victorzamora
Contributor
So, I had a similar story to Diver0001's that I felt like posting. I'll post the stories and then my lessons learned.
I was diving with an Instructor that was a highly certified diver (Trimix, Full Cave, MSDT, etc). I worked at his shop. I helped guide classes, teach classes, sell gear, fix gear, modify gear, rebuilt the compressor, fill tanks, tumble tanks, build the tank tumbler, etc. I helped build the freakin' shop....literally. I put up walls, did carpeting, painting, hung racks, helped them move, etc. I got a few classes out of it (Rescue, Drysuit (kinda), and Tec40 (kinda)) and some decent gear deals out of it.
The classes I helped teach, I did much more than I should have. I also broke standards a little more than I should have. During an AOW "Deep Dive" course, we all went to the river (like 8 total students). I guided four and did the class for them, he and another DMCandidate took the other four. We found the "nook" in the river in which you could bury your PDC and get it to read 61ft. No harm, no foul.....61ft in that river was MUCH harder than 80ft-100ft in Roatan, right? Plus, AOW is a joke anyway.....there wouldn't be these kinds of standards violations in a "real" class, would there?
During my Rescue training, we were also teaching classes. Many of the Rescue students "died" in the process, little good was learned, and the classroom stuff was taught by one of the students in the Rescue course (Eagle Scout and CPR/AED certified). This instructor took two divers into the cave at Vortex. One was diving for the first time ever in a drysuit. They were both in doubles for the first time ever. It was at night so as to not get fussed at by the staff. I thought, "Yeah, but it was just the Piano room!" Alarm bells yet, anyone?
So we all drove up to West Virginia to do our Tec40 class in one of the lakes up there (few hours away). We had kinda done a "gear rigging" session and part of the "Deco theory" session (T-formula, EAD, standards) before driving up there. Once we got there, the instructor pulled out a list of gear requirements. Spools, lift bags, DSMBs, Slates, etc. We hadn't covered any of that. I was unprepared. We hadn't planned a dive or prepped for one. We got a generic run time schedule planned out and written on slates while getting fills.....on air. Our "deco" bottles were air. My deco bottle didn't have a reg on it. We got in the water at 13:56. Finally. The team involved two students in doubles, my instructor in an SMS50 in sidemount, and me in a BPW modified for sidemount. They were diving AL80s, I was diving LP95s (for the first time ever).
Dive 1: The dive location was about a 15-minute surface swim from where we put in at....so we swam there after gearing up and THEN briefed the skills we'd be doing: Don/Doff deco bottles, swim around, then follow ascent schedule up. I was paired with the Instructor, the doubles students were together. We struggled MIGHTILY with donning/doffing as we had never done it before. It was my third dive ever in a drysuit, and first dive ever below 20ft in a drysuit. During the "swim around" phase, we lost the other two AND lost our ascent point. We kinda followed the schedule for ascent. Kinda. I suffered mightily with my drysuit. The other two gave up on the ascent schedule and surfaced 5min before we did. Good job all around!
Dive 2: Since land was so far away, we would have a 15min SI and then do dive 2. Short debrief, we shouldn't get separated, let's change buddies, Don/doff better....nobody should be on their knees. Dive 2 went about the same as Dive 1: Poorly, but better. Nobody got lost, but the deco schedule was only "kinda" followed.
Dive 3: Since land was so far away, we would have a 15min SI and then do dive 3. Short debrief, we shouldn't get separated, let's hold buoyancy better, don/doff better. Same but better than dive 2. We were coming together! I could don/doff without touching the bottom (only one of 3) but I had a hard time holding depth while shooting DSMB. Drysuit issues were non-existant. Hooray!
We swam back to shore, geared-down (I was so exhausted my wife had to unclip my tanks for me). We touched land again at 16:45 after Dive 3. We ate food, drank water, and talked about the "REAL" dive. We would go to 90ft....the others had been 40-50ft. We were actually going to do Deco! We got fills, rested, and were ready to start the dive at 18:45. Dive was to 90ft, hover at 90ft until we actually incurred deco, then follow our super-long deco schedule of sim/real deco to the surface.
Dive 4: It was DARK. Like, night dive dark. It was twilight up top but pitch black anything below 30ft deep. There were 2 lights for four divers. I was dehydrated, exhausted, and having serious regrets....but I soldiered on. Water was MUCH colder than it had been. There was a thermocline at 50ft, and I was underprepared for it. We descended "as a team" to the bottom.....at 98ft. Plan was to hover at 90ft. I had ear issues, couldn't equalize, got vertigo, got a HEAVY narc hit, and I was 15ft above the other three divers. I couldn't descend. I was spinning in place trying to hold still while simultaneously trying to get their attention. I had no light. They were on their knees on the bottom. Finally the instructor saw me (I might have swum down far enough to grab him) and came to me and grabbed me. I signaled "UP" as best I could. He signaled "No." and "Level off here." I signaled "Up" again. When he put his index finger up to wave "no" instead of a thumb, I hit him in the mask causing him to let me go. I tucked&rolled (boot-loads of air in my feet) to dump the gas, then ascended to about 50ft in a hover. My ears started clearing, the narc started lifting, the cold went mostly away (thermocline at 53ft). I was holding my "backlight" button on my DG03 in gauge mode and followed the ascent schedule up from 50ft. I was joined by the instructor after about 5 minutes, who told me to shoot a bag. I said, "No" so he shot one. The other two students joined us, kinda. I was holding the stops +/-5ft. He was holding +/-5ft. One of the doubles divers ROCKETED to the surface past us. The other was doing +/-10ft stops. All four of us died that night, never to be seen again. All four dives were on the same day. Three dives went by without us touching terra firma (or "boat" firma).
