Dive Goes Bad Fast

[trigfunctions]

I have 20 dives. My buddy has 30. I have PADI advanced open water and my buddy has PADI rescue diver. This was both of our first times deep in cold water.

I am glad you are OK, and it sounds like you didn't make any major mistakes, but personally, I don't think that either of you were experienced enough to be making this dive with each other - maybe along with more experienced divers, but not with just each other. I know I wouldn't have been after 20 or 30 dives.

I think people confuse AOW or Rescue certs with experience. They are not the same thing. I am not saying that you are bad divers, but I think you should not try to push your limits so quickly.

 

[seaducer]

Firstly, congratulations of making it back safely. It could very easily ended differently.

One thing that has gotten some attention, but perhaps not enough, is your buddy switching to the 3rd divers reg? Maybe I missed something, was there a problem with your equipment, did he not feel he was getting enough air from your reg?

IMO both he and the otehr diver made a mistake there. The better move for the good samaritan would be to stand by for assistance, and perhaps even follow you up, ready to donate, rather than just offer your buddy his reg. If you are getting air, stay with the working regulator.

And if you happen upon a similar situation with someone else, don't just blunder in and try to help, stay close, be ready to assist.

Good luck!

 

[jkaterenchuk]

There have been many posts about even the regs touted as the best free flowing in cold water. I have seen it myself several times. You should also take very seriously the possibility that two divers sharing a single first stage could cause it to free flow.

What would you and your buddy have done if his reg is free flowing at 100ft and while your sharing air with him yours starts to free flow?

I would suggest that if you are going to be diving in these type of temp and depths that you seriously look at carrying a pony bottle. I do not mean the 6 cu ft bottle that the other diver had which should be for drysuit inflation as its not sufficient for a proper controlled ascent from that depth but a real pony bottle 30 or 40 cu ft. If you decide this would be a good back-up system for the diving you do then get proper training from a qualified instructor so that you understand how much gas you need, how to sling it and practise properly deploying it.

Your AOW instructor might/should have touched on the basics of a redundant brething supply but this is not sufficient for you to knowlegeable and utilize it properly.

By the way do you live in Oakville? I travel to visit my family in Burlington often and would like to do some local diving. PM me with your info and we can look at getting togeather.

John

 

[diverrobs]

A pony has always been in my plans and is now in my buddies plans. Prior to our incident, I was thinking 19CF but I now think that 30CF is min. 6 breaths at 100' on a 6cf pony is what my buddy got and he was breating hard so it was probably less than 20 seconds (useless) so 19cf is 60 seconds (just enough time to settle down and get ready for ascent and run out of air again). 30cf gives is just enough from the Rock Bottom chart I have decided to use. The issue is $, new baby on the way etc. etc etc. I hope it will be soon but it is going to cost at least $500.00 for the pony setup.

 

[Jimmer]

Hey Rob, I have a 30cf Pony, as well as 2 40's you could borrow sometime to see which size you prefer.

 

[Hoyden]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am glad that it turned out okay. I think that the "keep the problem between buddies unless there is a pressing cause to do otherwise" point has been made. Using an appropriate regulator for the conditions has also been well covered. But I don't think that either of those was the big issue. I have to say that I think the genesis of your uncontrolled ascent was your drysuit. Was your buddy diving dry as well? Controlling a drysuit and bcd in a free ascent while managing an airshare and a panic-stricken buddy is way too much to ask of someone with only 20 dives. Doubles and/or a pony bottle will only add more complexity to a dive. You had the equipment you needed to solve the problem - more equipment would not have necessarily improved the situation. When you get back in that water practice free ascents with stops every ten feet in your drysuit - when you can do them with no problems add air sharing. Then you'll be confident that you have the skills to deal with a repeat of the situation that led to your uncontrolled ascent.

Just keep diving

 

[jkaterenchuk]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am glad that it turned out okay. I think that the "keep the problem between buddies unless there is a pressing cause to do otherwise" point has been made. Using an appropriate regulator for the conditions has also been well covered. But I don't think that either of those was the big issue. I have to say that I think the genesis of your uncontrolled ascent was your drysuit. Was your buddy diving dry as well? Controlling a drysuit and bcd in a free ascent while managing an airshare and a panic-stricken buddy is way too much to ask of someone with only 20 dives. Doubles and/or a pony bottle will only add more complexity to a dive. You had the equipment you needed to solve the problem - more equipment would not have necessarily improved the situation. When you get back in that water practice free ascents with stops every ten feet in your drysuit - when you can do them with no problems add air sharing. Then you'll be confident that you have the skills to deal with a repeat of the situation that led to your uncontrolled ascent.

Just keep diving

Do you really think that for a relatively new diver that it is easier to execute a controlled free ascent, in a drysuit, in cold water, with a out of air buddy that is also trying to control their ascent while breathing off another divers octo.....then....simply breathing normally off your own pony reg and doing a controlled ascent?

I am not saying that a diver should not be able to do these skills....they should but I do not agree that a pony adds more complexity than executing these skills correctly. At least one training agency teaches use of a pony as part of their OW class others require it for deep dives.

John

 

[jkaterenchuk]

A pony has always been in my plans and is now in my buddies plans. Prior to our incident, I was thinking 19CF but I now think that 30CF is min. 6 breaths at 100' on a 6cf pony is what my buddy got and he was breating hard so it was probably less than 20 seconds (useless) so 19cf is 60 seconds (just enough time to settle down and get ready for ascent and run out of air again). 30cf gives is just enough from the Rock Bottom chart I have decided to use. The issue is $, new baby on the way etc. etc etc. I hope it will be soon but it is going to cost at least $500.00 for the pony setup.

You really need to get an instructor involved before buying so that you fully understand what, why and how. For example. Let assume you have a RMV of 20 L/min, you have to bail out to your pony at 30M, your ascent rate should not exceed 10M/min and you will need to make a Safety Stop at 5M for 3 min.

I will not go thru the complete math here as your instructor should do that but you would reguire roughly 600L of gas to make this ascent if you assume that your breathing rate would double under this stress situation. If you are more conservative and assume your breathing rate would triple then you would need about 900L of gas. Now if you needed to make the same ascent from 40M you would need about 800L at 2X breathing and 1200L at 3X.

A 30 cu ft holds about 900L of gas depending on make and a 40 cu ft holds about 1200L's.

So depending upon your RMV and what you assume you want for conservative ascent and stressed breathing rate a 30 cu ft might be cutting it close from 30M and be unsuitable for 40M.

You need to know all these facts and assumptions so that when you need to use your pony in an bail out situation you have confidence and hence the level of stress can be minimized. Stress is the first step towards panic and panic is one step away from being a fatality.

John

 

[diverrobs]

Yep; I have been refered to a tech instructor for when I decide on the pony for instruction on how to use it sling it etc etc.

 

[owlbill]

I find people are very quick to change out gear when stuff like this happens. Not always needed, but it is often done. What first stage is on the original Proton? Which model of Proton? Why not just buy a Proton Ice octo and change the face plate and hose, presto, a better colder water version of the reg. Only guessing here as I don't know yet what you all started with.

I have to agree also that 20-30 dives is still very green. Had you and your buddy been deep before? been in near 40 degree water before? ever deep and cold or was this the first time?

Forgive me if this has been answered already but I am a lazy reader.

Anyway, after all that, glad to see you are still diving and I hope you learned from this.