Lessons learned from first time boat dives in Monterey Bay, CA

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Canyondreamer

Registered
Messages
13
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5
Location
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
# of dives
100 - 199
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 DM’s 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!)
 
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.

I think this bold text shouldn't be here at all.....
 
Hey There! Your length and detail totally appropriate for the forum and I think folks would be very interested to hear how the day progressed! Glad you're safe and can reflect on it.

-Ben
 
Hey There! Your length and detail totally appropriate for the forum and I think folks would be very interested to hear how the day progressed! Glad you're safe and can reflect on it.

-Ben

Thanks Ben! - then here we go

Dive #2

This dive was in the same area, a little north, right in front of a wall that just poke it's top point through the water as a rock. Anchored about 150 yard from the rock in 70-80 foot deep water. Dive plan called for descend as a group to 30-40 feet, then swim to the wall and swim along it at the same depht, then back to the boat.

The group of 1 DM, myself, son and the European Lady ("tEL") on the DM's command started our descend. This time, I was properly weighted and had no problem with a slow controlled descend to 35 feet. At that time it was clear that my son had not descended at all and was on the surface, and the DM signaled to me & the "tEL" to stay put while he surfaced to find out what was going on. Before I knew it, I was at 35 feet, alone with a diver I barely knew, in an area with depth to at least 80 feet. As we waited, "tEL" despite arm flailing, started to descend further down, not appearing to even be aware of it. I followed, as I considered myself her DB, and signaled to her when she reached 50 feet to stop the descend and that she needed to ascend (back to the dive plan depht). She appeared calm, collected and clueless, as she continued her passive descend, either ignoring or not knowing the meaning of my now repeated signals. 10 minutes into the dive, she was at 70 feet with me reluctantly following. As I could still not see the bottom and felt "tEL" had no clue or was unable to stop her descend, I grapped her tank strap and started an ascend with her in tow. Since during this time we had not seen the DM or my son, my intend was to surface after a 2 min safety stop at 20 feet. Once we reached 20 feet and I signaled to "tEL" that I wanted a safety-stop, she again appeared clueless and not having vented her BC, continued to float towards the surface - me again following with a much abbreviated safety stop not knowing where her mind was, and whether she would even be safe once hitting the surface. When we surfaced she appeared fine. I asked her why she wanted to descend beyond the dive plan and she did not reply - just smiled - I don't even know if she knew I had hauled her up. We met up with the DM and my son on the surface. My son's goggles had broken and irreversibly flooded at the very first part of his descend for which reason he stayed on the surface, returned to the boat to get back-up goggles. The DM still wanted to do the dive, however, in all this up-and-down/hauling I felt by having reached my half-air mark (1200 PSI) it was unsafe (for me) to start a dive with that, and indicated I would return to the boat. "tEL" indicated she had 1800 PSI and with my son and the DM having full tanks, they went off on the scheduled dive.

Mistake #1
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Once again dove without having my DB (son) in my direct line of vision as if I did, I would have stayed with him on the surface - my bad!

Mistake #2
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For the DM to leave two divers who did not know each other with OW in all 4 directions, with no landmarks and a message to "stay put" with one obviously inexperienced "body", and another (me) having to break off dive #1 d/t lack of proper weighting - should be an obvious no-no. We should all 3 have surfaced together. This one mostly on the DM

Mistake #3
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Leaving an inexperienced diver with lack of basic buyancy control ("tEL" was arm flailing all over the place) at 40 feet with at least twice that depth was mistake #2, for me not to insist on both of us immediately surfacing was mistake #3. Here was my thinking at the time: Is this lady deliberately trying to go deep - if so, she is obviously completely disregarding the dive plan and the DM instructions, as well as having no regards for her current de facto DB - (I believed this to be unlikely). Is lack of buyancy control making her descend, unaware how deep she is going and possibly not knowing how to read her computer - (considered more/most likely, and my working assumption at the time) - before we left the warf, she had asked me to show her how her computer display worked, and how to toggle through the different screens seeing I had an Oceanic VT3 which she thought was identical to her VT4. Regardless, I felt responsible for her and acted as I did, however, what if she had been left with a diver who was as unexperienced as her and/or uncomfortable diving down to 70+ feet of cold, ~10 feet visibility water - and she continued to drift down out of sight - would we have seen her again?

Well, with Dive #2 now ruined - dive #3 had to get better - right? - NOT!!
So now you may be getting a picture of the 4 dive stooges on adventure with yet one more story to tell. So let me take a break and come back with our final dive and story!
 
Are you interested in constructive input or just sharing your thoughts on what the mistakes were?
 
In both instances presented (dives 1 & 2), it seems that the 4-person team without formal discussion and planning is a total Cluster-F. Your buddy is/was your son from your initial planning. Any time the two of you were not aware of each other, it was a dive executed WRONG. Seems you know that....
 
Sounds like the crux of the matter is that you and your son are not diving as a team. You're more worried about the DM and "tEL" than you are about each other.
Also, if I had hired a private DM, I would have never gotten on that boat knowing that I was sharing my private DM with somebody else. Unless you had originally agreed to this strange arrangement.
 
What boat and who was the DM?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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