My bad dive...first time I've been really scared on a dive (sort of a long post)

[WreckWriter]

You survived, your buddy survived, you learned. You did good.

Things go off the wire sometimes, just like this dive did for you. The difference between a good diver and a bad one is how you handle it.

Like I said, you did well.

Tom

ps- I HATE Seacure.... gag me....

 

[raxafarian]

I've bitten through one side of a regular mouthpiece AT THE END of a dive... it's definitely a pain to keep it in your mouth. Knowing this, I'd have called the dive right then... or at least got back on the boat and changed the mouthpiece.

Glad everything turned out ok.

 

[Rice]

Keep in mind you made some good decisions, you and your buddy are safe and you learned alot.

Personally, I've had my buddy swim as fast as she could straight away from me b/c she thought I was ahead of her. I had to do a rescue for her but she was OK, Scared but OK. We both learned alot on that dive and it made us a better buddy team.

It's really easy to forget that you can die doing this sport and all the learning and technology we use only lessens that possibility. I't all too easy to get used to perfect dives and forget that fact.

it' swhen things start going wrong that danger really looms large. it's always better to call off a dive, nomatter what you paid, than to get hurt.

thanks for your story, i hope i've learned something from it.
Rice

 

[Dee]

It's never fun to have those panic attacks but I really feel like everyone needs to have one at least once! You really do learn alot about yourself. Each incident seems minor by themselves....seasick, bad entry, hinky mouthpiece, uncomfortable with new surroundings, lost target, lost anchor line, etc....but when they get piled one upon the other it's major.

One of my old instructors had the 3 pieces of pie theory for calling a dive. Each task load is a slice of pie. One piece per dive is OK, 2 pieces per dive can be dealt with but when that 3 piece of pie gets served on the same dive, it's over..the dive is called. Your dive had been served the whole pie!

You did pretty well and you learned alot...that's the most important thing. But don't let it make you afraid of diving in those conditions again. Next time you'll know more about what to expect. Reading about it is one thing but going through it is how you get experience. chalk this one up to experience, learn from it and go forward.

