How often do you abort dives and why?

[Rapid Star]

I've aborted 1 dive in 21 logged dives, a night dive in my local quarry. Poor visibility and buddy separation about 15 minutes in, reunited on the surface and called it a night.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

I boat dive and have a mental checklist of risk factors:

1. Surface Conditions: Calm or rough (determines the risk of entry and exit), rain can also factor in.
2. Water Conditions: Current, vis and temp
3. Depth of dive
4. Day vs Night dive
5. Equipment issues

If two or of these escalate to the "high risk" category I seriously consider not doing the dive. Three or more usually means a no-go.

Example: Planned a night dive to a deep wreck (100-120') to see goliath grouper spawning aggregation. This dive was with a very experienced group of 10 divers/photographers well known to each other and the captain, took a lot of planning, and was not cheap. Forecast was good. When we got out to the wreck, it was windy with a nasty 5' chop. The current was ripping. The divemaster who set the hook in the wreck said vis was 20' and he even missed the intended hook point due to the current and poor vis, and had a hard time holding the line coming up. This was a case of 4 out of 5 risk factors being high.

The captain asked if we were ready to splash. My buddy and I said we would sit the dive out and the others could do the dive, no hard feelings. There was visible relief on everyone else's face when we said it, and everyone agreed to go to a shallower reef where conditions were calmer, where the dive could be done as a drift dive, and, as it turned out, vis was better. We all had a great (and safe) dive that night.

Because I try to plan carefully for good conditions and check off risk factors before I dive to decide whether I will get in the water, I have not had to abort a dive during the dive itself (and by abort, I mean surfacing before NDL, dive plan, or gas supply requires it).

 

[RandomGuy1]

Two dives I have called early that were due to buddy separation. Although I don't know if you would really call them thumbed dives since I didn't make the conscience decision to abort the dive, just followed the lost buddy protocol. Good on you for knowing your limitations and thumbing the three you did. You can read about the dive I should have thumbed much earlier in the near misses forum.

 

[TMHeimer]

Maybe one out 100. Being retired, I can usually pick my day to shore dive. But, miscalculations do occur-about 1% of the time. I'll take that any day.

 

[lamarpaulski]

I have aborted a bunch just on reports of larger than optimal surf. Laguna just isnt that great when its not pretty flat..imho.

I wasnt ' feelin' it at Catalina and passed on second dive a couple weeks ago. Had a nice lunch instead.

Have to admit I hadnt invested much in either case in money or time so no pressing push to go. Some exotic expensive unique dive place then I might push the envelope.

 

[Neilwood]

I have aborted a bunch just on reports of larger than optimal surf. Laguna just isnt that great when its not pretty flat..imho.

I wasnt ' feelin' it at Catalina and passed on second dive a couple weeks ago. Had a nice lunch instead.

Have to admit I hadnt invested much in either case in money or time so no pressing push to go. Some exotic expensive unique dive place then I might push the envelope.

I can understand the sentiment a bit but as is often quoted on here "There is nothing down there worth dying for" and "It will still be there next week, month, year".

@guyharrisonphoto I quite like your list there - I have mentally filed it away for future use. I have added skill to it though - if it is pushing the limit of my skill set/experience. For example I have no difficulty diving to 30m and have done a number of times but if the dive was to 40m (which I haven't been to yet) I might be a good bit more cautious.

 

[Antmany2k]

interestingly i have just flown back from a diving holiday last night and i aborted 1 dive and had another aborted by one of our group. i was getting over a cold and could equalize on land so gave it a go, first dive was fine, second i just couldnt equalize so i bowed out as didnt want to force it. a few days later one of our group had a panic attack at 8 metres when his mask filled with water and he started coughing into his reg and inflated his BCD to get to the surface. the guide went up to help him but called the dive off so we all came back to the surface

 

[Neilwood]

interestingly i have just flown back from a diving holiday last night and i aborted 1 dive and had another aborted by one of our group. i was getting over a cold and could equalize on land so gave it a go, first dive was fine, second i just couldnt equalize so i bowed out as didnt want to force it. a few days later one of our group had a panic attack at 8 metres when his mask filled with water and he started coughing into his reg and inflated his BCD to get to the surface. the guide went up to help him but called the dive off so we all came back to the surface

You did the right thing with the equalising issue - no point forcing it and having bigger problems later.

Did the panic attack cause the other problems or were they the cause of the panic attack?

I don't know that either a mask leak or coughing should be causing an aborted dive. I have had both at far deeper than 8m and kept going. The mask leak should be simple to sort as it is the sort of thing that should be getting practised all the time. Coughing into a reg is nothing to worry about either (heck you can blow chunks through a reg and it will still operate - might want to give it a heck of a good rinse afterwards though).

Both, to me anyway, are things that are easily controllable - stop, breathe, think, act.

 

[Killerflyingbugs]

(heck you can blow chunks through a reg and it will still operate - might want to give it a heck of a good rinse afterwards though).

Seen a buddy do that, it was a mess.

 

[Neilwood]

Seen a buddy do that, it was a mess.

I bet there were plenty of fish about all of a sudden - they love it.