I went diving the other night with a long time buddy (over 200 dives) and he brought along a friend, whom I'd never met. There is no need to embarass anyone here, so names left out of course. He was an experienced diver and came with an enriched air cylinder, DUI dry suit, and the usual fair of quality choice equipment.
But you know the old saying when it rains it pours. This poor guy just had so many problems right off the bat, while we were all three suiting up he realized he'd forgotton to bring his (1) gloves, no biggie with water temp only 57 degrees (well not the most comfortable of course, but not a show stopper), but he was out with us to hunt lobster, so not remembering the gloves was a big deal. Then he realized he also forgot his (2) gamebag. But he decided to bring a speargun and go for a halibut instead. After he was fully donned he asked me to please turn on his (3) air, hmm this has certainly raised my curiousity.
So we are walking toward the site he mentioneds, hope its not too cold to dive without a (4) hood. After we go down on the bottom trying to get everyone grouped he doesn't respond to my light signal for ok, so I hold out my hand in my dive light with an ok symbol, still no response (5??). Yet he starts off swimming like normal, looking under ledges and touching the kelp strands, so he seems just fine. Not two minutes into the dive he is struggling with a (6) mask leak. During the dive he takes it off or floods and clears it a dozen times. At one point in about 18 feet of water, I again try to get a sign of ok with my dive light. He responds by (7) ascending, normal speed? I signal my usual buddy that he's ended the dive and left us, so we immediately ascend. On the surface we ask why he ascended, he indicates he thought I was indicating to ascend by "wiggling" my light (ok my fault, I should have performed a night signal review on the beach) so i'll just drop this one and take blame but a slow gentle circle means ascend? In which culture is that true?
We decide since we hadn't hit the third reef we'll surface swim to the reef and decend again, we all have over 2400psi still in our cylinders so it's cool. We go back down enjoy a decent dive and since the plan was start back in toward shore at a certain PSI we all get together and indicate head in. He's got more mask trouble but to add to it, he's using his drysuit as his sole method of inflation just like a good PADI student ... creating a huge unstable hindenburg underwater. Several times he (8) uprighted himself and had to frantically kick to right himself again in the water. On our way back in I took point, I had taken a reciprocal earlier, and guided the group toward this rather narrow beach our ending point. Considering we were out about 6 football fields from shore, it takes a bit of precision. Plus the water was quite surgy, so there was constant course correction. About 5 minutes into the trip to shore, there is a dive light signal from behind us flashing and waving frantically back and forth. My buddy and I swim back about 20 feet under the water and our new friend is completely on his back, tank to the sand pointing his light at his fin, the (9) strap had come off the heel peg, the fin was still on his foot. ok harder than usual to do underwater, but at the least you take the fin entirely off reattach, unbuckle and put it back on. He waited while we reattached the fin. At this point the PSI on my buddy was the low mark in the group we decided to surface. We had a rediculously long swim back to shore, fighting a strong out-to-sea current, instead of a much smoother ride underwater. As we are coming back in our friend is recounting all the things that have gone wrong on this dive, and though we have brought our second tanks to the beach, he's asked us to let him bail. Of course no question he should, too much anxiety for one dive. As we are almost in shore, he comments something about "never forget you can't pee in a dry suit" (dare I say 10?) I decided not to probe further. I told him we'd both really look forward to the next dive with him, sincerely, because I know he'll be wanting to get back in soon to erase this one from memory.
Ever just had "one" of those dives? I guess I've been fortunate, a dive this compounded with trouble has never occured to me ... at least not yet. I once forgot my Suunto Cobra (quick disconnect mental lapse), but I had my Cochran, so forgetting either one is just redundant, and I'm a table fanatic even if I forgot both. Still even this only happened to me once. But never have I had just about EVERYTHING go wrong in the same dive. How about you?
But you know the old saying when it rains it pours. This poor guy just had so many problems right off the bat, while we were all three suiting up he realized he'd forgotton to bring his (1) gloves, no biggie with water temp only 57 degrees (well not the most comfortable of course, but not a show stopper), but he was out with us to hunt lobster, so not remembering the gloves was a big deal. Then he realized he also forgot his (2) gamebag. But he decided to bring a speargun and go for a halibut instead. After he was fully donned he asked me to please turn on his (3) air, hmm this has certainly raised my curiousity.
So we are walking toward the site he mentioneds, hope its not too cold to dive without a (4) hood. After we go down on the bottom trying to get everyone grouped he doesn't respond to my light signal for ok, so I hold out my hand in my dive light with an ok symbol, still no response (5??). Yet he starts off swimming like normal, looking under ledges and touching the kelp strands, so he seems just fine. Not two minutes into the dive he is struggling with a (6) mask leak. During the dive he takes it off or floods and clears it a dozen times. At one point in about 18 feet of water, I again try to get a sign of ok with my dive light. He responds by (7) ascending, normal speed? I signal my usual buddy that he's ended the dive and left us, so we immediately ascend. On the surface we ask why he ascended, he indicates he thought I was indicating to ascend by "wiggling" my light (ok my fault, I should have performed a night signal review on the beach) so i'll just drop this one and take blame but a slow gentle circle means ascend? In which culture is that true?
We decide since we hadn't hit the third reef we'll surface swim to the reef and decend again, we all have over 2400psi still in our cylinders so it's cool. We go back down enjoy a decent dive and since the plan was start back in toward shore at a certain PSI we all get together and indicate head in. He's got more mask trouble but to add to it, he's using his drysuit as his sole method of inflation just like a good PADI student ... creating a huge unstable hindenburg underwater. Several times he (8) uprighted himself and had to frantically kick to right himself again in the water. On our way back in I took point, I had taken a reciprocal earlier, and guided the group toward this rather narrow beach our ending point. Considering we were out about 6 football fields from shore, it takes a bit of precision. Plus the water was quite surgy, so there was constant course correction. About 5 minutes into the trip to shore, there is a dive light signal from behind us flashing and waving frantically back and forth. My buddy and I swim back about 20 feet under the water and our new friend is completely on his back, tank to the sand pointing his light at his fin, the (9) strap had come off the heel peg, the fin was still on his foot. ok harder than usual to do underwater, but at the least you take the fin entirely off reattach, unbuckle and put it back on. He waited while we reattached the fin. At this point the PSI on my buddy was the low mark in the group we decided to surface. We had a rediculously long swim back to shore, fighting a strong out-to-sea current, instead of a much smoother ride underwater. As we are coming back in our friend is recounting all the things that have gone wrong on this dive, and though we have brought our second tanks to the beach, he's asked us to let him bail. Of course no question he should, too much anxiety for one dive. As we are almost in shore, he comments something about "never forget you can't pee in a dry suit" (dare I say 10?) I decided not to probe further. I told him we'd both really look forward to the next dive with him, sincerely, because I know he'll be wanting to get back in soon to erase this one from memory.
Ever just had "one" of those dives? I guess I've been fortunate, a dive this compounded with trouble has never occured to me ... at least not yet. I once forgot my Suunto Cobra (quick disconnect mental lapse), but I had my Cochran, so forgetting either one is just redundant, and I'm a table fanatic even if I forgot both. Still even this only happened to me once. But never have I had just about EVERYTHING go wrong in the same dive. How about you?
