I f*** up and I am ashamed

[Dody]

I mean a deco stop. Which is usually done(the last stop) at 3m. You are not planning to go into deco, but it can happen(entanglement, an emergency, or whatever). So I would always weigth myself to be able to hold a 3m stop.

Personally I weigth myself so I am neutral at 0.5m.


I(and others) told you months ago, that you are not properly weighted, after you described how you weighted yourself.
Maybe you will beleave us now.

The 10m distance to your wife is too much.
In low vis I can always touch my buddy and in good vis I should be able to reach my buddy with 1 strong kick. So like maximum 2m distance. If something happens you need to much time to travel the 10m.especially if you buddy swims in the other direction, or worse bolts to the surface.

By now, you know I got it. I will never be underweighted again.

 

[CT-Rich]

Ok. That leads me to the next question. How can we make sure that we purge all the air out of the BCD?

My BCD has three dumps. One on each shoulder and one on the right rear. To go down from the surface, I use a shoulder dump. While horizontal, I will roll to the side and go slightly head down or head up depending o which dump I want to use (the rear dum is usually best choice). Good trim depends on reality, not ideals. That bit of air you can not easily purge is going grow as you ascend or compress as you get deeper, live with it, weight for it.

 

[Raphus]

Ok. That leads me to the next question. How can we make sure that we purge all the air out of the BCD?

I only dive jacket style while teaching, so I am more experienced with wings.
In some jackets it's hard to vent all the air.
I feel it's best to use the kidney dump. And of course put the dump valve to the highest point.

U recently shared a video, where u had a decent horizontal position. If you then use the kidney dump and rise you ass a bit so it's higher then the rest of the bcd, all the air should go out.

And as a side effect you stay in trim(besides the short rising of the ass ).
Using the inflator hose to vent air usually traps air in the hose and/or the side pockets of the bcd. And destroys the trim and as a result makes buoyancy more difficult

 

[Dody]

His point was that if you are underweighted at the end of a dive, you will have an uncontrolled ascent, and there will not be much in the way of skills that will prevent that from happening. A diver I know had a buoyancy control issue at about 90-100 feet after a middling tech dive. He was a long time tech instructor, even a cave instructor. As he went to the surface, he did all he could to stop the ascent, but he could not stop it. He said he assumed he was going to die. He didn't die, though. It just took 3 months in a rehabilitation hospital for him to be able to walk again.

Sorry for your friend. But can you tell me how you can have such a problem without losing your weight belt or being caught in an upstream current? Just want to learn.

 

[Raphus]

Sorry for your friend. But can you tell me how you can have such a problem without losing your weight belt or being caught in an upstream current? Just want to learn.

Weighting in tech diving can be more difficult. Because there is so much gas consumed, that weights a lot and this weight is missing at the end of the dive.
Also the equipment can change more often, depending on the dives. More stages, other backplate. D18 instead of D12. Usually the equipment is so heavy, that you don't need much weigth, if any weigth at all. Even in a drysuit.

But when you consumed most of the gas and are going to the first deco stop, that's the moment you find out, you didn't carry enough gas. Of course, the moment you find this out should be before the dive, when calculating the weigth. But mistakes happen


please correct me, if I am wrong. Or maybe there is a different reason behind your friends story?

 

[Dody]

The OP has somewhat explained that he felt less lead was better. He also indicates he is concerned about ascents, using no air in BC on ascent from 100 feet. He also indicated he is now going to get a new regulator that is better because his current one somehow gave him some water at a depth of 6 feet when he was stuck on the ceiling in the dark.

Perhaps this is obvious, but he needs more lead, He also needs to no longer be afraid of ascending with air in a BC, a little air in the BC is easily managed by a competent diver. A normal ascent should be approaching a condition where the body is motionless with a gentle drifting upward and precise control of buoyancy with BC and lungs.

He mentions relying heavily on the dive computer and watching it like a hawk on ascent. I too, like the "crutch" of a dive computer on ascent, but his confidence and skills will improve quickly if he practices ascents using just the particles in the water (as a guide) and how it "feels" and just refer to the computer for a quick check here and there. Gaining this skill will drastically reduce the fear of an uncontrolled ascent.

