Near Misses
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1KWIK_69
Contributor
You guys are giving me a headache! :shocked2:
Are you sure I'm the one who opened it?
When you're listing arguments as you did, I think it's best when you start with "on the one hand" and continue with "on the other hand," because it makes it so much more interesting when you get to your third and fourth points.
firstdive2005
Contributor
I once gave a guy my reg attached to a 5ft hose then I put the one that was attached to the necklace on my in my mouth. We where at 90fsw when his first stage froze up. I think it may have, could have saved his life. He might have gotten to the surface on a cesa, he's experienced. We never talked about whether it saved his life or not we just talked about never using his regs in cold water again.
On a serious note if it did save his life, did that make my breathing apparatus life saving equipment?
On a serious note if it did save his life, did that make my breathing apparatus life saving equipment?
FishOutUvH2O
Contributor
Interesting idea about the wording. It's not how I would phrase things, but it's interesting. Either way I hope it at least gives the new board member(s) a heads-up about the life-support argument. I know I wish someone had done that for me when I walked right into the split-fin "debate". I had no idea I had just walked into the middle of a somewhat touchy issue that had been raging for quite a while.
Lobs
Registered
I had posted yesterday stating that I had spoken with the pr guy from dive palancar. his name is Marco. This may be a lengthy report but it should answer some questions regarding there overall safety. I was going to report after returning from Coz.
When we arrived last week we spoke with the PR guy and he reasured us that this was a good dive op. We made the mistake and decided to go with them and in addition decided to do get our AOW cert. Our dive instructor was friendly but had very little concern for safety. Our first dive was a specialty wreck dive. Before getting aboard the boat we discussed our concerns as to safety. The wreck is an old U.S. wwII mine sweeper intentially sank about 10 years ago. According to the AOW manual divers should not go in a wreck unless we have even more specialized training and experience on wreck dives. The other precautions included making sure you wear gloves, have a dive light ensure that you do not exceed your dive limits, and do not risk going low on air. Upon meeting with our dive instructor all of these points were brought by my wife and I and all of them were dismissed as not important. He stated that he has dove the sight many times and never cut his hands, therefore no gloves needed. He stated that we would be going inside because it was set up as a recreational wreck dive. He stated that a dive light was not needed, luckily I had mine with me, my wife forgot hers in our room. He did go over how to descend using a mooring line, and making sure we stay close to the ship and close to the bottom. When we went to the dive site, the curren was very strong. When we got down to the wreck and started swimming to the entry point on the ship we had to fight the current the entire way, my wife was almost exhausted, at that point he should have realized the difficulty my wife was having and aborted the dive at that time. However he went to her and helped her inside the ship. It was cramped and in places very dark, and luckily I had my light with me to help her find her way. My air was going fast and my computer was counting down very quickly on my bottom time. About half way through the ship I signalled to the dive instructor me being low on time and getting fairly low on air. He signalled the OK sign and kept going. We exited out of the hull where the mooring line was attached, I grabbed on the mooring cable and waited for my wife and the dive instructor. He looked at me and then left to go back in the ship once again down a different hatch. I had about 1100 lbs left, and my bottom time left was about four minutes. I followed despite my better judgment, I accidentally scraped my hand on a sharp peice of metal, luckily I didn't cut myself. By the time we got back around to the exit point again my tank was at 500 lbs, and my computer was flashing zero bottom time left. When we finally exited and got back on the boat the dive instructor didn't seem concerned at all about the problems we were having. My wife now refers to this wreck as ''Davy Jone's Locker, never to be found again".
Dive # 2 deep dive. My wife and I have experience with deep dives before, so we had no problems with this dive. However upon ascending the dive instructor didn't have his safety sausage to deploy. We bobbed about the ocean for a good 10 minutes before our boat saw us, which was about five hundred yards away picking up the other group. Luckily a Dressel dive boat was near by. I laughed and told my wife we should just flag them down, and rescue us from this dive instructor.
The third and fouth dive went smoothly, but the dive instructor didn't have his safety sausage again on the third dive, luckily the other group we were with had deployed theirs and we ascended with them.
I'm glad this whole ordeal is over with. There has been several posts on this thread about Dive Palancar's safety. It's not good in my eyes. We will not dive with them ever again. In addition to the poor safety the overall running of the dive op is very poorly run, disorganized and poorly managed, a least compared to Dressel Divers.
Please don't feel trapped into doing anything like we had done. We should have cancelled the dives after our first dive, and gotten a refund, but my wife and I only go diving once a year, and we were deparate to dive. Because of all the problems with the dive op we only had four dives over a whole week. I'm joking with my wife that I need to get another job so we can go back to Coz as quickly as possible so we can have a make up vacation, because this one sucked.
