Imaginary uncontrolled ascent

[DivemasterDennis]

Being overweighted results in more air in the bcd, and when you had an inadvertent "lift" from the flag, the impact on buoyancy was compounded as the large amount of air in the bcd expanded. Hence the actual unintended ascent. My diagnosis is you were overweighted and that was the cause of the unintended ascent, which you did in fact handle well. You report a dive in non-typical conditions in which you learned a bunch. Now about that reel, be careful not to have so much loose line that entanglement becomes an issue. Thanks for sharing a valuable experience so we can all benefit from it.
DivemasterDennis

 

[LowDrag]

That had to be a bad feeling. Thinking you were gonna pop up in fornt of a boat or something. Glad to hear you both are okay and still diving. Just out of curiousity...what happen to cause your dive flag to keep running away from you? Did I miss something? I could see a wave lifting the flag but it sounds as if though it lifted and kept on going. Did a boater try to snatch it or was it just a really big wave that caught it and ran with it?

 

[Lizard Leg]

Not real sure. The flag seemed to bring me up about 6' or so on its own - after that it was all the lack of being able to get to the rear dump.

The boat to to the head was the worst thought running through my head, I have to admit.

 

[LowDrag]

I can see where that would be a huge concern.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Good story. Changing to a steel tank makes a huge difference and then if you had too much lead on top of that..you are swimming around with a big bubble in the BC. Cold water divers with a thick 7 mm suit are somewhat used to this... they know that they really need to stay on top of the expanding bubble of air in the BC and the expanding wetsuit. People like me (who normally dive in warm water & don't carry a lot of excess lead) are just NOT going to have a lot of air in the BC, and managing it on ascent is much. much easier. That effect and the lack of thick gloves are two very important reasons why warmwater diving is easier than cold.

My advice to anyone who feels they are being caught in a run away ascent is to NOT swim down! Instead, roll on your back, spread eagle (like an upside down skydiver) exhale completely!, try not to inhale for a few moments and dump air from the BC. I imagine it would have been easier for you to find and manipulate the infltor and or normal pull dump that you are most accustomed to using... laying flat out on your back, present a huge amount of drag and you will NOT ascend very fast in this position, plus I think you will be looking up and will be better able to judge your ascent rate.

Swimming down is very stressful, you may be able to see nothing. These will tend to stress you out more.

 

[gcbryan]

I think you handled things well. Kicking down is a good move in my book simply because it immediately corrects the problem if you were neutrally buoyant before all this began.

If you kick down the 6 feet back to your original starting point you won't need to vent your BC (it will be neutrally buoyant at that depth).

You can also usually find a way to vent through the vertical vent even when you aren't vertical by just lifting your chest up for a moment while still kicking down (you don't have to go straight down...45 degrees will do).