84CJ7
Contributor
This gets long but its entertaining (At least I think).
Just got back from Lake Wazee, (quarry in WI) was present for rather common problem with a twist or two making it interesting. I was tagging along with an advanced class even though I have my advanced cert already (it was free and i needed the practice) First of all that place is awesome, huge cliffs, full underwater forests (trees from before flooding minus leaves and small branches, still standing upright) and excellent vis even deep. According to my Atmos 2 (first time using it, love the data recorder) we swam along in shallower following the bottom then went down a steep slope into a full on "I need pathfinding and a brushcutter" thickness forest which was no end of cool (we followed an already broken trail so as not to wreck it). We lost the rear most buddy pair who were lagging behind at that point in the silt that we were inadvertently blowing off the trees with our fins (not a silt concernt I had thought about before) The trees there were in about 60 feet of water. At that point it was below both of the top 2 thermoclines and the min recorded temp on my atmos was 49 degrees (temp was still dropping as we went back up so it was possibly colder), i was warm with my 6.5 farmer john wetsuit and hood but even with good gloves and boots, my hands feet and face went numb fast. We stopped briefly at a platform to regroup and lost another buddy pair at that point as the wife decided she didnt like cold water anymore and they ascended. That left 4 of us and the instructor (I was paired with someone in the class). We were doing our deep dive and so we went over a ways and basically fell off a cliff, I think there was supposed to be a ledge down there somewhere but the half assed map i have says either it was at 145 feet or we were over a full 200 foot dropoff so i havent a clue what the hell we were doing there, maybe the map is wrong. Any which ways we started down with my buddy and me rear most in the free fall and suddenly he is not next to me, i look up and see him stopped about 10 feet above me hanging onto a tree on the top of the cliff and i though that was a little odd. By the time i had reversed course i was 15 or 20 feet below him and the instructor had noticed so the whole bunch halted and started back up. I had noticed by then that his primary reg was freeflowing (second stage issue) and even though he turned the dial down (aqualung something or other) it was still blowing and he was losing air fast. Here is where monday morning quarterbacking kicks in and people tell me how we could have fixed it, but i should mention the stick he was hanging onto wasnt a good place to stop and we were hanging over blackness. I woulda stuck him on his octo kinked the hose and tried to unfreeze it, but I let the instructor take over and he decided UP was the order of the day since we had only been deeper than 20-30 feet for 4 minutes. Putting him on an octo and turning his tank off to try and unstick it (one later suggestion) wouldnt have worked because bouyancy quickly became an issue. I stayed level with them about 5 feet away as we started up and made it to 48 feet (at an ascent rate that pissed my atmos off a bit but not faster than bubbles) somewhat in with the trees and over the cliff edge at that point, and suddenly he stopped and started drifting back down to 52, I stopped and then we all went up to 41 feet then we stopped again and went back down to 49. I noted the extra pair of divers was making a more constant slow ascent on their own but i stuck with my buddy and the instructor. At some point my buddy switched to his tiny spare air thing even through the instructor had his octo held up for easy grabbing and was holding onto him. We made it to 23 feet and then halted and someone must had sensed a destroyer approaching because they went into a crash dive that literally ended in a crash, luckily we weren't 10 feet farther to the north because they took out the little trees on the cliff edge and literally slid down a tiny short slope right to the edge of the cliff. I had mindlessly followed them back down to 53 feet and they were about 10 or 15 feet below me at that point. Up they came again with my buddy finally on the instructors octo, and we all ascented at the maxiumum rate that was safe and at times a little more than that I think as the heavy neoprene expanded and we picked up speed faster than anyone had the sense to bleed off air.
Now for the details that make this all make sense. Apparently on top of his freeflow he had been having trouble equalizing and as they kept trying to go up he kept getting a reverse block and having to go back down, the crash dive at the end was when his air ran out, he switched to his spare air and then for some reason deflated his BC and dropped 30 feet to the bottom because he coudldnt fill it again. The instructors BC apparently couldnt handle the combined weights of 2 people with all the neoprene on both people crushed at depth so he yanked my buddies weight belt (shop rental) right before they slid off the cliff (they were going that way fast) and finally they came back up. It also helped that my buddy had an atmos weight integrated BC and had some weight in there with just 10 or 15 lbs extra on the belt for the extra thick gear so it didnt dump all of it. Never even saw them drop the belt, I wonder if it got hung up on the top of the cliff or slid down and went right over the edge.
I dunno if he ever cleared that reverse block, but he must have I guess because we all ended up on the surface with nobody hurt, and the whole time nobody had paniced, though my buddy did about have a nervous breakdown when we got back.
Later that day he was fine on the shallow only stuff with a different reg and weights and could equalize normally all of a suddden he said so I guess he got over it and it all worked out.
In hindsight I shoulda done a safe ascent with the other two or by myself even rather than the yo-yo profile that they did. Everyone will probably nitpick what they did too, but the instructor had to cope with a bizarre rapidly changing situation and I think he did well enough, and my buddy did well by even as much as not panicing even though he should just kinked the primary hose and used the instructors octo for breathing air while he used his own for bouyancy. Dunno.
