Canyondreamer
Registered
Went to Monterey, CA over Labor Day Weekend with my adult son (who is my usual DB) to do our first cold water ocean dive in our relatively newly acquired dry-suits
We both have ~90 dives behind us, both are certified SSI master divers, but newbies in the sense that we got certified in July of 2011 and thus obviously had done a lot of diving since then, but compressed over a short period of time. Our dives had been 50% local lakes, including cold water lakes with our dry-suits (where we also got dry-suit certified), 50% in warm-water tropical oceans usually in our 3mm suits. We consider ourselves very responsible divers, always erring on the side of safety anytime, and both enjoying diving together tremendously and had never had any "close calls".
Thus, it was quite humbling, and concerning, that even with our best preparations and intentions of doing our first cold water ocean dive "by the book", EACH of the 3 first (boat) dives we did out of Monterey Bay, CA with a little further bad luck could have ended catastrophically.
We had booked spots on a (full) 14 diver non-guided dive-boat, from Monterey Warf, with good reviews, and as recommended had sprung the $30/dive per diver to get what we first thought was our own DM - subsequently turning out to be a DM, we had to share with a relatively inexperienced tourist.
The headlines of the 3 dives are as follows:
Dive #1: I could have drowned!
Dive #2: She could have been lost!
Dive #3: The Kelp could have gotten us!
First dive:
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On the way from Monterey to Carmel Bay (1.25h), the 3 divers and the DM were introduced, the 3rd person in our group turned out to come from Eastern Europe, spoke poorly English and did not say much at all, keeping to herself, but did explain that she had a total of 10 dives behind her, none in cold water and she as one of only 2 divers on the boat was wearing a rented 7mm wet suit.
First dive site off Pebbles Beach golf course called for a dive plan of dropping down to the bottom at 35 feet, follow the bottom towards a kelp forest, swim around there at 40-50 feet and then return. We went in the water and got ready to descend. The DM having seen my son's and my log-book, (understandably) focused his attention entirely on the European woman, and without any further ado, signaled to descend, and down he, her and my son went. I was grossly underweighted, having miscalculated my weight requirements based on my experience from using my dry-suit in a local (warm) salt water lake w/o UG, and was unable to descend on my own. I went to the anchor line and started pulling myself down. Did not see the DM or the other divers in my group as they had already descended. The surf was quite significant, and underway I had to go head first d/t trapped air in the feet. When I Reached the bottom at ~30 feet, and as I prepared the motions to get the air out of my dry-suit, a particularly forceful surf forced me, head first, against a rock by the anchor, knocking my reg and goggles off my face. Managed to stay cool and located my reg and then my goggles and got everything in place, but clearly was knocked a little "off base" having swallowed some water, to the point that I knew then and there, that this dive was over for me, and then made it to the surface, inflated my BC and signaled the boat crew that I was safe, but needed to sit this dive out, got safely on board, somewhat winded, and with a little sea-water in my stomach from the initial knock towards the rock. Unable to signal this to my dive group as they were nowhere to be seen.
Obviously an unsatisfactory dive - that easily could have ended much worse had I been knocked unconscious - and from which I learned several humbling lessons (some of which I should have known!)
Mistake #1
When diving in a different environment than you are used to, especially if known to be harsher, never-ever lose sight of your dive body until you both are comfortable in that environment. As mentioned, had my head hit the rock harder and knocked me unconscious, I would have drowned, with no-one having been the wiser for quite a while with my body following the DM, and the DM focused on what he believed to be a more inexperienced diver. This mistake had major contributions by myself, of course, but also my body who paid more attention to the DM then me, and the DM who did not keep an eye on me (he didn't surface until 5 min after I had gotten back on the boat trying to find me)
Mistake #2
Even if you have a body with whom you have done many dives, I have found that a typical newbie mistake is to pay much less, and sometimes critically less, attention to your body if the DM gives you instructions that is incompatible with close body watch, as in signaling a group that you are part of to descend with him. Even with my body and I having discussed before that all DMs are not equal and that we HAVE to be able to take care of ourselves, the multiple new sensory inputs you get in a more challenging environment obviously makes you subconsciously more dependent on the DM and subconsciously, your body watch suffers for it - it shouldn't, but it does. Lesson my body and I (once again) learned is: DM or no DM, we HAVE to dive in sight of each other, ALWAYS, NO EXCEPTIONS. But truth be told, most others we have dived with, ourselves included, like lemmings have a tendency to follow the DMs every command, even when these instructions makes a close body watch impossible.
Mistake #3+
a) When finding myself underweighted I of course should have returned to the boat to get more weight b) the DM should have permitted time and opportunity to do a weight check knowing this was our first cold water ocean dive in our dry suit and c) doing 2 good shore dives from Monterey Beach the following day, I had wished that someone would have told us that being new to Monterey Bay diving, starting out with a beach dive before a boat dive would be a MUCH better and gentler way of being introduced into this unique water environment.
Oh well, at least I lived to reflect and hopefully learn from my mistakes, certainly I was appropriately humbled about how easy it is for things to go wrong, even when you think you do everything right, and live to share my experience, which hopefully will help others who are taking the jump from safe tropical/lake diving into cold-water ocean diving.
