Have you ever done anything on a dive that you KNEW you weren't supposed to?

[Thiad]

I dove the Blue Hole as a new OW diver. It was dive #7 in my log book - the 3rd dive after my OW cert. The interesting thing is that on that day, just about everyone in the group, with the exception of a few, were fairly new divers.

Today, I hear the same story over and over again - deep dives, new diver, which leads me to think that it's not just the stupidity of the individual (the gullibility of many new divers - myself in particular), but a pervasive attitude that's universally shared. It must be something in the water that zaps common sense.

So what was I thinking? I really don't know except it's obvious I wasn't thinking. When I think about it now, and it makes me ill. I did get the appropriate deep diver cert and scared myself further when I realized how ill prepared the entire "adventure" was and how easily it could have turned into a disaster. For example, no one carried a pony bottle and there wasn't any spare air at 15' for anyone running low. The list goes on and on.

It taught me a good lesson to think long and hard before I get in over my head. I can't emphasis enough how beneficial additional training has been in teaching me how dangerous things can be, and how diving with safe and sane people can make a world of difference.

 

[freewillie]

Well, it may be that >90% of divers deal with the info responsibly.

But there seems to be a prevalent attitude of the <10% who knowingly break the rules that 'everyone does it'. So, I just don't want to be part of that message that *those* people are hearing.

Fair enough, and I can't say that's not reasonable.

Social Darwinism exists for a reason. Some people are just going to do really stupid things, and simply not talking about it here isn't going to stop that.

I'd prefer to talk to the majority as intelligent adults rather than treat everyone as a kindergartner just because one person is an idiot.

 

[cloudflint]

I can probably think of a few, though nothing major

Got a fireman's full face mask and spent 40 minutes swimming around the bottom of a swimming pool (drained a 15l tank in 40 mins since it was just a constant flow regulator) - This was stupid since the curved lens made me go cross-eyed for a few hours which made it difficult driving home, also since the regulator only operated at about 1.2 bars and didn't compensate for ambient pressure if i went below two meters on it I would have found myself in rather deep trouble!

Took said fireman's full face mask and adapted it to fit a SCUBA regulator - This was rather silly since it then created issues with carbon dioxide retention, clearing, equalising e.t.c. as well as the curved lens causing me to become cross-eyed problem!

Taking of my fins and walking along the bottom. The first 10-20 dives after switching to jet fins where rather uncomfortable on my feet, on a few dives I ended up taking off my fins and just walking along the bottom to stop my feet cramping up. - This was a rather silly thing to do since if i had to react fast in an emergency I would have had to wait 10-20 seconds while I got my fins back on.

Going into one of the darkest lochs in Scotland to look for a mooring - This was just silly since I generally only dive recreationally, going in with my buddy to look for an anchor in a freshwater loch by the time we hit 4 meters we could literally not see ANYTHING, I actually held my torch about an inch from my face shining right in my eyes and it made no difference, we later figured out that there was so much silt we had actually dropped below what was technically the loch bed and where swimming around under the silt! Communication between me and my buddy was just a case of coded taps on each others shoulders (We do alot of zero vis diving so this wasnt much of a problem). After tying off a reel onto something (not sure what it was, as i say we where completely blind) and heading out a few meters I received some taps form my buddy indicating to go up. With hindsight we should have called it as soon as we hit the bottom. We had no chance of finding the mooring in those conditions and if something had happened to one of us down there the outer would have absolutely no chance of being able to help. There is zero vis diving and then there is swimming through mud that is littered with years of rubbish just waiting to snag you.

 

[TSandM]

we later figured out that there was so much silt we had actually dropped below what was technically the loch bed and where swimming around under the silt!

Sounds like the bottom of Lake Washington. It's like a colloidal suspension; you're in it before you realize what it is!

 

[kimbalabala]

I'm a rule follower. The only time I break a scuba rule is by accident. Ok, I tried to chase down a turtle to get a good picture once and learned two good lessons. The first is that all I did was make the turtle swim away from me faster and I didn't get the picture anyway - the second is that my buddy doesn't have his eyes glued on me 100% of the time so when I quickly swam away he lost track of me and vice versa. Took me a good 30 seconds (which felt like forever) to locate him and catch up. I don't do that anymore. What was I thinking? That my buddy could see that I was trying to get the picture of a lifetime and that the marital tether was firmly in place so we couldn't possibly lose one another (duh!). Nope. Don't do that anymore.