Just got back from Lake Wazee, (quarry in WI) was present for rather common problem with a twist or two making it interesting. I was tagging along with an advanced class even though I have my advanced cert already (it was free and i needed the practice) First of all that place is awesome, huge cliffs, full underwater forests (trees from before flooding minus leaves and small branches, still standing upright) and excellent vis even deep. According to my Atmos 2 (first time using it, love the data recorder) we swam along in shallower following the bottom then went down a steep slope into a full on "I need pathfinding and a brushcutter" thickness forest which was no end of cool (we followed an already broken trail so as not to wreck it). We lost the rear most buddy pair who were lagging behind at that point in the silt that we were inadvertently blowing off the trees with our fins (not a silt concernt I had thought about before) The trees there were in about 60 feet of water. At that point it was below both of the top 2 thermoclines and the min recorded temp on my atmos was 49 degrees (temp was still dropping as we went back up so it was possibly colder), i was warm with my 6.5 farmer john wetsuit and hood but even with good gloves and boots, my hands feet and face went numb fast. We stopped briefly at a platform to regroup and lost another buddy pair at that point as the wife decided she didnt like cold water anymore and they ascended. That left 4 of us and the instructor (I was paired with someone in the class). We were doing our deep dive and so we went over a ways and basically fell off a cliff, I think there was supposed to be a ledge down there somewhere but the half assed map i have says either it was at 145 feet or we were over a full 200 foot dropoff so i havent a clue what the hell we were doing there, maybe the map is wrong. Any which ways we started down with my buddy and me rear most in the free fall and suddenly he is not next to me, i look up and see him stopped about 10 feet above me hanging onto a tree on the top of the cliff and i though that was a little odd. By the time i had reversed course i was 15 or 20 feet below him and the instructor had noticed so the whole bunch halted and started back up. I had noticed by then that his primary reg was freeflowing (second stage issue) and even though he turned the dial down (aqualung something or other) it was still blowing and he was losing air fast. Here is where monday morning quarterbacking kicks in and people tell me how we could have fixed it, but i should mention the stick he was hanging onto wasnt a good place to stop and we were hanging over blackness. I woulda stuck him on his octo kinked the hose and tried to unfreeze it, but I let the instructor take over and he decided UP was the order of the day since we had only been deeper than 20-30 feet for 4 minutes. Putting him on an octo and turning his tank off to try and unstick it (one later suggestion) wouldnt have worked because bouyancy quickly became an issue. I stayed level with them about 5 feet away as we started up and made it to 48 feet (at an ascent rate that pissed my atmos off a bit but not faster than bubbles) somewhat in with the trees and over the cliff edge at that point, and suddenly he stopped and started drifting back down to 52, I stopped and then we all went up to 41 feet then we stopped again and went back down to 49. I noted the extra pair of divers was making a more constant slow ascent on their own but i stuck with my buddy and the instructor. At some point my buddy switched to his tiny spare air thing even through the instructor had his octo held up for easy grabbing and was holding onto him. We made it to 23 feet and then halted and someone must had sensed a destroyer approaching because they went into a crash dive that literally ended in a crash, luckily we weren't 10 feet farther to the north because they took out the little trees on the cliff edge and literally slid down a tiny short slope right to the edge of the cliff. I had mindlessly followed them back down to 53 feet and they were about 10 or 15 feet below me at that point. Up they came again with my buddy finally on the instructors octo, and we all ascented at the maxiumum rate that was safe and at times a little more than that I think as the heavy neoprene expanded and we picked up speed faster than anyone had the sense to bleed off air.
Now for the details that make this all make sense. Apparently on top of his freeflow he had been having trouble equalizing and as they kept trying to go up he kept getting a reverse block and having to go back down, the crash dive at the end was when his air ran out, he switched to his spare air and then for some reason deflated his BC and dropped 30 feet to the bottom because he coudldnt fill it again. The instructors BC apparently couldnt handle the combined weights of 2 people with all the neoprene on both people crushed at depth so he yanked my buddies weight belt (shop rental) right before they slid off the cliff (they were going that way fast) and finally they came back up. It also helped that my buddy had an atmos weight integrated BC and had some weight in there with just 10 or 15 lbs extra on the belt for the extra thick gear so it didnt dump all of it. Never even saw them drop the belt, I wonder if it got hung up on the top of the cliff or slid down and went right over the edge.
I dunno if he ever cleared that reverse block, but he must have I guess because we all ended up on the surface with nobody hurt, and the whole time nobody had paniced, though my buddy did about have a nervous breakdown when we got back.
Later that day he was fine on the shallow only stuff with a different reg and weights and could equalize normally all of a suddden he said so I guess he got over it and it all worked out.
In hindsight I shoulda done a safe ascent with the other two or by myself even rather than the yo-yo profile that they did. Everyone will probably nitpick what they did too, but the instructor had to cope with a bizarre rapidly changing situation and I think he did well enough, and my buddy did well by even as much as not panicing even though he should just kinked the primary hose and used the instructors octo for breathing air while he used his own for bouyancy. Dunno.