You did alright.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Mo2vation once bubbled...
This morning I found your post regarding the valve issue. While not remotely similiar in scope,
~~~~~~
The purpose of my post isn't "look how good I handled this"...I totally blew it.

Actually they were similar in that things were not going well... and it seems that once things start happening they come in bunches... (I've added some of the other things that went wrong on our dive.)

I know your post wasn't saying "look how good I handled this"... but I think you are wrong in saying that you "totally blew it." You didn't totally blow it.... you worked out of it!

 

[Mo2vation]

Maybe by "totally blowing it" I mean that I feel like I blew it by deciding to hunt and hunt for the chain - and the anxiety that produced...and when finally finding it - running up as fast as I could.

Looking at the replies... I understand its always a victory to get out OK, work through it, etc. It could have been better, it could have been worse, for sure.

But I don't just want to dive and "get out of it", you know? I want to be an excellent diver. A competent diver. A confident diver. And I realize the more I dive that only two things deliver that - experience and failure. I can't read my way to being an excellent diver. I can buy my way to being an excellent diver. I can't will my way to being an excellent diver. I can't even train my way to being an excellent diver. It all contributes, but the bottom line is this: I need to dive and fail my way there.

I feel bad at putting my buddy (and my wife) at risk by burning gas to find the chain, then running us up the chain. After seeing all the divers come up safely and bobbing pretty far from the boat, I guess I'm feeling a bit insecure in having stressed over finding the line as opposed to remaining calm and ascending mid water...

Clearly, I'm still dealing with this. I'm back out this Sunday for a 3 tanker at Catalina. I can't wait for that first dive (with my new mouthpiece ) so I can shake this off...somewhat.

I don't know what I expected from the board...I'm overwhelmed by the support and encouragement from everyone. I guess I expected to get killed over this...wow. Just overwhelmed.

K

 

[chepar]

I'm sure many of us have had dives like this before. Maybe not the same circumstances, but close to the same feeling - things are just not going right, and from beginning to end the dive is a snafu - and "coulda, shoulda, woulda" once you're back on the boat and had a chance to catch your breath.

What matters is like what everyone's said already - that you worked through the problems and you and your buddy were ok. Looking back, sure, maybe some things could've been handled better, but going through those kind of conditions once has made you more aware, better prepared and a better diver.

 

[Genesis]

this fall...

We went in on a relatively shallow spot (65'), looking for a tank. We should have been anchored right on top of it.

Well, we got down there, and there was no tank. I didn't have a line reel with me (first mistake), and instead of calling it right there, we did the compass patterns.

Well, on the third one, my buddy (who was leading) and I got crossed up signals on the reciprocal. We returned to where the line should have been - it wasn't. Vis was pretty bad - about 15'.

We looked for a bit longer, and stress rates started to go up. When I hit 1000 PSI I called the dive, and we ascended in free water, did our safety stop, and came up.

The boat was quite a nice distance away, and we had a nice, long surface swim. I did mine on my back (as is my usual)....

It wasn't horribly stressful, but if there had been an ugly current it could have been pretty un-good. As it was it was just one of those uncomfortable things, and one of the reasons that if I have any reason at all to suspect that we're not where we should be, I bring a line reel with me - and if its not on my person when we get down there and the feature(s) we expect are missing, the dive is called right then and there.

 

[wetman]

That can be a very scary feeling. Its happened to me and i hated it - felt very out of control. However, having gone through it, it certainly makes you realize that it can end well (i think i explained it in a post on diving the arabia). Its like your reg just cant possibly give you enough air and you breathe more to compensate and its a vicious cycle. No fun. But you're much stronger for it.

steve

 

[O-ring]

..my most recent was on the Cassimir in NC (about 115'). We were in about 6' seas and I was late getting my crap together (poor packing skills) and my buddy had already splashed in and was waiting for me on the trail/current line. I hurried up with the rest of my preparations and splashed in. The seas were pretty snotty that day (about 6' - our second dive ended up being called due to weather) and we were out about 40-50 miles in a 28 footer.

Anyway, I splash in, float back, and grab the line next to my buddy. My mask starts fogging up really bad at this point and I realize that I had not defogged it prior to jumping in. Oops... I remove my mask and am trying to spit in it before descending, but everytime I get enough spit worked up and hack into the mask, a wave comes by and soaks me and the mask. After trying this about 3-4 times and swallowing some water, I start choking, give up on the defog spit, put my mask on, and figure I will fix it on the bottom by flooding and clearing. Needless to say, I am already half choking and breathing hard from trying to fin my way out of the water high enough to get my mask spit in and rubbed before getting bashed by a wave.

We start down the anchor line and I am breathing hard. I start checking my gear over by feel (paranoia?) and can't find my backup reg. Turns out I had forgotten to slip the bungee loop around my neck and it is hanging out somewhere to the right of me. I feel around for it and find it. I try to pull the reg up so I can slip out my primary, put the backup over my neck, and then put the primary back in again. I try this once and can't get it over my head...something is stuck. I swallow a little water before giving up and putting the primary back in. I think I was at around 70' by now and still descending. I can faintly see my buddy's bubbles ahead and down....he hadn't noticed I was having a problem and I hadn't signalled to him so he continued his descent. I reach back again and can feel that I have somehow tangled my backup reg hose in my canister light cord which is tucked into my waist strap. I started to feel like I wasn't getting enough air and wanted to head straight for the surface. At this point, I think I was in mild panic and went totally vertical and proceeded to overbreathe the heck out of my reg.

I should have bolted, but I was on a wreck specialty dive and my instructor was somewhere at the bottom waiting for me to show up (not to mention my buddy was somewhere down there). I didn't want to look dumb or incompetent, so I fiddled with my gear all the way to the bottom and figured I would fix it once I got down.

What I should have done was not rushed myself on the boat and made sure all my stuff was squared away before jumping in. I compounded the problem by not ascending when I felt like too much had gone wrong. I am glad it came out for the best, but I don't remember much about the actual dive at all since I hoovered through most of my gas on the descent and spent the rest of the dive feeling pretty shaken by it all.