How those idiots (us) run out of air

[uncfnp]

Tom,
I guess that is the dis-connect on this... I live in a place where all dives are from a live boat, and all divers drop fast on an advanced boat....if you are advanced, you dive on and advanced boat...if you are on a mixed skill boat, there will be multiple drops to acount for different descending speeds....and in a 20 pack boat, there will sometimes be more than one drop, depending on how fast the current is, and how fast the divers are at jumping off the boat.

I think the real "skill" is with the Captain of the boat. The fast descent thing is easy.....the captains that do perfect drops all the time, are the ones we like to dive with...the ones that give lousy drops, don't stay long in this area

You are both right. Every region has its own techniques. But I will say that Dan's right that its the Captain that makes the live boat a success, especially on wrecks. My last drift dive on a wreck in WPB was at night, with a boat load that included photographers and researchers looking for spawning Goliath Groupers, probably around 25 divers. To a wreck just shy of 100 feet. In enough current that you had to get behind something or hold on (I am no judge of knots). One person missed the wreck with equalization problems. Was picked up and re dropped. The next dive, we separated into two groups with the diver with problems equalizing in the group that was dropped further from the wreck to give her more time to descend. We all made the dive. It was two of my most favorite dives ever.

 

[danvolker]

Brian: agreed.

It takes us 500lbs to get down to 50 - 60fsw, and 300 to get up & make a safety stop. I assume that is because there is a surface current that we swim into to get to the bow line, but carries us toward the stern.

I had just a few hundred lbs when I reached the anchor line, my mistake in the first post. We started sharing before I totally ran out, in order to have some for my BC and in case we got separated. I usually keep my reg in going up the ladder.

One thing that bothers me is that Emily ran out -- completely out -- and I don't understand why. She had an unidentified problem with her primary, switched to her secondary, and quickly dropped from close to 500 to zero. The other dive guide -- one of the ones that some said we should have turned on -- shared air with her. We tested her tank at the boat and it was empty.

Bill

Bill,
To get down to 60 feet it should take about 4 to 5 breaths....with a negatively bouyant BC and freedive speed, easy straight down swimming descent. At bottom, your air should look almost like it did at the surface.

 

[Adobo]

I have more time to post and to read more of the comments. The plan was to go down the anchor line and that was very helpful to keep us oriented when there was a good deal of current in the first 15'. (I burn through 500lbs of a 100cf tank to get down, even now, today. But much less than that to come up and do a safety stop. Hmmm..I wonder why?)

But after a few minutes at the bottom I could not have found my way reliably to the anchor line to ascend. Therefore I would not bolt from a DM that does know her way back and has more gas and more experience than I.

We have now made 5 dives in similar conditions with less current. It gets easier every time. I am glad we spent a week diving in the Keys before this where the depth was less -- no guides there. We got lost a few times but just came up from 15 - 25 ft and looked around. Can't do that here + surface current = stay with dive guide.

Lynn. Yeah, sure we should have more training. Should we not be here because we could not do the dive on our own? Possibly we should have called the dive due to current. But you can't spend all your time training, and real life dives that stretch you are fun and learning experiences. We made some mistakes and became better divers for it.

Bill

Personally, when I am planning my dives, I take into consideration whether or not I can begin my ascent at any location during the dive.

If I cannot or, put another way, if my safety is dependent on me making it back to a very specific location before I begin my ascent, I know I need to plan my dive a certain way. For example, the gas planning is very different in this type of dive. It becomes more or less a "thirds" dive. In addition, if navigation is a challenge, use of a guideline comes into play.

It is good that the dive master was able to assist you in this case. However, have you considered what your situation might have been if it was the dive master who became distressed and needed assistance? Dive masters are human beings too and are subject to the same issues (including health issues) that you and I are subject to.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I get that it is less than ideal advice for someone that has never descended quickly....part of the reason I posted this, is that it seems like many have never been shown you can go down fast, and that it is much easier.

I have dived in many places where they anchor...and pretty much any time the recreational diver is strong enough to pull down on a line...there would have been an easier way to do a rapid descent to the bottom without missing the desired structure....all bets are off for people that can't equalize and have to go down feet first and slow...but I don't think this should factor into the equation for teaching diving to normal divers.

Hmmmm ... I remember a dive I did with Uncle Pug once off his boat where we were anchored to a wreck in a reasonably stiff current. The current was so stiff there was a considerable wake off the back of our anchored boat ... and the boltsnaps on the lanyard we dropped overboard were skipping on the surface. We were going to call the dive due to the current, but couldn't get the anchor unhooked. So we went off the bow ... anchor line in hand ... and pulled ourselves down. Had we not done so, there is no way we would have done anything other than get swept far from the dive site before we managed to make it down. By the time we got below 30 fsw, the current was much easier, and we were able to let go at about 40 fsw and swim the rest of the way to the wreck.

