Difficult decision on the weekend - did I do the right thing?

[Garrobo]

As you do more diving you will use less air, hopefully. I'd also recommend that you find some new buddies because of their apparent disregard for your safety and opinion.

 

[diver 85]

Ditto to both the above.

same here--tell em to take a hike(not a swim)...

 

[Charlie99]

Your buddies 1) did not respond to your two requests to ascend, and 2) watched you disappear as you did ascend.

It appears that they did this knowing that you have a total of about 10 dives.

There are two things to learn from this:

1. Discuss ascent pressures before the dive.
2. Never dive with these guys again.

 

[2 Big 2 Fail]

Aside from all other considerations of whether or not you needed to end the dive or what planning might have changed the scenario, the bottom line is that your judgment at the time was that you needed to start up. Once this judgment is made, it's like a security procedure or safety point - they are meaningless unless they are followed every time, all the time. In this case, it's that you are 100% responsible for your own survival, and the rule is that if you think a particular action is required for safety, you do it. One aspect that's peculiar to recreational diving is that there's little ability to consult meaningfully with a fellow diver in the situation. You have to act according to your own judgment. And the conventions of buddy diving resolve the issue in favor of the conservative diver.

Read the accounts of fatal scuba incidents. Note that, regardless of technical causes, a not uncommon ultimate cause is being goaded in some way into doing something the diver knew or felt was wrong. That dangerous in three ways. One is the obvious, that you're doing something you judge improper. Two is that, from the moment you acquiesce to pressure against your judgment, you're in a vulnerable mindset and are virtually accepting that things are more likely to go badly. Three, and maybe the most serious, is that it accepts that you can violate the judgment rule, that it's acceptable, and it becomes easier to do it the next time. Human nature being what it is, it rarely is really "just this once." It's just this once again, and again, and again.

The situations that prompt you to end a dive, refrain from diving, or avoid some situation during a dive may change with experience and skill. The critical skill, the habit of listening to your internal alarms never changes.

 

[moodoweewah]

I'm with the majority here. You were right on, your buddies were out of line. You were comparatively low on air and had less experience. Your buddies should have ascended with you, regardless of how much they were enjoying themselves. And as for giving you grief for using up your air too quickly, you've done ten dives. Are they suggesting you should deliberately breathe less than is comfortable so you can all stay down longer. Not recommended.
I'm not surprised you told them you were unhappy, they should have backed your call.

 

[EastTNDiver]

I salute the OP for making the right decision and following thru with it. I suspect that a good number of new divers would fold under that peer pressure.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I have no problem allowing a diver ascend alone from 60 feet. Did you discuss this before the dive?

Many divers allow people to ascend alone if they aren't having any problems. Did you really expect that your buddies would bail early when they still might have over half their air left?

There is a very wide latitude in what many people consider "the buddy system". If you don't discuss this before the dive, you might be very surprised about how different many people dive versus what the PADI manual says.

 

[fjpatrum]

I agree the OP did he right thing by not waiting until his buddies were ready to finish the dive - well done

The OP is a new OW diver with 10 dives and his buddies "have a little more experience than [him]". They're not cave divers, they've possibly never heard of Rock Bottom and may well not be familiar with the 'any diver/any time/any reason' tenet unless they watched Sanctum which isn't exactly a training film

Things like turn pressure and the meaning of signals (eg Thumb) should have been discussed & agreed prior to the dive and if they weren't then all three of the buddy team should accept responsibility for this

Also IMO this should be in Lessons Learned rather than A&I

I don't know but the "any diver/any time/any reason" tenet was drummed pretty well in my OW class, which was certainly not the best (or worst) OW class I've heard about. I thought that was a basic "buddy diving" tenet, not a tech diving thing.

 

[g1138]

Anyone catch that the OP did a deco stop?

Pretty sure he ment a safety stop, but to clarify to the OP you did the right thing.
Would have been better if you had planned with your buddy's ahead of time. It's always nice to state "Anyone can thumb the dive at any time and we ALL go up; everyone ok with that?"

Just a little clarification to the OP:
Deco stops and safety stops are 2 different things.

Deco stops are mandatory stops that you do when you've exceeded your times off the tables, and/or your computer has determined that you're too saturated with nitrogen to surface safely without off gassing (AKA decompressing).
If you skip a deco stop your computer will most likely scream bloody murder and lock you out from diving for 24-48hours depending on the model.

Safety stops on the other hand are optional, and are ment to allow you to offgas as well. The only difference is you can chose to skip it without having your computer going beserk on you.
Although I would always do one unless it jeopardized my safety.

In addition some agencies and DAN have advocated a Deep Stop for dives exceeding 60ft.
These are also optional and dictate, on ascent, to wait at either half your max depth or at ~60ft for 1 minute to off gas.

 

[Grungo]

I'm a new diver, recently obtained my OW, 10 dives completed in Melbourne Australia.

Did a boat dive yesterday at 'Devils Drop-off'. The dive starts at 10m, then goes down in steps to 60m. I was diving with two buddies, both who have a little more experience than myself.

Novice here, but isn't 60m excessively deep for a new diver? Maybe I'm wrong.

Agree with others that you did the right thing by surfacing when you were uncomfortable with the amount of air you had left. You don't ever want to go OOA!