Here are my lessons learned:
1) Trust your instincts. I had a bad feeling about dive 4, but I was getting a free Tec40 class....so why not, right? Well, bends is "Why Not?"
2) If they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you. Standards violations in OW mean there will be standards violations through full trimix Tech65 and Cave.
3) Get to know your gear. I was diving "sidemount" and drysuit for the second time ever. It was not a good combination of things. The two guys I was with were diving doubles for like the third time. One of the guys was in his drysuit for like the 3rd time.
4) On that subject: Don't cheap out on your gear. I was too cheap to buy a "real" SM rig. Poor decision. I was too cheap to put in the time to get it modified right. Poor decision. One of the sets of bands on the doubles was from a set of LP72s that was hammered into shape for AL80s. Most of the regs "worked" and a few of the "deco bottles" didn't have regs, NONE of the deco bottles (or mains) had any Nitrox in them.....but logged them "officially" as such.
5) Don't trust the instructor. Do your own reading, learn on your own, and be mature enough to step up and call BS on it. I should've joined my wife on her fun dives that day once I saw how poorly everything was going. The instructor mis-taught a bit of the theory, was severely under-whelming as far as "quality" went.
6) Take your time. You want to feel like you've learned and progressed, but only so much progress can be made. I was underprepared for my Cavern/Intro class, but not as drastically. It went much better. I was slightly underprepared for Apprentice/Full. Better still. I was VERY prepared for my Staged Deco class, and will be VERY prepared for my mix training. That way, I can work on polishing my fundamentals farther and really learning the course instead of struggling through the basics and being overwhelmed in terms of the course work.
This experience completely turned me off to tech diving for half a year. I went back to clear blue water with nothing above my head (physical or imaginary). It was only months later that getting any tech training became a possibility....but I prepared my wallet. I went to the best, spent the money necessary, and have been MUCH happier since. I'm still frugal, but I'm not cheap.
I'm sorry for the long post, and I'm sure I forgot plenty and I truly regret the mistakes I made and I'm thankful I'm here to post.
I was diving with an Instructor that was a highly certified diver (Trimix, Full Cave, MSDT, etc). I worked at his shop. I helped guide classes, teach classes, sell gear, fix gear, modify gear, rebuilt the compressor, fill tanks, tumble tanks, build the tank tumbler, etc. I helped build the freakin' shop....literally. I put up walls, did carpeting, painting, hung racks, helped them move, etc. I got a few classes out of it (Rescue, Drysuit (kinda), and Tec40 (kinda)) and some decent gear deals out of it.
The classes I helped teach, I did much more than I should have. I also broke standards a little more than I should have. During an AOW "Deep Dive" course, we all went to the river (like 8 total students). I guided four and did the class for them, he and another DMCandidate took the other four. We found the "nook" in the river in which you could bury your PDC and get it to read 61ft. No harm, no foul.....61ft in that river was MUCH harder than 80ft-100ft in Roatan, right? Plus, AOW is a joke anyway.....there wouldn't be these kinds of standards violations in a "real" class, would there?
During my Rescue training, we were also teaching classes. Many of the Rescue students "died" in the process, little good was learned, and the classroom stuff was taught by one of the students in the Rescue course (Eagle Scout and CPR/AED certified). This instructor took two divers into the cave at Vortex. One was diving for the first time ever in a drysuit. They were both in doubles for the first time ever. It was at night so as to not get fussed at by the staff. I thought, "Yeah, but it was just the Piano room!" Alarm bells yet, anyone?
So we all drove up to West Virginia to do our Tec40 class in one of the lakes up there (few hours away). We had kinda done a "gear rigging" session and part of the "Deco theory" session (T-formula, EAD, standards) before driving up there. Once we got there, the instructor pulled out a list of gear requirements. Spools, lift bags, DSMBs, Slates, etc. We hadn't covered any of that. I was unprepared. We hadn't planned a dive or prepped for one. We got a generic run time schedule planned out and written on slates while getting fills.....on air. Our "deco" bottles were air. My deco bottle didn't have a reg on it. We got in the water at 13:56. Finally. The team involved two students in doubles, my instructor in an SMS50 in sidemount, and me in a BPW modified for sidemount. They were diving AL80s, I was diving LP95s (for the first time ever).