There is no "one way" to dive that works under all circumstances ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[uncfnp]

Bill,
To get down to 60 feet it should take about 4 to 5 breaths....with a negatively bouyant BC and freedive speed, easy straight down swimming descent. At bottom, your air should look almost like it did at the surface.

in Bill's defense, I have seen some fairly significant pressure drops just from the water cooling a hot tank.

 

[danvolker]

What do yo do to go up? Shoot a bag drift and get picked up?

I don't think it's a unworkable plan, but some conditions might introduce drawbacks that have to be weighted against the gains.

First, like you said, people who can equalize fast exists, if you're a open charter it might be best to cater to those people too.

Currents that differs at variable depth unpredictably coupled with low vis could really make this hard to accomplish reliably.

I'm not sure what I prefer, certainty of hitting the wreck or losing a few minutes.

My local reality is high current, low vis (I've been less than 15 ft to a wreck without seeing it) and trying to avoid drifting in the shipping channel so I'm not sure lines are that bad

Although, as a person who equalizes easily I'd really like to try a fast drop on a wreck someday,sounds like a lot of fun and less work.

Normally I am in a 3 person buddy team, and one of us tows a torpedo float....it is ultra low drag, and it can be hooked to the bottom at any time if we want to stay in one place for a while.
If we don't feel like towing a float, and the current and reefline makes our drift predictable, then we could drop with no float and shoot a bag an hour later. This is NOT the norm though....Our currents are too big, and there is too much variability in how my group might stop or swim, compared to other buddy groups....it is easy for a boat to track 6 or 7 floats.

There is a tech dive off Jupiter, a reef that is 235 on top, dropping to about 265.... each time I have been on it, there was a surface current going one way, a mid water current going another, and a bottom current taking it's own line. The solution is a very fast drop with little leading, and dropping as many at one time that can stand on the platform and instantly be swimming down...usually this is 3 or 4 divers. If there are alot more tech divers, the boat will have to do multiple drops and on a reef like this, we will all meet up at the bottom, but the plan would have to be potentially doing the dive as your individual drop group/buddy team.....It is more complicated with tech divers, because they usually cant move that fast on the boat....so getting the second wave of divers in quick enough to be with the first wave, depend alot on the strength and coordination of the divers in question....along with the room at the back of the boat and the steps or way down to the platform. On some boats, wave after wave can blast in like penguins--almost not pause between except for the spacing so no one lands on the person before them.... So really, you need the right captain, and to a slightly lesser degree, you need the right boat.

Again, the diving skill for this is minimal.....being able to clear fast is not much of a skill...and anyone ought to be able to take pseudofed

---------- Post added July 1st, 2013 at 10:52 PM ----------

in Bill's defense, I have seen some fairly significant pressure drops just from the water cooling a hot tank.

I was not trying to be snotty....I was just saying that if Bill did this with Sandra and me, ( with pseudofed and a clear set of eustachion tubes) --and with a few practice dives to get the hang of the spearfisihing style descent....he would likely be barely seeing any change in pressure on HIS tank when he got to the 60 foot mark...on a dive like he was telling us about....

Dumpster posted a video of him doing a head down descent a week or two ago...it was a good visual of what TO DO on a descent.
If you have ever practiced a freedive drop, this is not so different...and freedivers take NO breaths on the way down
We just go in very relaxed, and with no work load, and very low heart rate, there is little impulse to breath except every 5 to 8 seconds....and this puts you on the bottom almost full in 60 feet of water.....

---------- Post added July 1st, 2013 at 10:53 PM ----------

Hmmmm ... I remember a dive I did with Uncle Pug once off his boat where we were anchored to a wreck in a reasonably stiff current. The current was so stiff there was a considerable wake off the back of our anchored boat ... and the boltsnaps on the lanyard we dropped overboard were skipping on the surface. We were going to call the dive due to the current, but couldn't get the anchor unhooked. So we went off the bow ... anchor line in hand ... and pulled ourselves down. Had we not done so, there is no way we would have done anything other than get swept far from the dive site before we managed to make it down. By the time we got below 30 fsw, the current was much easier, and we were able to let go at about 40 fsw and swim the rest of the way to the wreck.

There is no "one way" to dive that works under all circumstances ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob, the "WAY" to do this dive was as a drift dive. It should not have been done has an anchor dive.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Brian: agreed.

