Funny dive stories

[The Kraken]

When I was working on my OW I was wearing an old farmer john that I had purchased some time around 1973.

Well, the DI told us to remove our wetsuits to do our swimming requirement, whatever it was, can't quite remember . ..

Well, anyway I told him that I thought he really didn't want me to do that, not going into great detail why, but he insisted.

So, when the rare, ellusive moon fish showed its face as my farmer john started crawling down the pale landscape of my buttocks, the DI concluded that, no, it really wasn't necessary for me to remove my wetsuit and swim.

Too bad, all the ladies in the class were waiting with baited breath . . .

 

[Mako Mark]

So, when the rare, ellusive moon fish showed its face as my farmer john started crawling down the pale landscape of my buttocks,
.

Hence you screen name.........

 

[The Kraken]

You are a quick study, young man !!!!

 

[TCDiver1]

You dive long enough and they start adding up eh Mike?

We were doing an ice dive and one of our LDS owners was trying a new drysuit with a new dry glove wrist cuff system.

We get to depth and he starts screwing around,trying to grab something on my kit. As he is reaching up toward me, the air in his suit rushes up to his open, grabbing hand and poof his dry glove pops off and goes wizing by my face.

The look on his face was priceless. 98.6 to 36 degrees in zero seconds. :11:

 

[MikeFerrara]

Another ice diving story...

I was teaching an ice class at a local spot. The ice was kind of thin so I put my hole by a drop off where we could do a shore entry.

Another shop was doing a class and they went out on the lake. We have a picture of out on the lake a ways watching them go li..."hey where are you nute going!"

A while later one of the owners of the shop came over and asked if he could dive through out hole with us because his group was crazy. He said that he'd even be willing to dive with my students so I wouldn't have to do so many dives. Ice classes are brutal if you have more than 2 students and your the only instructor.

Well, it's a good thin they all had dry suits on because a bunch of em fell through.

One of my students was doing the class for the second year in a row. LOL Anyway he did fine up until the last dive. He was heading for shore, getting shallower and shallower but not turning around. I decided to just watch and see what he'd do.

Som of a gun if he didn't run himself right out of water. He swam right up to shore and didn't notice until he hit his head on the ice.

The year before he refused to let the tenders keep the line tight. He kept wanting to collect into a big ball. Then he would get himself all tangled up in it. Once, I thought we were going to have to tow him out and cut him free. he looked like a ball of yarn with a mask on.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Reels lines and lift bags always make for some interesting events.

On one of the last dives in the first Advanced nitrox class that I taught was on the deep end at Gilboa.

The plan was simple. We were to go down the line under the dock and then over for a tour around the truck and then over to the rope ladder. At 70 ft the students were to deploy lift bags one at a time.

Comming back from the truck they ended up closer to the dock than the ladder so I signalled for them to start their ascent there.

It took a minute to figure out what was pulling on the lift bag lines after they were deployed. As it turned out other divers were comming in behind us and I had my two students deploy their bags right into their bottoms. I guess it gave them a real start. Goosed em good!

The next day my IT called to ask how the class went. I told him it could have been better. You could tell he was scared wqhen he asked what happened. I told him and he laughed til I thought he was going to cry.

 

[Diver0001]

Had a buddy with a failed BCD. We were about 10 min from shore and since he couldn't make an ascent without dropping his weights we decided to make for shore over the bottom. It still makes me laugh when I think of him walking over the bottom like a moon walker on the tips of his fins.....

R..

 

[Wristshot]

My best dumb one was the first water entry from a small 6-pak boat in Cozumel. It was the first time I ever did a back roll entry. I arched a little too much, had a little too much air in the BC, and I surfaced strongly with the top of my head striking the center of the keel of the small boat. With vigor I might add. That was an eye-opener and a star generator.

Then I topped it off by crashing into the bottom of the inside of the boat when I climbed back in. I climbed up the ladder, the type that pivots at the edge of the side of the boat. Once you climb beyond a certain point, the ladder becomes top-heavy, and it will pivot inward, dumping you on your face if you aren't holding on to a non-pivoting structure. Wish someone had briefed me on that part. I did a perfect "mask-plant" on the bottom of the boat. I ended up with my face on the floor, my legs up over the ladder, 45 degrees above me, with a AL80 tank trying to enter the back of my skull. Lots of things hurt, including my pride. I learned a lot that day!

I was staying wet, but believe me, it wasn't purdy!

Wristshot

(UP - I just love that tag line!)

 

[Wristshot]

My buddy Dennis has had a couple of interesting weight related incidents. Dennis is very bouyant by himself, with 14mm of Henderson Gold Core, he needs a metric tonne of lead to submerge. His 40 lbs would fit in his Oceanic Chute II BC, but it was a bear to handle, and he had trouble loading the weight pouches.

