First dives without DMs or instructors, lessons learned

[AfterDark]

Good job! Try asking the "pros" in your club if you noobs can take turns planning the dives you make with them. They can approve the plans or explain the flaws. Good training aid. Bouyancy control should come from feeling not seeing. Visual reference for BC is a cructh IMO. One of the ways you know you're proficent is to able to maintain bouyancy in the dark using only your "feel" and depth gage as a check. Practice / dive, dive /practice.

 

[sheeper]

One thing to keep in mind is that EVERY dive is a learning experience. After 30+ years and well past 1,000 dives, i still find each dive is a learning opportunity.

Starting to dive without the DM/instructors is a first step to being a "real" diver. However, a great thing to do is to find other local....experienced divers. I learned more from diving with experienced divers than from my instructors. Instructors get you started. A local dive club is a GREAT resource for this. Or just a shout out on ScubaBoard of "who wants to dive this weekend".

Now go diving!

 

[openmindOW]

On a positive note, none of us panicked.

Dam0, you and your mates did well. Thank you for sharing your experience here on ScubaBoard.

Keep diving.

 

[BoneCrusher]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything about compass use. Recommendation should always be to carry a compass and know how to use it. Since you finished AOW, I would assume that compass and navigation where part of the class. This sounds like a smaller lake or quarry, so knowing the general layout of the lake with a compass, you at worse would find yourself off course, but never "lost". A diver could just take a compass heading back toward the exit. You might not be right on it, but you will at least finish the dive "close" to the exit and not have to do a long surface swim.

 

[flots am]

Good job! Try asking the "pros" in your club if you noobs can take turns planning the dives you make with them. They can approve the plans or explain the flaws. Good training aid. Bouyancy control should come from feeling not seeing. Visual reference for BC is a cructh IMO. One of the ways you know you're proficent is to able to maintain bouyancy in the dark using only your "feel" and depth gage as a check. Practice / dive, dive /practice.

Assuming you're equalizing properly, no airspaces in your body are congested and your regulator is working, I'm not sure what you're using to "feel" with.

You can get a general sense of "way too deep" because the density of the air you're breathing increases, but this is useless for knowing whether you're at 40' or 20'.

flots.

 

[finnks]

Assuming you're equalizing properly, no airspaces in your body are congested and your regulator is working, I'm not sure what you're using to "feel" with.

You can get a general sense of "way too deep" because the density of the air you're breathing increases, but this is useless for knowing whether you're at 40' or 20'.

flots.

Well there are times I feel swimming resistance drastically increase -- means I've gone too deep and am swimming through the silt. On the other hand, if being scratched by branches and tangled in fishing line and hooks I've gotten too shallow.

In those circumstances I vastly prefer to have lights - use visual reference of the bottom to stay off of it and my depth gauge and compass to keep track of my location.

 

[TSandM]

I have a lot of "feel" clues, not about absolute depth, but about relative depth. Feeling how loose or tight my dry suit is, and where; whether my gear is trying to float off my back or push down on it, and of course, whether my ears are feeling pressure, are all means of knowing whether you have departed your desired depth. I know what I feel like, and what my gear feels like, when I am neutral. Assuming I have achieved that, changing depth means also leaving the neutral state.

 

[flots am]

I have a lot of "feel" clues, not about absolute depth, but about relative depth. Feeling how loose or tight my dry suit is, and where; whether my gear is trying to float off my back or push down on it, and of course, whether my ears are feeling pressure, are all means of knowing whether you have departed your desired depth. I know what I feel like, and what my gear feels like, when I am neutral. Assuming I have achieved that, changing depth means also leaving the neutral state.

Wrote a long reply and deleted it.

Suffice it to say that lots of pilots have died "flying by feel" and I don't think telling a new diver to develop a skill that isn't especially reliable or useful is very helpful. In zero viz, divers need an actual reference.

flots.

 

[divemonkey33]

Also could have thumbed it. Got your bearings at the surface and then tried again. I've done that a couple times.

 

[TSandM]

Flots, I'm not trying to tell anybody that feel is the only thing you should go on. But I don't do my entire dive staring at my depth gauge, do you? Even on ascent, I'll look at my gauge, then check the position of the ascent line, then glance at my buddy to make sure he's okay and still where I last saw him, and then look at the gauge again. During my scan, I am still paying attention to how my gear feels, how my suit feels, and what my ears are doing. Those are my distant early warnings of a departure from my desired depth.

I think, although not everyone may articulate it this way, that learning to pay attention to such cues is right up there with breath control, in terms of the difference between a very stable, experienced diver, and a yo-yoing novice. The novice simply doesn't notice he has left depth until the deviation is big enough to require huge corrections.