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.
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.
If this doesn't get your attention, nothing that we say here will...
I'm with doctormike on this one ... the priority in this situation is running out of air, and you should be doing whatever is needful to make sure it doesn't happen. When a diver runs out of air at depth, it means something went very ... very ... wrong with the dive. And at the point that you realize that one of you is getting low, your absolute priority is to get to a place where there is air to breathe ... on a recreational dive, that usually means the surface.
All other considerations about your dive at that point take lower priorities, and are nothing more than problems that can be resolved once you've established a reasonable breathing supply for the diver in trouble.
Open water ascents are not difficult. If you're going to be diving in open water, it's a skill you should know. Like any other skill, it requires some initial supervision and a bit of practice. An SMB can make those ascents easier, although it isn't necessary ... but it's also not a difficult skill to learn. I emphasize both of these skills at the AOW level. Knowing those skills can turn what could have been an emergency into nothing more than a minor inconvenience ... which is how it should be.
During OW classes, most instructors teach you to consider "what if" situations as part of your dive planning. So ask yourself this ... what if the DM hadn't turned around? What if the DM had a problem with another diver, and wasn't able to assist you or your wife? What if the DM had an injury underwater and required your assistance? What would you have done?
I understand exactly where the OP is at ... when I was a relatively new diver I had a very similar experience, except that we didn't have a DM to rely on. My wife ran totally out of air at 60 feet ... and we had to make a blue-water ascent while sharing air from my tank. It was totally my fault ... because I was focusing on the wrong things, and she was depending on me to "keep her safe". Neither of us had the skills to do that ascent properly ... although we didn't realize it until we were in that situation. It was a wake-up call ... and even now it evokes a bad feeling whenever I think about it. That experience caused me to rethink a great deal of what I thought I knew about scuba diving, and was the driving factor behind the creation of the Gas Management article and seminars I've been pushing for the past decade.
The most important thing I learned ... the most important thing I hope the OP learns ... don't rely on someone else to make your safety decisions for you. They might have different priorities ... they might misunderstand what you're trying to tell them ... they might be unable to assist you at a critical time ... or they might just not care. Professional assistance is all well and good ... but it's inherently unreliable. Rely on yourself. If you're uncomfortable with your ability to perform a self-rescue, do whatever it takes to attain the needed skills ... through a class or merely by going out and practicing with an experienced mentor. But most importantly ... and the thing that makes me uncomfortable reading some of the comments from the OP ... rethink your priorities. Staying with the DM should have been secondary to turning the dive when you knew you should have. You did the right thing by communicating with the DM. But when she did not respond as you felt she should have, then it's up to you to assert your responsibility to yourself and your wife by turning around, or beginning an ascent. At that point, gaining the surface before one of you ran out of air was your absolute priority ... not relying on the DM because she had more air than you did.
The second thing I learned ... and the conclusion of my personal story about what happened to me and my wife 12 years ago ... I had an unrealistic view of my own ability to deal with an emergency. When we reached the surface, I instinctively let go of her BCD. She was exhausted from an ascent she was not properly trained to do, and was too tired to keep herself afloat by finning. She started to sink immediately. I reached down and grabbed her shoulder strap, pulled her back to the surface, and manually inflated her BCD for her. Neither one of us had been trained to deal with this emergency. Neither one of us thought to dump our weights. Had I not been able to grab her when I did, she'd have sank back to the bottom ... without air. Thinking about that still, to this day, creeps me out.
The thought that your wife was in the most serious emergency she can experience as a recreational scuba diver should be causing you to reconsider your priorities as well.
Think about it ... and do whatever it takes to learn the appropriate skills so you don't have to rely on someone else to bail you out if you should find yourself in that situation again. It doesn't have to be a class ... sounds like you've got some experienced divers down your way who are willing to help you ... take them up on it ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