 

[Sabanist]

Well lets all be honest here, we have all at one point or another dove beyond the scope of our training. It doesnt matter if it is as simple as diving deeper than your experience level should allow, or if you decide to do a wreck/cave penetration. Either way you are putting your life in your own hands.

That being said, all of these "Specialty" certs that people feel that Must be done before doing a certain dive.........Do you honestly think that the pioneers of that specialty had any prior training? Heck no they didnt, they said to themselves, " i bet there's some cool stuff in that (add specialty here)'. And then others followed thier path. Unfortunately Darwin always show up and kills the idiot that doesnt respect the environment that they are in and ends up with a toe tag...........thus leading to the 'Specialty" certification course. I promise you this......If nobody had ever died in a wreck, cave, or diving deep, there would be no "Specialty" certification for them.

So in short, Yes I have done thing that I'm not "Supposed to do", however I am a safety concious person, and dont stick myself in hairy situations while doing so.

I think everyone has a natural warning system that prevents them from doing things that make them uncomfortable. I don't need a cert to tell me I'm good to go or not. For ex: I hold an advanced cert, but I wouldn't be comfortable going to my max depth without "supervision"

That being said, if it were not for different certifications, it is likely many would never improve their level of comfort

 

[Fatterboy]

Many of the early posts seem to deal with caves or overhead environments, I'm claustrophobic and don't do caves, cars, cenotes and the like. If you're swimming with me and go into a cave, rest assured I will be waiting for you to come back out until I'm low on air.

I'm sure I have done things in ignorance, but the example that comes to mind was in Cozumel. The DM's say that when you reach 500psi begin your assent. My wife has problems with equalizing and wants me to descend with her. The group was on the ocean floor and moving away, not wanting to be stranded I was pushing my wife thru the water in a verticle position to keep up with them. As you can tell from my username, I'm not exactly physically fit. I realized that my gauge was getting low compared to my spouse's but I didn't want to quit, after all I could always use her octopus if I ran OOA. After the safety stop and surfacing I had less than 100psi and the tank floated from my BCD at the surface (I wondered why the regulator hose seemed so short). The DM was not very pleased (to say the least). He did however let me continue to dive and the rest of the dives went much more smoothly.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Freeing the diveboat's grappling hook & line off of a wreck, hooking a fluke/claw to my crotch-strap D-ring and using my wing as a liftbag substitute to buoy it all & bring it up midwater --all while doing drifting mandatory decompression stops with gas switches (forgot my main liftbag/smb and I was tasked as the last diver to pull the hook).

The potential was there to become an instant Polaris Missile to the surface, if I accidentally dropped the grappling hook and lost control of the ascent. . .

 

[ianr33]

I realized that my gauge was getting low compared to my spouse's but I didn't want to quit, after all I could always use her octopus if I ran OOA.

Better to share air BEFORE you actually go OOA. That way a single failure can not leave you both without air.

Now back to the regular thread.

 

[eponym]

Ever? Yes, some of my own transgressions have been mentioned by others in this thread, Kev R. most recently. My diving experiences have taught me that I&#8217;m impulsive and take shortcuts. Have I learned to allow for that with planning and monitoring? Not always. For example, today, diving the Yukon in San Diego . . .

I offered to pair up with another single on the boat, a really really big guy with fifty dives and an HP 120. He was honest and accurate about his time at depth, and turned out to be not at all out of his element, although our dives were all one half hour (90 to 100 fsw max).

Viz was excellent, 45 feet lateral at depth, better than I&#8217;ve seen in my occasional forays down to San Diego over the last ten years. Have dived the Yukon since she fell. Light was great, too, and surge almost a non-issue. Wonderful conditions.

So the dive was going well, and I decided to do a short light-to-light swim-through. Nothing I haven&#8217;t done before on her. But my buddy decided to follow me. I knew at once that I had set a bad precedent. We hadn&#8217;t discussed penetration before the dive when comparing gear, training, signals, emergency options, etc.

Things worked out okay. Buddy good at cruising slow through moderate passages. But I&#8217;d guess he would not have penetrated without my example.

Buddy see, buddy do?

Something for me to keep in mind next time.