It takes us 500lbs to get down to 50 - 60fsw, and 300 to get up & make a safety stop. I assume that is because there is a surface current that we swim into to get to the bow line, but carries us toward the stern.

I had just a few hundred lbs when I reached the anchor line, my mistake in the first post. We started sharing before I totally ran out, in order to have some for my BC and in case we got separated. I usually keep my reg in going up the ladder.

One thing that bothers me is that Emily ran out -- completely out -- and I don't understand why. She had an unidentified problem with her primary, switched to her secondary, and quickly dropped from close to 500 to zero. The other dive guide -- one of the ones that some said we should have turned on -- shared air with her. We tested her tank at the boat and it was empty.

Bill

I realize you don't have the perspective of experience and I don't want to be too blunt, but the self description in the title fits pretty well.

I have done thousands of dives, a good percentage with buddies, I have been a DM on many hundreds of trips with thousands of less than superlative divers and I have had to share air (for real now)...3 times, I think it was. 3 out of thousands! 2 were equipment failure and one was stupidity of simply running out.

In contrast you seem to be of the opinion that "all's well that ends well" and your description of the ascent as "safe" is very wrong. You really need to realize that this stuff should NOT happen and most certainly not for the reasons you describe... which I summarize as you being insufficiently skilled to dive without assistance on even a 60 ft dive.

FYI, you don't need any air for your BC if you are ascending, you will be venting air on ascent and you can orally inflate on the surface... almost every comment you make about the thought process in the emergency is "off".

 

[Crass3000]

I guess I sort of ran out of air. I made a big dive for me. Last dive of the night. Had to grab my flag from a 25ft table. Knew I didn't much air (maybe 600) but figured I didn't want to get another tank. Just swam on my back but when I sent down I remembered I went out of my way to make sure the flag wasn't going anywhere. I finally got it off but it was starting to breath harder. Ended up with 300 PSI. Two things that led me to do the tiny dive: 1) I was getting my tanks vizzed the next day so no problem if water got inside. 2) CESA pretty easy from that depth.

Should have probably got a new tank but really what for? Certainly wouldn't recommend other's do that. I'm a solo diver and only need to worry about me. I do things that I wouldn't want another to do sometimes as I can't see their gauges as often as needed. I am by no means a good diver at least from the aspect as I see people on here from. The real reason I didn't want to leave my flag is someone had died earlier that day and I certainly didn't want anyone to come across the flag before I got there the next day which would have lead to likely panic and a search.

 

[doctormike]

...after a few minutes at the bottom I could not have found my way reliably to the anchor line to ascend. Therefore I would not bolt from a DM that does know her way back and has more gas and more experience than I.

Can't do that here + surface current = stay with dive guide.

Hey, Bill...

I don't mean to come off as condescending. I'm just a recreational diver, and I'm always learning and rethinking my procedures. And as I said, it's brave of you to post here. But the point of posting here isn't to defend yourself, but to learn, right? I think that some very experienced people here are telling you that you might want to rethink these assumptions, just so the next time you are encounter a problem on a dive and you are running through options in your head, you don't put "having something to breathe" behind "stay with dive guide" in your priority list.

Lynn. Yeah, sure we should have more training. Should we not be here because we could not do the dive on our own? Possibly we should have called the dive due to current. But you can't spend all your time training, and real life dives that stretch you are fun and learning experiences. We made some mistakes and became better divers for it.

No one is suggesting that you spend all your time training, but if you are doing open ocean dives, it's a good idea to at least train to use an SMB, for precisely this situation. What would you have done if you lost the DM? A stretch dive is one that is beyond your previous experience (in terms of depth, current, time, or conditions) that you plan for and execute, and learn from. In this dive, you made - in my opinion anyway - a decision that could have been lethal, but you got lucky.

One thing that bothers me is that Emily ran out -- completely out -- and I don't understand why. She had an unidentified problem with her primary, switched to her secondary, and quickly dropped from close to 500 to zero.... We tested her tank at the boat and it was empty.

If this doesn't get your attention, nothing that we say here will...

 

[Crass3000]

In this case I would ask you if you knew how to get back to the boat? How deep were you? If you knew how to get back to the beat then it is time to start ascending slowly to your stop and SLOWLY swim it out. Then I'd look around, find the boat and swim to it underwater (giving thought about current and surge). You're are the only one in charge of you and your wife. If you don't know where the boat is, surface with your stop and look for the boat. If you're too far away, save you gas, put up some SMBs, and blow your whistle. Don't ever let a DM or other divers make you feel uncomfortable about turning around. they may have way better breathing rates. You need to worry about your own.