deep dives). We were down at 120 and found some kind of shark (looked like nurse family, but still have not identified it) and buddy was taking photos. As always I was keeping a close eye on depth, air, and N2. Buddy crept down to 125. Forgive me that I do not remember the exact numbers, but at this point, I realized that it was about time to start our slow ascent due to our bottom time and air remaining. We had decided ahead of time on bottom time and/or air time to turn back. I showed him my computer with a thumb up to ascend. He looked at me kinda puzzled then went down a few feet more to snap another shot of a huge soft coral. Damn 128...
Now I was beginning to sweat. He is older, bigger, and more experienced than me. How forceful could I be, I wondered to myself. I looked at my computer again, nitrogen bar clicked up one more notch to just below the deco indication, and knowing my air consumption moderately well, it was just enough for a slow ascent and safety stop.
I went down and grabbed his computer for a look. It was lit up like a pinball machine, lights flashing, arrows pointing up, beeps...I shoved it in his face and motioned up one more time. He looked at me puzzled again, then turned his head at another growth of soft coral a few feet down the wall. S##t! Was he narced or what?
Now I knew I had to make a decision, I figured I had about 3 choices that I could recall: Stay and possibly die, try to drag him up and possibly die, or just leave him to possibly die. None of them sounded particularly good. I was just about to let go of him and signal that I was going to surface, when he gave me the surface signal. Relief! After slow ascent and safty stop, I think I had about 300 psi left in the 14 L steel tank.
Anyway, the lessons learned on that dive were too numerous to list here. In our "debriefing", buddy played down the seriousness of this incident. Since joining the scuba board recently, I am now more certain just how serious it could have been.
Unfortunately for me, the choice is often to dive with this buddy or not at all. However, for sure, if and when I dive with this buddy in the future, I will consider myself a solo diver, and spell out ground rules for when we turn back (time, depth, air, N2) and more importantly, what happens if one person decides to overstay those limits.
JAG