During our final OW check out dive at Lover's, we were supposed to submerge at the dive float, and then swim along the bottom, navigating to the shore. Dennis and the Assistant Instructor descend rapidly to about 30 feet, with maybe 10 foot viz at best. I am following slowly as I need to equalize and descend slower than he does. When I get down, I can't find them. Brief search, then head up to locate them. He is swimming at the surface, with his first stage at his ear. I tell him that something looks wrong (dive 4 remember) and he says that he lost a weight. I am thinking he means one of the 2 lb clip-ons the instructor added, so what is the big deal?. After swimming to shore, he tells me he lost his weight pouch with 15 or 20 lbs in it. While descending, it simply fell out. We assume that the funky "locking mechanism" (and I use that term loosely) just wasn't really locked in. When the Instructor swims to shore, he is towing the dive float (with the extra clip on weights etc etc etc) and a Lift Bag. We had no idea what was going on. He hoists the lift bag to show the Oceanic weight pouch and says "did you lose something?".

It turns out that he was at the bottom unscrewing the anchor screw for the dive float when my buddy's weight pouch landed on his back. He simply floated it back to shore. Saved my buddy a bit of hassle and expense.

-------------
My buddy's best one was a couple months later on a private boat dive in Monterey. He was tired of wrestling with the 40 lbs in the BC, so he got a weight belt to carry some of it. We were on Greg's boat, our much more experienced friend. That dive was Dennis and Greg and I was minding the boat. Greg always wanted to be real "helpful" but sometimes the results were a little different.

Dennis surfaces, and I reach down to accept gear to be handed up. He is hanging at the platform, trying to catch his breath and gather himself. He has his legs spread real wide, because he has no hips, and the weight belt is trying to head south. He is struggling to hold on, and to figure out how to yank the weight belt back up high enough to stay on him. I am willing to help, but basically worthless from my location. Greg is still barely under the surface watching, but not understanding. Greg decides to "help" by removing Dennis' fin. Dennis is yelling at me that Greg is yanking on his leg, and it is going to make him drop the weight belt. Of course Greg can't hear us because he is underwater. He finally surfaces to hand me the fin, and we tell him to stop helping, because Dennis is struggling with the slipping weight belt. Greg drops the fin, re-submerges to assist with the weight belt. I almost go in myself reaching for the sinking fin. Again, he can't hear us because he is underwater.

It all was resolved eventually, but now Dennis was minus one Black Apollo Bio-Fin. Greg finally surfaced again, realized that he had dropped the fin, and that it did not float! He searched the bottom briefly with his remaining air before we gave up.

Now Greg knows what my mother has always pounded into our heads since I was a very young child; "Make sure your help is wanted before you give it!".

Of course Greg was sincerely trying to help, and he feels bad. Our local dive shop was willing to sell Dennis a single new fin because lots of people lose them out here. Everything worked out okay, and we have a funny memory of the day with Dennis spread-eagle screaming for Greg to stop helping.

Wristshot

Epilogue: Dennis has since bought a DUI Trim System and a Zeagle Ranger. The DUI holds some of the weight, and it can't fall off. The Ranger is easier to load the weight pouches, and never releases.

 

[simbrooks]

Have had a few beach or lake dives where we have chatted on the surface whilst kicking out, masks on backwards, then we get to the point we want to descend and put my reg in, grab my inflation hose, get a quick pre-equalize puff in my ears and down we go - opps forgot to put the mask on.

Also for some reason whilst losing some weight (went from 250 - 230#) my mask seems to have become a little large for me (yeh i know fat head) and realizing this during a dive that a small amount of water is coming in i try to clear (but of course instead of just clearing that little bit i decide to give my mask a rinse out and take it off before clearing it again). Problem is that i was trying to stay horizontal - this was not how we learned in OW classes (where i could clear my mask with ease being vertical) and so i am tilting my head backwards like i learned and start exhaling out of my nose, but the water is going nowhere. I give up in the end and just tilt my whole body more vertical and that does the trick as now i can actually look up (BTW i also have my DIN-yoke adapter on a rental tank, so that is impeding my ability to tilt my head back a bit). My instructor had a laugh telling me that he saw the water in my mask and me just puffing out air, but not clearing due to the way i was in the water. Another valuable lesson learnt, you tilt the mask downwards when horizontal to face behind you and get the water out that way.

On a similar dive at a local lake i have dove a few times (mostly instructional) with about 10-15ft viz that day, i was doing some skill practices, hear bubbles coming my way and see two people just about to run straight into me, drop as quick as my lung dumping would let me to be tillered over by their fins (they were in some kind of underwater race i reckon the speed they were going - dont know how many laps they did of the lake - it has to be a mile around the edges) whilst i was pretty much hugging the lake bottom due to dropping ~4ft in less than a second. A little after that on the same dive as we were ascending close to our dive flag, a group (i reckon about 10 students) were doing feet first descent as i was coming up horizontally from my safety stop. I get hit by about 4-5 of them as they are dropping like stones - like raining divers around me. Once i got hit the first time i started doing my best to look over my shoulder to avoid any others coming down - why were they descending on our flag and not somewhere else??? We laughed about these few events on the way out, but it was so frustrating to be pounded on those few times by people who werent watching where they were going!