One more near-miss

[plongeursousmarin]

I'm posting as it's still fresh with no other goal than sharing the experience and hopefully someone reads this and learns. I know I did.
Today I dove the Duane off of Key Largo. My last and 152nd dive was in August. The charter used low pressure steel 80s, so I had to adjust from the my usual 14 lbs (for the 5 mil) that I use with aluminum 80s. The DM recommended to take 4 pounds off, which I did. Once under way, I was paired up with a buddy team of two 50-something guys, very friendly, a little overweight, nothing unusual. They'd been diving for about 10 days, with a day off yesterday due to the nasty conditions. The seas started to get a little choppy but it was no big deal, no one seemed too bothered, however once we got on the spot, I personally felt the onset of that not-so-fresh feeling (I never puke, like Seinfeld, but I sure wish I did sometimes). Anyway, I knew I'd feel better once in the pool. My two buddies were ready so they went in and told me we'd regroup at the buoy (at the bow of our boat) and descend down the line as there was some current. As I went in I was surprised at how strong the current was and instead of using my snorkel to surface-swim up the line towards the buoy, I kept my regulator and breathed through it, and used some air right there. Then I started descending and since the visibility was great, I could see those guys below me. I caught up (or down I guess) to them as they were on the wreck (at the bow) but they seemed unaware that I was there. My computer read 31.5 meters (103 feet). They saw me but did not recognize me or something, kept looking up and stuff, for me I suppose, until after a couple of minutes (I know, I know) I waved and indicated "hey, I'm here, let's take a look at the rest of the wreck", at which point the light bulb went off and we all swam together and started penetrating the upper deck. I realized I had too much weight on me and kept adding air in the BC. After going through a few swim-throughs, we got sort of separated around the wreck (outside of it) and it was time for me to come back up. Swimming towards the bow of the wreck again to reach the ascent line was quite an effort but I made it (I run and lift regularly, used to race bikes for many seasons not too long ago). I had about 500 psi and my Aladin indicated a 5 minute decompression stop at 3 meters (I was raised in the metric system...). No problem, been there before. I started coming up and as I was coming up I could see one of my buddies below struggling to get to the line, huge streams of bubbles coming out fast and being whisked away by the current, his fins kicking strenuously as he was not making much progress, until he finally reached and grabbed the line. I then looked around and above me a bit to continue my ascent and then at 6 meters (18ft), my buddy is there looking at me with wide eyes signaling he's out of air! I gave him my octo and grabbed his BC but I still had air in mine, which I could not purge because of one hand grabbing the line in the ripping current and the other holding on to my buddy. I was running more than low on air myself at this point and when I checked my pressure gauge, it read close to zero, so I signaled my buddy that we should come up, and thus ended one crazy dive. The other buddy was already on the boat and told us he'd made sure to tell his buddy that they should come up. He never had a problem. Meanwhile we were supposed to do a second dive (shallow reef) and those guys decided to sit it out, while I went, as my computer was in gauge mode.

 

[Diver Dennis]

So the two guys you were diving with and who were together when you lost them, separated and one guy came up before the other?

 

[The Chairman]

First, doing the Duane on an 80 is "doable" under ideal conditions. It sounds like you had less than ideal conditions. I would have chosen a 120 or bigger for all involved.

Secondly, unless your skills are premo, taking insta-buddies on such a deep dive is also contra-indicated. Can you do it? Sure, but you can expect more of what you went through.

Third, most divers are in denial when it comes to narcosis. The only sure way to know you are impaired is to check your depth gauge. If you are below 80 fsw, you are impaired! Don't think so? Well you are impaired AND living in that river "De Nial"!

My suggestions?

Learn to manage your air and how to plan your air consumption. You should be able to do this for your buddy as well. Avoid dives that push your envelope.

Get a buddy! Find someone here on the Board that you can go diving with and develop those buddy skills. Insta-buddies are a hit/miss proposition and MOSTLY on the miss side.

 

[spectrum]

I realized I had too much weight on me and kept adding air in the BC.

