Importance of Self Reliance

[chrpai]

I was solo diving off The Giant Stride in Lake Travis yesterday at a site called "Fiesta Haus" AKA the inside corner of the wall between Hippie Hollow and Oasis Wall. I dive a Hogarthian rig with a 40cf pony as my redundancy.

Normally when I splash I get down to about 10' - 15', establish a stable platform and then check my gauge and do a modified S-drill just to make sure everything is in order. However on this dive I entered the water quickly to clear the boat and get some extra time in. Once I started my dive I just started descending down the mooring line into the darkness. It got dark fast with zero reference apart from the descent line. I was focused on good trim and watching my depth so that I could anticipate seeing the bottom and become neutral when I reached it.

Bottom was about 62f and 3'-5' visibility. I turned and swam towards the wall and then hung a right to head towards the oasis wall. At some point I realized that my regulator (Hog D1) was breathing funny. One breath would be nice and easy and another breath would be slightly sluggish as if I had turned the adjustable down. I didn't bother to look at my SPG to confirm my suspicions. I immediately reached back to my valve and started turning. Sure enough, it wasn't fully open. Not even close.

My regulator started breathing like normal and I grabbed my SPG to check gas. I had 2500 on my LP95. I then checked my 40 and had a full tank there. I then looked around and noted I was still in horizontal trip, hovering at the landmark I had last noticed.

So lessons learned? First, the bad: Avoid being in such a hurry. Check the valve before splashing, check it again at the surface and follow your procedures at a shallow depth so you don't get so far from the surface when you finally realize you screwed up. I should never have been that deep with the valve in that state.

Now the good: I had a pony with plenty of gas and I'm very comfortable and confident using it. I also have good situational awareness and corrective action instincts. I've practiced valve drills and I know that I can easily reach the valve on my back. I quickly corrected the problem without "needing" the pony (although it's great to have it in case there's some other failure that simply can't be fixed) and I was able to maintain my position in the water column while doing it.

So from my perspective I did an "oops" which is stupid. But I also learned that I can handle a little oops without having my confidence shaken. Stop, breath, think, act. On a side note, I had something like this happen to me 12 years ago when I was a rookie. I looked at my SPG (because I was very fixated on my SPG back then) and saw the needle moving. I signaled the DM that something was wrong and showed him my SPG. He opened my valve for me and we continued on the dive. I was pretty much the opposite diver then. Over weighted, vertical in the water, finning and sculling to maintain neutral buoyancy and completely reliant on a DM to understand and resolve my problem for me. About the only thing I contributed was realizing that SOMETHING was wrong and staying calm.

Thanks to rec.scuba and Scubaboard for guiding me to be a better diver over all these years. Dive safe my friends.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It's a good thing you weren't on rec.scuba fifteen years ago. They would have ripped you a new one for using a pony bottle.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I was solo diving off The Giant Stride in Lake Travis yesterday at a site called "Fiesta Haus" AKA the inside corner of the wall between Hippie Hollow and Oasis Wall. I dive a Hogarthian rig with a 40cf pony as my redundancy.

Normally when I splash I get down to about 10' - 15', establish a stable platform and then check my gauge and do a modified S-drill just to make sure everything is in order. However on this dive I entered the water quickly to clear the boat and get some extra time in. Once I started my dive I just started descending down the mooring line into the darkness. It got dark fast with zero reference apart from the descent line. I was focused on good trim and watching my depth so that I could anticipate seeing the bottom and become neutral when I reached it.

Bottom was about 62f and 3'-5' visibility. I turned and swam towards the wall and then hung a right to head towards the oasis wall. At some point I realized that my regulator (Hog D1) was breathing funny. One breath would be nice and easy and another breath would be slightly sluggish as if I had turned the adjustable down. I didn't bother to look at my SPG to confirm my suspicions. I immediately reached back to my valve and started turning. Sure enough, it wasn't fully open. Not even close.

My regulator started breathing like normal and I grabbed my SPG to check gas. I had 2500 on my LP95. I then checked my 40 and had a full tank there. I then looked around and noted I was still in horizontal trip, hovering at the landmark I had last noticed.

So lessons learned? First, the bad: Avoid being in such a hurry. Check the valve before splashing, check it again at the surface and follow your procedures at a shallow depth so you don't get so far from the surface when you finally realize you screwed up. I should never have been that deep with the valve in that state.