When we arrived last week we spoke with the PR guy and he reasured us that this was a good dive op. We made the mistake and decided to go with them and in addition decided to do get our AOW cert. Our dive instructor was friendly but had very little concern for safety. Our first dive was a specialty wreck dive. Before getting aboard the boat we discussed our concerns as to safety. The wreck is an old U.S. wwII mine sweeper intentially sank about 10 years ago. According to the AOW manual divers should not go in a wreck unless we have even more specialized training and experience on wreck dives. The other precautions included making sure you wear gloves, have a dive light ensure that you do not exceed your dive limits, and do not risk going low on air. Upon meeting with our dive instructor all of these points were brought by my wife and I and all of them were dismissed as not important. He stated that he has dove the sight many times and never cut his hands, therefore no gloves needed. He stated that we would be going inside because it was set up as a recreational wreck dive. He stated that a dive light was not needed, luckily I had mine with me, my wife forgot hers in our room. He did go over how to descend using a mooring line, and making sure we stay close to the ship and close to the bottom. When we went to the dive site, the curren was very strong. When we got down to the wreck and started swimming to the entry point on the ship we had to fight the current the entire way, my wife was almost exhausted, at that point he should have realized the difficulty my wife was having and aborted the dive at that time. However he went to her and helped her inside the ship. It was cramped and in places very dark, and luckily I had my light with me to help her find her way. My air was going fast and my computer was counting down very quickly on my bottom time. About half way through the ship I signalled to the dive instructor me being low on time and getting fairly low on air. He signalled the OK sign and kept going. We exited out of the hull where the mooring line was attached, I grabbed on the mooring cable and waited for my wife and the dive instructor. He looked at me and then left to go back in the ship once again down a different hatch. I had about 1100 lbs left, and my bottom time left was about four minutes. I followed despite my better judgment, I accidentally scraped my hand on a sharp peice of metal, luckily I didn't cut myself. By the time we got back around to the exit point again my tank was at 500 lbs, and my computer was flashing zero bottom time left. When we finally exited and got back on the boat the dive instructor didn't seem concerned at all about the problems we were having. My wife now refers to this wreck as ''Davy Jone's Locker, never to be found again".
Dive # 2 deep dive. My wife and I have experience with deep dives before, so we had no problems with this dive. However upon ascending the dive instructor didn't have his safety sausage to deploy. We bobbed about the ocean for a good 10 minutes before our boat saw us, which was about five hundred yards away picking up the other group. Luckily a Dressel dive boat was near by. I laughed and told my wife we should just flag them down, and rescue us from this dive instructor.
The third and fouth dive went smoothly, but the dive instructor didn't have his safety sausage again on the third dive, luckily the other group we were with had deployed theirs and we ascended with them.
I'm glad this whole ordeal is over with. There has been several posts on this thread about Dive Palancar's safety. It's not good in my eyes. We will not dive with them ever again. In addition to the poor safety the overall running of the dive op is very poorly run, disorganized and poorly managed, a least compared to Dressel Divers.
Please don't feel trapped into doing anything like we had done. We should have cancelled the dives after our first dive, and gotten a refund, but my wife and I only go diving once a year, and we were deparate to dive. Because of all the problems with the dive op we only had four dives over a whole week. I'm joking with my wife that I need to get another job so we can go back to Coz as quickly as possible so we can have a make up vacation, because this one sucked.
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You had 4 dives in a week? That's a hard days diving, not a week. Dang! So you didn't finish your AOW either. Bummer.
Good luck on your next trip.
Yeah, he should have had his, but so should both of you even without a reel.
Good luck on your next trip.
Mike
Contributor
Sorry to hear about your experience. I hope this incident combined with at least 25 dives is starting to help you develop a clearer understanding that self-preservation dictates to never be scared to abort a dive no matter what, no matter the circumstances, no matter how far into it you are. Also perhaps a little change in mental attitude of what dive masters are and are not is starting to form in your mind? I would suggest starting to think of them as 'tour guides' and take full responsible for your own well-being, never placing blind trust in one under any circumstances and never doing a dive you are not comfortable with. It's too easy to view the dive master as somebody who's job is to look out for you and protect you, but putting that kind of trust into somebody you have only known for maybe 30 minutes isn't really too advisable.
Protect yourself, be skeptical, stay alive.
If you don't feel comfortable with the dive or the divemaster, abort the dive, call it, do not proceed, give the signal to your buddy and the divemaster to surface, if he won't honor your request, leave him behind, do your safety stop and signal the boat for pick up. Better to live to dive another day.
Protect yourself, be skeptical, stay alive.
If you don't feel comfortable with the dive or the divemaster, abort the dive, call it, do not proceed, give the signal to your buddy and the divemaster to surface, if he won't honor your request, leave him behind, do your safety stop and signal the boat for pick up. Better to live to dive another day.
I am going to dive with Palancar in a few weeks. I have used them several times before and had no complaints.....THey always took good care of me. As far as the CO, what is the PEL (permissible exposure limit) or concentraitions that would be alowed? I am leaving my office armed with a Gastech CO-82 carbobon monoxide meter. I use this in environmental situations in industry when we need to keep an eye on CO levels. This machine is zero'd to atmosphere and is capable of detecting 1 ppm (part per million) pretty small amount. Before dives I will check my tanks by bleeding raw gas out of the cylinder. For reference, cigarette smoke delivers a reading of about 180 ppm however it is not constant for 40 to 60 minutes like a tank. If I get any readings I am going to not use the tanks. I spoke to palancar and they have closed the shop at the Allegro and operate out of the Grand exclusively although they still pick up at the Allegro.
As for the crews and DM's always good but I have enough sense to take my own SMB reel and sausage. Like alot of you I feel responsible for my own safety and having been there 9 times, know where i don't want to go and am not afraid to tell them on the boat no not there even if it means upsetting the group.
Thanks for the good read
Update; Warehouse guy just brought me the calibration tanks and we calibrated this thing. Looked up surface PEL's
8 hours 50ppm
4 hours 100ppm
2 hours 200ppm
1/2 hour in 8 300ppm
As for the crews and DM's always good but I have enough sense to take my own SMB reel and sausage. Like alot of you I feel responsible for my own safety and having been there 9 times, know where i don't want to go and am not afraid to tell them on the boat no not there even if it means upsetting the group.
Thanks for the good read
Update; Warehouse guy just brought me the calibration tanks and we calibrated this thing. Looked up surface PEL's
8 hours 50ppm
4 hours 100ppm
2 hours 200ppm
1/2 hour in 8 300ppm
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