The 4 pound reduction in weight was almost perfect. The TDL chart shows you went from +4.4 to -1 empty buoyancy for a true net of 5.4 pounds. An extra 1.4 pounds is of no real consequence. Better to be 1.4 pounds heavy than drop it agressively and end the dive light. Also some AL80s are not quite so positive closing the gap even more.

Noted is the reference to having to add air to your BC. This is perfectly normal as your wetsuit and whatever air volume you have in your BC compresses with depth and looses displacement hence buoyancy. Perhaps it was the sound of the air consumption that bothered you knowing that you put an early dent in your reserve.

Meanwhile we were supposed to do a second dive (shallow reef) and those guys decided to sit it out, while I went, as my computer was in gauge mode.

So have you said that you ended you deco early for low air? Then since you were in gauge mode the violation wasn't there to keep you on board?

Thanks for sharing. Lots of lessons there about staying fresh, insta-buddy teams, currents and pre-dive planning.

Pete

 

[The Chairman]

Yeah,

going to gauge mode because you were locked out, due to blowing your deco, was not wise. Instead, you should have gone on 30 minutes of O₂ and stayed out of the water for 24 hours. You might want to check into NitrOx to extend your bottom time, and AVOID going into Deco without sufficient gas for you AND your buddy.

 

[The Horn]

sounds like your "buddies" were narce'd. You should have pulled the pin in such a ripper current. No back up gas? you went into deco, not a good thing. Sounds like a dive with not much planning with regards to gas managment/emergency proceedures. Wreck penetration, even in a wide open, holes everywhere is really dangerous with a good current at 100'......

Sounds like a bad situation that had a lot of luck...

 

[jpcpat]

Lots of lessons here for everybody. Instabuddies are not ideal, but sometimes it's all you got. I've done the Duane a few times, always with a current ripping.

Good advice here: don't swim against the current, get down on the deck and pull yourself along. That alone might have left you with enough air for the ascent and deco, even with your buddy OOA. Most dive ops want you back on the line with 1000 psi left. this is why.

Going for even a shallow reef dive after a deco violation is probably not the choice I would have made.

The Duane is a great dive, though, isn't it

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Sounds like you muscled your way out of that situation. Going into deco with a single 80 in 100 feet of water and having no pony bottle and running the tank down to 500 lbs is pushing it. I think that people sometimes forget that it is easy to come up slow from a 100 foot dive on only 500 lbs, but if you get a panicked buddy sucking on the octopus, you can have a real problem.

Blowing off a required deco and ascending fast for the last 30 feet could have easily left you with significant paralysis or worse.

 

[plongeursousmarin]

Yeah apparently the one guy who came up earlier knew when to say when and the other for whatever reason (I was not within sight of any of them as I was making my way towards the line myself after realizing they weren't around after exiting from one of the swim-throughs). He told us later that he kept trying to tell his buddy that it was time to go and I don't know what kept the other dude down there by himself, maybe he had more air then. He sure did not have any when he came up to me!
As for the other responses, it's true that insta-buddies aren't the best solution, however it is pretty hard to do a background check on people. Once on the boat, the DM and captain are in charge. They asked around "who here doesn't have a buddy?" and I raised my hand. They asked "who wants to have this guy on their buddy team" and those guys said "sure" and that was fine with me and everybody, I've done this dozens of times. I was honest with them telling them I had not dove since August, they told me they'd been diving for more than a week. Every mistake that I've made thus far I've been able to learn from it, so this one is no exception, but it was the biggest chain reaction and closest call that I'v ever had to a real disaster that could have cost both my health or life as well as thos of my buddy.

 

[TSandM]

I would suggest you read lamont's essay on rock bottom.

What you ran into is a situation where you did not reserve enough gas to get you AND a buddy to the surface. When you had to help your buddy, you ran out of air. It is possible to plan a dive so that this won't happen.

It also doesn't sound as though anybody on that dive was very committed to the buddy concept. When you were headed back to the line by yourself, what would you have done if you'd had a major problem or run out of gas?