Now the good: I had a pony with plenty of gas and I'm very comfortable and confident using it. I also have good situational awareness and corrective action instincts. I've practiced valve drills and I know that I can easily reach the valve on my back. I quickly corrected the problem without "needing" the pony (although it's great to have it in case there's some other failure that simply can't be fixed) and I was able to maintain my position in the water column while doing it.

So from my perspective I did an "oops" which is stupid. But I also learned that I can handle a little oops without having my confidence shaken. Stop, breath, think, act. On a side note, I had something like this happen to me 12 years ago when I was a rookie. I looked at my SPG (because I was very fixated on my SPG back then) and saw the needle moving. I signaled the DM that something was wrong and showed him my SPG. He opened my valve for me and we continued on the dive. I was pretty much the opposite diver then. Over weighted, vertical in the water, finning and sculling to maintain neutral buoyancy and completely reliant on a DM to understand and resolve my problem for me. About the only thing I contributed was realizing that SOMETHING was wrong and staying calm.

Thanks to rec.scuba and Scubaboard for guiding me to be a better diver over all these years. Dive safe my friends.

So in 12 years of diving, you still have not learned to operate a scuba tank valve?


...

I'm only joking, but the real lesson is that divers make incredibly stupid and careless mistakes (that have the potential to be fatal). Having a redundant system is pretty much a no brainer for me. If nothing else, it gives the diver the confidence that even though the scuba unit is not operating properly, I can try to fix it, without contemplating a run for the surface.

FYI, I made the same mistake several times... once on a 200 ft dive..

 

[chrpai]

It's a good thing you weren't on rec.scuba fifteen years ago. They would have ripped you a new one for using a pony bottle.

I was on there 10-13 years ago and I got ripped a lot. I used to argue with MHK on why it wasn't important for a recreational diver to be able to do a valve drill. :O

 

[MaxBottomtime]

He and I had a few rounds.
It was entertaining to say the least, but I'm still enjoying every dive as if I were a newbie, and most of them are no longer diving.

 

[chrpai]

He and I had a few rounds.
It was entertaining to say the least, but I'm still enjoying every dive as if I were a newbie, and most of them are no longer diving.

Ya, I'll go a few rounds with people but don't think for a moment that I'm not also memorizing their perspective and keeping it alive as a seed of an idea to one day adopt. I might not be convinced on something today but my opinions aren't immutable.

 

[Peter Guy]

OP -- your post seems to me to be a strong argument against the concept of "self-reliance" as in solo. Had you been part of a real team (i.e., had a REAL buddy and done standards checks), you would have known about your problem before entering the water.

NOT having a problem seems to be a much better solution than being able to fix it once in the water.

BTW, that issue is why I pound on my students that a valve has only two settings -- all the way off or all the way on.

Also, by the way, good for you that you can do a single tank valve drill!

 

[agilis]

I've been a solo diver longer than a lot of people here have been alive. There were no SPGs when I began scuba diving, but the J valve worked ok if you checked to make sure the pull rod was in the up position before you got in the water and ever 10 minutes or so thereafter. Not doing so was inconceivable. Because turning on the tank valve happens after everything has been connected, it was in some small way almost ceremonial, the final step in the air supply process. The satisfying SHHH, life and movement entering the system.

Not opening the valve all the way is also inconceivable. On tourist dive boats at resorts I always do everything myself, and have physically restrained DMs who want to 'check' before I enter the water. Do they think I'm an idiot? Then I look around me and can see why they might. Still, I'm always the last to check the valve, and double check with the purge and my SPG.

I thought SPGs were a gift from the gods when they came along. I look at mine very frequently. Rate of air consumption compared to expectations, and just plain common sense. Why not? It takes two seconds. People get careless, self-satisfied about their skill levels.

I see myself as a solo diver however many people may be in the water. In 5 decades and far more than a thousand dives I've never entered the water without the valve fully open, and I've never come close to running low on air. Not because of any skill, or special insight; it's only because I'm very, very careful. Always. I've seen a fair number of accidents over the years, and almost all could have been easily avoided.

 

[openmindOW]

Thank you for posting and for being honest, chrpai.

You're not the first to have done it.

That you are honest about it speaks well of your character.

 

[pocky21]

I've been caught with my pants down on that myself, and quickly adopted the practice of two quick deep breaths while watching the SPG just prior to splash - one of the many tricks I learned here on SB. I recently had the pleasure of teaching a refresher where the divers did this without me prompting, needless to say they both got extra credit.