Hi all,
Back awhile ago when I completed my first OW dive for my certification I had a minor incident that has been instructive to me over the years of diving.
I was in a group of 10 or so students. The instructor had us all go down to the bottom at about 15-20 feet. He would then have us practice out of air scenarios but we weren’t supposed to surface as part of the drill. Ok, sounds good. I go down to the bottom and am squatting comfortably and watching the instructor work with one buddy team at a time. Then the bite block part of my regulator tears off and I watch the stupid thing float away and I have just rubber in my teeth.
My first thought, and I can’t believe I remember it so vividly was “I would have thought there would be bigger bubbles coming out of the thing I was breathing”. Then I had two thoughts occur nearly instantly: I was out of air, and THE OCTO ON MY BUDDY HAS AIR. It’s probably because I happened to look right at it. Finally things slowed down and I realized I was only in 15 feet of water and I was plenty close to my buddy. I gave the out of air signal, took the octo from her, gave signal to surface and we went up. The instructor followed up pretty quickly to ask why we surfaced and we debriefed quickly and I continued the dive on my octo.
The lesson of the importance of a good buddy was cemented in my mind. My buddy was watching what happened and was right there to help. If I was out of air for real and my buddy was 30 feet off and we were deeper that would have sucked. I never let my buddy out of my vision for more than a few seconds. Ever. If I have a buddy off in his or her own little world I just follow them and enjoy the dive that way. I won’t ever let myself be outside of a comfortable swim from that octo.
The other lesson was the obvious: had I simply retrieved my octo I wouldn’t have had to ascend with my buddy. Now I make touching my octo a part of checking my console. I try to make it muscle memory during the dive, as much as I can.
I hope any part of this is instructive for someone like it was for me. I was damn glad to get this so early in my training, and in a way that didn’t put me in any danger.
Oh, and now I am building out my scuba kit (finally) and I will be adding a redundant air system ASAP. I thank those of you that have shared your thoughts on those systems.
Back awhile ago when I completed my first OW dive for my certification I had a minor incident that has been instructive to me over the years of diving.
I was in a group of 10 or so students. The instructor had us all go down to the bottom at about 15-20 feet. He would then have us practice out of air scenarios but we weren’t supposed to surface as part of the drill. Ok, sounds good. I go down to the bottom and am squatting comfortably and watching the instructor work with one buddy team at a time. Then the bite block part of my regulator tears off and I watch the stupid thing float away and I have just rubber in my teeth.
My first thought, and I can’t believe I remember it so vividly was “I would have thought there would be bigger bubbles coming out of the thing I was breathing”. Then I had two thoughts occur nearly instantly: I was out of air, and THE OCTO ON MY BUDDY HAS AIR. It’s probably because I happened to look right at it. Finally things slowed down and I realized I was only in 15 feet of water and I was plenty close to my buddy. I gave the out of air signal, took the octo from her, gave signal to surface and we went up. The instructor followed up pretty quickly to ask why we surfaced and we debriefed quickly and I continued the dive on my octo.
The lesson of the importance of a good buddy was cemented in my mind. My buddy was watching what happened and was right there to help. If I was out of air for real and my buddy was 30 feet off and we were deeper that would have sucked. I never let my buddy out of my vision for more than a few seconds. Ever. If I have a buddy off in his or her own little world I just follow them and enjoy the dive that way. I won’t ever let myself be outside of a comfortable swim from that octo.
The other lesson was the obvious: had I simply retrieved my octo I wouldn’t have had to ascend with my buddy. Now I make touching my octo a part of checking my console. I try to make it muscle memory during the dive, as much as I can.
I hope any part of this is instructive for someone like it was for me. I was damn glad to get this so early in my training, and in a way that didn’t put me in any danger.
Oh, and now I am building out my scuba kit (finally) and I will be adding a redundant air system ASAP. I thank those of you that have shared your thoughts on those systems.