New Diver -1st trip was a beast!

[ScubaSteve]

Brendan,

I have read this thread and can only say a couple of things. I believe that what others have already said point out the long list of bad decisions that were made by you. They have also informed you of what should have been done under the circumstances. You are new to diving and to the board. Listen to this: If any of these posts seem overly harsh, they are because the poster wants two things: 1. to ensure that you realize the many errors in judgment and 2. to ensure that under no circumstances does anybody in a similar situation read your post and think that it must be acceptable. You made bad decisions...you know that. Hopefully you will heed the advice given here and dive within your training and comfort (not always aligned but both are critical).

Secondly, do not let this scuba board experience push you away from the board. Most people here do not actually bite and are only harsh to get important points accross. You were honest in your post and that is important for you and others to learn from your mistakes. Keep safe.

 

[pasley]

Well said ScubaSteve. I was harsh, and I hope Bendan will foregive my bluntness. I thought long and hard before I went there, and edited the post several times, but it was important to ensure the point got across and to articulate what others were thinking but only said with their discrete Hmmmmmm's.

Brendan,
Please do accept our advice for what it is, caring advice. I appreciate your candor in sharing your experience and hope you will continue to visit here on a regular basis and share your experiences both good and bad. On some you will learn, on others you will teach. On this particular one, well you get to do both, learn and teach.

 

[Digger54]

We don't want the next post with your name in it to be about you instead of by you and appearing in the "Accidents and Incidents" forum.

 

[Schizlor]

Thanks guys

Sorry Pasley, I only got through half of that, lol. About 3 minutes after posting I realized that I had just set myself up for the flaming of a lifetime. I did not disclose much detail surrounding the dives, and instead posted what was tantamount to boasting excellent skills on my first real dive trip with no problems, and then backed those results up by claiming to be a "natural" in the water. From reading many posts on here before ever diving, I should have known what I was in for with that post. I really just wanted to introduce myself and tell everyone what a great time I had, but from what I gave readers to go on, I deserve every bit of criticism I received. And I do take it all as caring advice, no matter how harsh. It has to be harsh when you are dealing with life and death, and I appreciate that.

I'm not proud of the fact that I did not disclose my level of experience upfront. I only mentioned that because the dive masters (and yes, they should have pryed this information out of me) were very experienced and I trusted their judgement. Not on what dives I was currently capable of, but of assessing my skills during the 1st day of diving with them. The repatedly commented on how good we were, and how when they usually go out they have to deal with all kinds of diver problems like you outlined above. I cannot claim to be a "good" diver. I do not have the resume to back anything like that up. But as far as my opinion can be valid, I have excellent bouyancy. My buddy (I have know him since we were 5, and we discussed the dives for hours both before and after. He has 40 logged dives, as does his wife. We were in a buddy pair of 3) was very impressed with my competancy in this skill. Again, I don't (and couldn't) expect you to take my word for it, or his for that matter. Nor does logging 40 dives give him the competancy to declare my bouyancy good either, and I understand that.

Beyond bouyancy, I am not going to defend any more of my actions on that trip. None of you have ever been diving with me (and after reading my post may never want to). All you see is 1st dive trip, 0-24 logged dives, and a laundry list of semi-advanced dives that someone with those credentials should never be advised to attempt. It really is an open-season invitation for criticism and lambasting the decision making process. I'm reminded of Top Gun, "I think we've shown this as an example of what not to do"

A point by point just to answer your questions:

1. I did surface with 500 or more on every dive below 60 feet except the 3rd dive, the 1st one on the wall. I signaled to the DM when I was at 700, and we were all directly under the boat at this point. He gave me the OK and led me to the ascent line. My buddy and his wife followed close behind. He let the other 2 (they worked at the resort but were not DMs) continue under the boat with the other DM, as they were all well above 1000. We did a 3 min stop and I surfaced with 300 psi. All other dives I surfaced with 700psi or above.

2. I did not do a safety stop on the 35ft dives or the 45ft dives for 3 min. It was about 90 sec on those dives. The other dive profiles were well designed to allow deco, but we did 3 min at 15-20 feet on all of them.

3. Yes, and in many cases much slower than that

4. I cannot confirm this without my log

5. My buddy was my best friend and was well aware of my training and comfort level. Whether that is comforting, or otherwise incriminates him, is a matter of perspective.