(This went a lot longer than I thought, so unless someone tells me that the length is all right and would like to hear about the (different) mistakes and lessons learned from dive #2 and #3, I will, for now leave, it here!)
We both have ~90 dives behind us, both are certified SSI master divers, but newbies in the sense that we got certified in July of 2011 and thus obviously had done a lot of diving since then, but compressed over a short period of time. Our dives had been 50% local lakes, including cold water lakes with our dry-suits (where we also got dry-suit certified), 50% in warm-water tropical oceans usually in our 3mm suits. We consider ourselves very responsible divers, always erring on the side of safety anytime, and both enjoying diving together tremendously and had never had any "close calls".
Thus, it was quite humbling, and concerning, that even with our best preparations and intentions of doing our first cold water ocean dive "by the book", EACH of the 3 first (boat) dives we did out of Monterey Bay, CA with a little further bad luck could have ended catastrophically.
We had booked spots on a (full) 14 diver non-guided dive-boat, from Monterey Warf, with good reviews, and as recommended had sprung the $30/dive per diver to get what we first thought was our own DM - subsequently turning out to be a DM, we had to share with a relatively inexperienced tourist.
The headlines of the 3 dives are as follows:
Dive #1: I could have drowned!
Dive #2: She could have been lost!
Dive #3: The Kelp could have gotten us!
First dive:
--------------
On the way from Monterey to Carmel Bay (1.25h), the 3 divers and the DM were introduced, the 3rd person in our group turned out to come from Eastern Europe, spoke poorly English and did not say much at all, keeping to herself, but did explain that she had a total of 10 dives behind her, none in cold water and she as one of only 2 divers on the boat was wearing a rented 7mm wet suit.
First dive site off Pebbles Beach golf course called for a dive plan of dropping down to the bottom at 35 feet, follow the bottom towards a kelp forest, swim around there at 40-50 feet and then return. We went in the water and got ready to descend. The DM having seen my son's and my log-book, (understandably) focused his attention entirely on the European woman, and without any further ado, signaled to descend, and down he, her and my son went. I was grossly underweighted, having miscalculated my weight requirements based on my experience from using my dry-suit in a local (warm) salt water lake w/o UG, and was unable to descend on my own. I went to the anchor line and started pulling myself down. Did not see the DM or the other divers in my group as they had already descended. The surf was quite significant, and underway I had to go head first d/t trapped air in the feet. When I Reached the bottom at ~30 feet, and as I prepared the motions to get the air out of my dry-suit, a particularly forceful surf forced me, head first, against a rock by the anchor, knocking my reg and goggles off my face. Managed to stay cool and located my reg and then my goggles and got everything in place, but clearly was knocked a little "off base" having swallowed some water, to the point that I knew then and there, that this dive was over for me, and then made it to the surface, inflated my BC and signaled the boat crew that I was safe, but needed to sit this dive out, got safely on board, somewhat winded, and with a little sea-water in my stomach from the initial knock towards the rock. Unable to signal this to my dive group as they were nowhere to be seen.
Obviously an unsatisfactory dive - that easily could have ended much worse had I been knocked unconscious - and from which I learned several humbling lessons (some of which I should have known!)
Mistake #1
When diving in a different environment than you are used to, especially if known to be harsher, never-ever lose sight of your dive body until you both are comfortable in that environment. As mentioned, had my head hit the rock harder and knocked me unconscious, I would have drowned, with no-one having been the wiser for quite a while with my body following the DM, and the DM focused on what he believed to be a more inexperienced diver. This mistake had major contributions by myself, of course, but also my body who paid more attention to the DM then me, and the DM who did not keep an eye on me (he didn't surface until 5 min after I had gotten back on the boat trying to find me)
Mistake #2
Even if you have a body with whom you have done many dives, I have found that a typical newbie mistake is to pay much less, and sometimes critically less, attention to your body if the DM gives you instructions that is incompatible with close body watch, as in signaling a group that you are part of to descend with him. Even with my body and I having discussed before that all DMs are not equal and that we HAVE to be able to take care of ourselves, the multiple new sensory inputs you get in a more challenging environment obviously makes you subconsciously more dependent on the DM and subconsciously, your body watch suffers for it - it shouldn't, but it does. Lesson my body and I (once again) learned is: DM or no DM, we HAVE to dive in sight of each other, ALWAYS, NO EXCEPTIONS. But truth be told, most others we have dived with, ourselves included, like lemmings have a tendency to follow the DMs every command, even when these instructions makes a close body watch impossible.
Mistake #3+
a) When finding myself underweighted I of course should have returned to the boat to get more weight b) the DM should have permitted time and opportunity to do a weight check knowing this was our first cold water ocean dive in our dry suit and c) doing 2 good shore dives from Monterey Beach the following day, I had wished that someone would have told us that being new to Monterey Bay diving, starting out with a beach dive before a boat dive would be a MUCH better and gentler way of being introduced into this unique water environment.
Oh well, at least I lived to reflect and hopefully learn from my mistakes, certainly I was appropriately humbled about how easy it is for things to go wrong, even when you think you do everything right, and live to share my experience, which hopefully will help others who are taking the jump from safe tropical/lake diving into cold-water ocean diving.
(This went a lot longer than I thought, so unless someone tells me that the length is all right and would like to hear about the (different) mistakes and lessons learned from dive #2 and #3, I will, for now leave, it here!)
