Peter_C
Contributor
We just returned from a 10 day trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. Our goal was to do a fair amount of shore diving and possibly do the Manta Ray night dive. We rented tanks and weights from one of the dive shops for most of our trip in order to dive when and where we wanted. (No CO in the tanks, and the fills were solid!) Anyhow we stepped onto a commercial dive boat for the night dive hearing that they were seeing Mantas near the airport which is a non shore dive, for what I had heard. Upon boarding we heard them state they haven't been seeing Mantas up North and we are headed South. So it is a two tank dive, and we pull up on a reef and drop in to follow the DM around. Great we are following some just certified divers around as they proceed to kick the coral. Although I love to dive, I have come to realize I don't like diving by DM lead dives, at least when there are a lot of other people in the water. In California you don't have a DM in the water, but we also have our own boat to dive off of.
Dive two is the Manta dive. We pull up right off the Sheraton Hotel, no more than 300 ft from shore. Arrggg, we totally could have shore dove this site. Neither of us has a problem crawling over rocks, and in fact I would have probably just snorkeled it since the water is only 25' deep with 60+ feet of vis. Alright enough about that. The boat drops anchor, which I believe a DM helped set "around" the coral. So the DM has our group gear up and jump off the boat, and wait in the water until we are ready to descend. We descend as a loose group with people all around us. I keep an eye on the DM as he descends, then in less than a minute he quickly heads to the surface and starts banging on his tank. My partner and I head to surface to find out the DM ran out of air and did a CESA because he was too far away to get to someone to share air. He has to head back to the boat, so I ask if I can do anything to help. He says get the other divers on the surface. So I drop, and write a wet note saying the DM wants them at the surface, and give them the thumbs up. They return the thumbs up then still with their lights pointing up stay put. So again I give them the thumbs up and point to my note. Nothing! I go to the next couple of divers in our group, and do the same thing with the same results...nothing! I chat with my dive buddy and saw screw the DM he is out of air, I saw a Manta way off in the distance, so lets go and do "our" dive. Eventually the DM gets back down and due to an ear clearing problem we slowly, as in ten minutes pass by, make it to the bottom and meet up with our group (Ascending and descending causes my partner ear issues.)
Since the only Manta is hanging out with the other boats lights our group doesn't get a chance to see it so our DM takes us on a tour. Great back to following a group of divers around, when I really just want to see a Manta up close. I write a note to the DM saying I say one and finally he heads back to the light box. No more than a minute or two later, the Manta shows up. Since I was excited I knew the first thing I had to do was check my air pressure..ugg..I am at 900 psi. I check my partners air and she is at 1,200psi, but there was enough surge, air sharing with her limited experience level wouldn't be the best thing to do, even with a long hose. So when I hit 700psi we head to the surface, and I surface with 500 psi in my tank, as I was trained to do.
Once at the surface I gave the DM a little crap with the whole ya' know you are supposed to check your pressure gauge. Here is someone with thousands of dives, and they got complacent. This left them in what could have been a bad situation. How hard is it to breathe off both your second stage regs, and take a quick peek at your pressure gauge BEFORE jumping off the boat, or at the least before descending? The buddy checks we are taught in open water apply to everyone even solo divers. The failure happened before he ever stepped off the boat. Does it mean he should have had someone else check his gear over, no, but he should have a routine check list and gone through it item by item, until he was confident his gear was in order to go diving.
Point being all divers need to do gear checks before descending! Also when you are excited underwater it is a good time to stop, and check your own pressure gauge.
Dive two is the Manta dive. We pull up right off the Sheraton Hotel, no more than 300 ft from shore. Arrggg, we totally could have shore dove this site. Neither of us has a problem crawling over rocks, and in fact I would have probably just snorkeled it since the water is only 25' deep with 60+ feet of vis. Alright enough about that. The boat drops anchor, which I believe a DM helped set "around" the coral. So the DM has our group gear up and jump off the boat, and wait in the water until we are ready to descend. We descend as a loose group with people all around us. I keep an eye on the DM as he descends, then in less than a minute he quickly heads to the surface and starts banging on his tank. My partner and I head to surface to find out the DM ran out of air and did a CESA because he was too far away to get to someone to share air. He has to head back to the boat, so I ask if I can do anything to help. He says get the other divers on the surface. So I drop, and write a wet note saying the DM wants them at the surface, and give them the thumbs up. They return the thumbs up then still with their lights pointing up stay put. So again I give them the thumbs up and point to my note. Nothing! I go to the next couple of divers in our group, and do the same thing with the same results...nothing! I chat with my dive buddy and saw screw the DM he is out of air, I saw a Manta way off in the distance, so lets go and do "our" dive. Eventually the DM gets back down and due to an ear clearing problem we slowly, as in ten minutes pass by, make it to the bottom and meet up with our group (Ascending and descending causes my partner ear issues.)
Since the only Manta is hanging out with the other boats lights our group doesn't get a chance to see it so our DM takes us on a tour. Great back to following a group of divers around, when I really just want to see a Manta up close. I write a note to the DM saying I say one and finally he heads back to the light box. No more than a minute or two later, the Manta shows up. Since I was excited I knew the first thing I had to do was check my air pressure..ugg..I am at 900 psi. I check my partners air and she is at 1,200psi, but there was enough surge, air sharing with her limited experience level wouldn't be the best thing to do, even with a long hose. So when I hit 700psi we head to the surface, and I surface with 500 psi in my tank, as I was trained to do.
Once at the surface I gave the DM a little crap with the whole ya' know you are supposed to check your pressure gauge. Here is someone with thousands of dives, and they got complacent. This left them in what could have been a bad situation. How hard is it to breathe off both your second stage regs, and take a quick peek at your pressure gauge BEFORE jumping off the boat, or at the least before descending? The buddy checks we are taught in open water apply to everyone even solo divers. The failure happened before he ever stepped off the boat. Does it mean he should have had someone else check his gear over, no, but he should have a routine check list and gone through it item by item, until he was confident his gear was in order to go diving.
Point being all divers need to do gear checks before descending! Also when you are excited underwater it is a good time to stop, and check your own pressure gauge.