6. He and his wife have 40 dives each, though not 5 in the last 6 months.

Lastly, reading this sentence really makes me want to delete this entire post:
"It scares me that other new divers will read this and think it is ok to dive beyond your training."

The implications my post may have regarding the decisions others may choose to make after reading it, may make the actual posting a worse decision than those I made on the trip. But at least the reaction to by those who chose to post can serve as a lesson to those reading it, and in that it may still have merit.

Thanks to all for replying. Not what I was wanting to hear, but probably what I needed to hear.

Cheers,

-Brendan

 

[Bob Vincent]

Let me say as well that sounds like a nice trip. That is the only thing I'm impressed with. Except for the dm's ability to blow smoke up your butt and have you believe it. Your instructor failed in that he did not impress upon you to five within your training and experience and either work your way up to deeper dives or get the proper training. That you blindly followed the dm on basically what were "trust me" dives shows a marked lack of understanding regarding basic safety. That the dm would not check your level of certification indicates an operation I'd never use. How much of tip did you give them after their little ego stroking. That's what it was. Make no mistake. You may be good diver for your level of experience but to allow you to go into an overhead like they did was just plain stupid. I sincerely hope you listen to that little voice that now has had it's volume turned down thanks to a few incompetents looking to make a buck. And not being upright with your experience level would get you thrown off boat up here and guarantee a shortage of five buddies. Just plain dumb and dangerous all the way around on this one. Nothing to be truly impressed with.

Jim is more than right ... If you know you're not supposed to do it don't. Also if you don't fell good about it don't. That DM might one day get someone hurt. Going overhead is always a bad deal unless trained for it. You think you're training agency wants you not to have fun? You know that isn't it. They want you to never show up as a satistic.

You went deeper than you're suppose to also. You know why that rule is valid? You know as your going down things compress and you have to ad more air, when going up the direct reverse. Well if you don't do things at the right time things can happen really fast. If you ever see stats on diving accidents you'll see run-a-way ascents right up there. Do you know you can "blow" your lungs in only 4ft of water? You know you can get going so fast going down your BC can't inflate fast enought to stop you from getting super deep and then other nasty things can and does happen.

These simple rules have saved thousands ... If you want to dive deeper take a deep class are better an advanced class and a deep class! Going into a wreck ... well if you can't see the opening and multiple ways in and out with light shinning in so its not dark ... ok. But anything else ... divers die in situations like that.

I'm very sorry I didn't say anything the first welcoming post I did. I was tired and didn't want to stay that's why I came back. I'm glad others did it sorry for my short comings and good job guys!

 

[floridanewbe]

welcome aboard

 

[spectrum]

Schizlor

I'm with the chorus on this one. You made a string of trust-me dives. You confused comfort with experience and in this game the stakes are high. Never trust a destination dive guides judgment. Their largest motivation may be to blow your mind and earn a whopping tip.

Pete

 

[woodsandwatertoo]

Welcome to the Board. Happy Diving.

 

[mblake]

Welcome to the board.
Thanks for the additional posts from everyone.

 

[Scott M]

Welcome to the boards. These people truely care about every diver out there and will let us all know when we messed up and we all have from time to time. What often times gets over shadowed when we dive and are comfortable is the experience that we require to deal with emergency's. You did not have an emergency so no way for you to know how you will react to one. Some of the reason newly certified divers are advised to not go below 60' is because at 60' we have a lot better chance of assessing an emergency, reacting and surviving and there is no guarantee at 60' even that will happen. At 100' the rules change completely no matter how comfortable you are. One mistake by you or your buddy can mean life and death in an instant. Penetration and make no mistake about it, what you did was just that is another skill that takes a long time and alot of dives to master. Sure anyway can swim in, around and get back out but what happens if you get entangled? Have a gear mal-function while inside even if it is just a little inside? Your buddy kicks your mask off and it drops to the bottom of the wreck? Things can and will go wrong it is our experience that allows us to make the best choices to survive those incidents.

What you did reminds me of what often times happens in gambling when a new gambler wins their first time. There is nothing worse than a new gambler winning. They will spend the rest of theirs lives and money trying to get that feeling back and this happens to extremely intellegent people.

It sounds liek you are an adrenalin junkie, nothing wrong with that, I am also. My best advise would be strive to get all the training possible and dive as often as possible to learn to do the things you now know you love to do. Do the deep dives do the penetration but do it with experience and knowledge and stay safe.

Best regards