Javik
Registered
(Don't know where to post this.)
I am a relatively new diver, that went on a night dive with a group of people who are much more experienced, which I screwed up and had to bail out, inland diving up north in a quarry with very cold thermocline.
I had two lights, a 1000 lumen LED spotlight strapped to my left hand, and a dimmer 450 lumen LED flood strapped to my right hand, and a rented Zoop Suunto which I am not hugely familiar with yet.
The Zoop does not have a backlight as far as I can tell, but the face glows if the light is pointed at it. (Weirdly the Zoop manual says it has a backlight but doesn't say how to activate it, and the three buttons don't light it when pressed, so either my rental unit is broken, or it really doesn't have a backlight and this is a documentation error.)
All was fine at the start, putting gear on, got in the water, swimming at the back of the group with my buddy, slowly working down a slope to about 40-45 ft, cross down into the very cold thermocline and... my head is unusually cold, very cold ... what?
Oh crap, while preparing to enter the water, I did not pull the wetsuit hood up from around my neck, before putting on my mask, and didn't notice in the warmer water at the surface. And since it is dark, no one else noticed it either. My head is now freezing in this very cold water, and it is intense black, aside from the lights.
Okay, I need to take the mask off, and somehow not let go of it in the murk, and also pull my hood up, and then put the mask back on. But I want to ascend to warmer water to do this. I try to signal Up to my dive buddy.... but they don't seem to be acknowledging me, they're looking at me but not signalling anything back, and I'm at the back of the group looking at fins, so no one else notices this. I'm not getting any feedback, and I'm starting to panic.
And then also, the usual new diver buoyancy problems, I am already stressed from my face freezing and am bobbing and then descend to the bottom at 45 ft, and now I cannot equalize my ears, I need to go up to release pressure and do it.
I point at my blocked ear, and again signal Up, but again buddy doesn't seem to be acknowledging me, just looking back at me, so this time, I start going up on my own. I don't know what's going on there, but my head is freezing and I need to fix this now, and I don't see any acknowledgement of my need to ascend.
All right, now I have to ascend up to warmer water, in the dark in open water with no reference but the depth gauge / computer. I have to hold the BC hose up to vent it to control the ascent. I am in pitch black open water so I have to look at the computer to determine ascent rate, but my left hand is busy with the BC, and so now I need to hold the computer/SPG with my right hand, on its short hose?
And furthermore pointing one of the lights at the computer face to make it glow doesn't help much because when I point the light I have to watch what I am doing, so I am blinding myself / removing my ability to see in darkness so I can't see the faint glow of the dial, and the glow fades really quickly to the point that I can't read it.
And so now I discover just can't both determine the ascent rate AND control it, because I can't do the following 3 things all at once: hold up BC exhaust, look at depth gauge/computer, point a hand-light at it.
Due to all the stress I didn't stop in the warmer water but just went to the surface, slowly but more or less uncontrolled, no safety stop. Though fortunately this was after only about 30 minutes of swimming down an incline to 45 ft, so not too long.
Buddy did surface later, after doing their slow ascent and safety stop, and I explained about the hood, swam back to shore on the surface with them.
So.... apparently if I'm going to be doing diving in the dark, aside from making sure I'm wearing my hood properly, I need gauges and/or a computer that lights up, AND can stay illuminated continuously for the entire dive so I don't have to keep pushing buttons on it all the time and fiddling with it.
Based on my limited experience, having to point a light at it to make it glow seems to be an ineffective method for seeing the device in pitch black water, since I blind myself trying to point the light at the dial to make it glow and now I can't see it anyway, even if it is dimly glowing.
A generic analog depth gauge / SPG console is going to have the exact same problem in the dark, if it doesn't have some sort of battery and illumination rings around the gauge faces.
I don't know what other people do there, with the "point light to make it glow but also don't night-blind myself doing this" process.
I am a relatively new diver, that went on a night dive with a group of people who are much more experienced, which I screwed up and had to bail out, inland diving up north in a quarry with very cold thermocline.
I had two lights, a 1000 lumen LED spotlight strapped to my left hand, and a dimmer 450 lumen LED flood strapped to my right hand, and a rented Zoop Suunto which I am not hugely familiar with yet.
The Zoop does not have a backlight as far as I can tell, but the face glows if the light is pointed at it. (Weirdly the Zoop manual says it has a backlight but doesn't say how to activate it, and the three buttons don't light it when pressed, so either my rental unit is broken, or it really doesn't have a backlight and this is a documentation error.)
All was fine at the start, putting gear on, got in the water, swimming at the back of the group with my buddy, slowly working down a slope to about 40-45 ft, cross down into the very cold thermocline and... my head is unusually cold, very cold ... what?
Oh crap, while preparing to enter the water, I did not pull the wetsuit hood up from around my neck, before putting on my mask, and didn't notice in the warmer water at the surface. And since it is dark, no one else noticed it either. My head is now freezing in this very cold water, and it is intense black, aside from the lights.
Okay, I need to take the mask off, and somehow not let go of it in the murk, and also pull my hood up, and then put the mask back on. But I want to ascend to warmer water to do this. I try to signal Up to my dive buddy.... but they don't seem to be acknowledging me, they're looking at me but not signalling anything back, and I'm at the back of the group looking at fins, so no one else notices this. I'm not getting any feedback, and I'm starting to panic.
And then also, the usual new diver buoyancy problems, I am already stressed from my face freezing and am bobbing and then descend to the bottom at 45 ft, and now I cannot equalize my ears, I need to go up to release pressure and do it.
I point at my blocked ear, and again signal Up, but again buddy doesn't seem to be acknowledging me, just looking back at me, so this time, I start going up on my own. I don't know what's going on there, but my head is freezing and I need to fix this now, and I don't see any acknowledgement of my need to ascend.
All right, now I have to ascend up to warmer water, in the dark in open water with no reference but the depth gauge / computer. I have to hold the BC hose up to vent it to control the ascent. I am in pitch black open water so I have to look at the computer to determine ascent rate, but my left hand is busy with the BC, and so now I need to hold the computer/SPG with my right hand, on its short hose?
And furthermore pointing one of the lights at the computer face to make it glow doesn't help much because when I point the light I have to watch what I am doing, so I am blinding myself / removing my ability to see in darkness so I can't see the faint glow of the dial, and the glow fades really quickly to the point that I can't read it.
And so now I discover just can't both determine the ascent rate AND control it, because I can't do the following 3 things all at once: hold up BC exhaust, look at depth gauge/computer, point a hand-light at it.
Due to all the stress I didn't stop in the warmer water but just went to the surface, slowly but more or less uncontrolled, no safety stop. Though fortunately this was after only about 30 minutes of swimming down an incline to 45 ft, so not too long.
Buddy did surface later, after doing their slow ascent and safety stop, and I explained about the hood, swam back to shore on the surface with them.
So.... apparently if I'm going to be doing diving in the dark, aside from making sure I'm wearing my hood properly, I need gauges and/or a computer that lights up, AND can stay illuminated continuously for the entire dive so I don't have to keep pushing buttons on it all the time and fiddling with it.
Based on my limited experience, having to point a light at it to make it glow seems to be an ineffective method for seeing the device in pitch black water, since I blind myself trying to point the light at the dial to make it glow and now I can't see it anyway, even if it is dimly glowing.
A generic analog depth gauge / SPG console is going to have the exact same problem in the dark, if it doesn't have some sort of battery and illumination rings around the gauge faces.
I don't know what other people do there, with the "point light to make it glow but also don't night-blind myself doing this" process.