Dive 1: The dive location was about a 15-minute surface swim from where we put in at....so we swam there after gearing up and THEN briefed the skills we'd be doing: Don/Doff deco bottles, swim around, then follow ascent schedule up. I was paired with the Instructor, the doubles students were together. We struggled MIGHTILY with donning/doffing as we had never done it before. It was my third dive ever in a drysuit, and first dive ever below 20ft in a drysuit. During the "swim around" phase, we lost the other two AND lost our ascent point. We kinda followed the schedule for ascent. Kinda. I suffered mightily with my drysuit. The other two gave up on the ascent schedule and surfaced 5min before we did. Good job all around!
Dive 2: Since land was so far away, we would have a 15min SI and then do dive 2. Short debrief, we shouldn't get separated, let's change buddies, Don/doff better....nobody should be on their knees. Dive 2 went about the same as Dive 1: Poorly, but better. Nobody got lost, but the deco schedule was only "kinda" followed.
Dive 3: Since land was so far away, we would have a 15min SI and then do dive 3. Short debrief, we shouldn't get separated, let's hold buoyancy better, don/doff better. Same but better than dive 2. We were coming together! I could don/doff without touching the bottom (only one of 3) but I had a hard time holding depth while shooting DSMB. Drysuit issues were non-existant. Hooray!
We swam back to shore, geared-down (I was so exhausted my wife had to unclip my tanks for me). We touched land again at 16:45 after Dive 3. We ate food, drank water, and talked about the "REAL" dive. We would go to 90ft....the others had been 40-50ft. We were actually going to do Deco! We got fills, rested, and were ready to start the dive at 18:45. Dive was to 90ft, hover at 90ft until we actually incurred deco, then follow our super-long deco schedule of sim/real deco to the surface.
Dive 4: It was DARK. Like, night dive dark. It was twilight up top but pitch black anything below 30ft deep. There were 2 lights for four divers. I was dehydrated, exhausted, and having serious regrets....but I soldiered on. Water was MUCH colder than it had been. There was a thermocline at 50ft, and I was underprepared for it. We descended "as a team" to the bottom.....at 98ft. Plan was to hover at 90ft. I had ear issues, couldn't equalize, got vertigo, got a HEAVY narc hit, and I was 15ft above the other three divers. I couldn't descend. I was spinning in place trying to hold still while simultaneously trying to get their attention. I had no light. They were on their knees on the bottom. Finally the instructor saw me (I might have swum down far enough to grab him) and came to me and grabbed me. I signaled "UP" as best I could. He signaled "No." and "Level off here." I signaled "Up" again. When he put his index finger up to wave "no" instead of a thumb, I hit him in the mask causing him to let me go. I tucked&rolled (boot-loads of air in my feet) to dump the gas, then ascended to about 50ft in a hover. My ears started clearing, the narc started lifting, the cold went mostly away (thermocline at 53ft). I was holding my "backlight" button on my DG03 in gauge mode and followed the ascent schedule up from 50ft. I was joined by the instructor after about 5 minutes, who told me to shoot a bag. I said, "No" so he shot one. The other two students joined us, kinda. I was holding the stops +/-5ft. He was holding +/-5ft. One of the doubles divers ROCKETED to the surface past us. The other was doing +/-10ft stops. All four of us died that night, never to be seen again. All four dives were on the same day. Three dives went by without us touching terra firma (or "boat" firma).
Here are my lessons learned:
1) Trust your instincts. I had a bad feeling about dive 4, but I was getting a free Tec40 class....so why not, right? Well, bends is "Why Not?"
2) If they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you. Standards violations in OW mean there will be standards violations through full trimix Tech65 and Cave.
3) Get to know your gear. I was diving "sidemount" and drysuit for the second time ever. It was not a good combination of things. The two guys I was with were diving doubles for like the third time. One of the guys was in his drysuit for like the 3rd time.
4) On that subject: Don't cheap out on your gear. I was too cheap to buy a "real" SM rig. Poor decision. I was too cheap to put in the time to get it modified right. Poor decision. One of the sets of bands on the doubles was from a set of LP72s that was hammered into shape for AL80s. Most of the regs "worked" and a few of the "deco bottles" didn't have regs, NONE of the deco bottles (or mains) had any Nitrox in them.....but logged them "officially" as such.
5) Don't trust the instructor. Do your own reading, learn on your own, and be mature enough to step up and call BS on it. I should've joined my wife on her fun dives that day once I saw how poorly everything was going. The instructor mis-taught a bit of the theory, was severely under-whelming as far as "quality" went.
6) Take your time. You want to feel like you've learned and progressed, but only so much progress can be made. I was underprepared for my Cavern/Intro class, but not as drastically. It went much better. I was slightly underprepared for Apprentice/Full. Better still. I was VERY prepared for my Staged Deco class, and will be VERY prepared for my mix training. That way, I can work on polishing my fundamentals farther and really learning the course instead of struggling through the basics and being overwhelmed in terms of the course work.
This experience completely turned me off to tech diving for half a year. I went back to clear blue water with nothing above my head (physical or imaginary). It was only months later that getting any tech training became a possibility....but I prepared my wallet. I went to the best, spent the money necessary, and have been MUCH happier since. I'm still frugal, but I'm not cheap.
I'm sorry for the long post, and I'm sure I forgot plenty and I truly regret the mistakes I made and I'm thankful I'm here to post.