Lastly, it sounds like things got really out of control on the ceiling. If he was a weighted a little light, then when he got shallow and scared he most certainly is going to be taking deep breaths and probably not exhaling fully. A very natural response to stress under water.

The fact that he said he could see nothing, had no light and it was very dark and visibility was terrible and then his regulator started filling up with water. That indicates to me that the diver was PROBABLY disoriented. He got a little distracted and some water got past his mouth piece and he was more or less upside down. Once the reg is upside down it will not vent water properly. It CAN Be a very minor inconvenience if you are calm and breathing gently and can deal with the gurgling, but if you are having a problem, this can feel very bad and could cause panic by itself.

With respect to this last point, I suggest the OP try a little upside down boat cleaning (or something similar) and deliberately allow some water in second stage and experience how it does not vent well on exhalation when completely upside down. Getting used to this will probably make him much safer and may save a good bit of $$, which will probably be wasted when he finds a "better' second stage performs very similarly. Hint: pressing the purge may help a little, but you just need to flip around for a moment, get the second stage in a proper orientation and exhale - and then you can go back to your upside down boat cleaning task.

You are the very right person why I post on SB. Thank you.

 

[johndiver999]

Ok. That leads me to the next question. How can we make sure that we purge all the air out of the BCD?

By now, you know I got it. I will never be underweighted again.

In order for a diver to be confident that they will not be underweighted, it seems necessary that they fully comprehend and have the motor skills to operate their BC.

I pretty much NEVER use the rear dump on my BC's, in fact I sometimes remove the rear pull dump string, because it is unnecessary for me. I know many people do the opposite, but that is how I dive. Maybe I am weak because I might break trim a tiny bit and pull on the pull dump to vent air. Regardless, everyone needs to learn to work their own BC by touch and feel.

To be completely honest, it is probably easier/better to have a few extra lbs of lead so that you don't ever have to really worry about getting the very last dribble of air out of the BC.

 

[ginti]

Sorry for your friend. But can you tell me how you can have such a problem without losing your weight belt or being caught in an upstream current? Just want to learn.

1) being unproperly weighted (as in your case)
2) if the inflating valves/buttons/whatever of the drysuit or bcd gets icy, they start inflating (it can happen in cold water; happened to me and to many friends)
3) getting entangled on a SMB
4) any situation that will lead you to go shallower too fast, or that will put air inside your equipment too fast

 

[Dody]

You should dive as a DM as you are recently trained as a DM. regardless of training we discussed before about knowing when to end a dive. Your training should have told you, I have no torch, I cannot contact my dive buddies, there is a dark cavern / cave I cannot see in. I know I am underweighted... abort the dive should have been coming to mind. Not I am a macho man I have to take care of my wife. Is she not also a trained qualified diver who can do things without you? It seems you put too much into taking care of your wife we see this in many of your posts.

Perhaps you were over confident and played follow the leader. It's fine to not always follow a guide. It's fine to control the urge to be a macho man. Being able to self rescue is very important. Your situation was probably accentuated by being very anxious and stressed but you did not panic. You managed to sort yourself and find you wife and guide even though that was 5 minutes later. The guide is also at fault as the guide was not paying attention to you as well as your wife.

Diving in three person teams can be great but you all need to pay attention to each other. Situational awareness was not there by your wife or guide as to where you were.

DM certifications are not over rated. If you think they are perhaps it is due to the level of instruction you received. How long was your DM course?

View attachment 667951

My DM course was one week long .But I had done the Rescue course before and it took two weeks.

 

[Swedinsidemount]

Ok. That leads me to the next question. How can we make sure that we purge all the air out of the BCD?

By now, you know I got it. I will never be underweighted again.

Based on these questions, I think you should review sections of your OW manual or e-learning page. Your OW instructor should have gone over these principles a million times, before even going on a beach dive let alone a cavern <TG>