OOA at Surface

[MikeSXM]

I have just experienced my first "incident" since getting certified last year. It happened on my 9th dive just this past week. I was out on a wreck/reef dive in St. Maarten NA. 4 foot seas and a bit rough. Started out that my buddy, who I just met on the dock had some trouble finding his reg. I started to help him and then the guide/instructor took over and then told him to use his spare. Well I thought that is not good, that's my spare! Then the buddy decided to go back and hang by the rope. I went off with the instructor and 4 others - I think the instructor was my new "buddy"...

Anyway, we went down and started to explore - me following the instructor. In our briefing we were told that we would go past the wreck first, explore the reef and then, because the wreck was close to boat we would look at that last. Well we seemed to be doing the opposite, hmm. After a while we head out to the reef. I'm doing the best I can conserving air and trying to relax and enjoy, which I was. I kept reporting to the guide/instructor my air levels every so often. He had said that we would head up at 750. Well when I get to 750 (after 40 Min) not feeling too bad about air consumption, could be better. We start our 15 foot hang, I'm thinking this is strange we are not on the line near the boat as usual, so after 5 min or so we head to the surface - I'm at 500 - just what we were supposed to have when getting back on the boat - I'm thinking - OK nice dive.

When we surface I look around - no boat - The guide points in the other direction and says, "You have 500 - you should be able to make it back OK on the surface or just below. I'm going back down with the others. Well I'm a pretty good swimmer and figure OK I'll do this. Turns out we are in a pretty strong opposing current- and I start swimming hard and using up air and when I surface again I see the boat is not much closer, I'm down to 350 or so, I surface inflate the BC and start swimming on the surface in a 4 foot chop and an opposing current. Figuring I'd better use the snorkel and save the air for the end if I need it I get back to swimming hard and constant. Breathing heavy and taking in occasional salt water I'm starting to get a little concerned, all by myself, down under 200 by now, and boat still far off. I try the reg again just under the surface but breating is hard now so I figure inflate the BC while I can and see how it goes on the surface, now I'm basically out of air and and still 100 feet or so from the boat. I switched back to the snorkel and keep swimming, by the time I get to the rope line, I exhausted, been in the water for over an hour but back on the boat.

As it turns out the guide/instructor was underwater behind me, and some others had to surface too. I think we got in a current and were carried off farther than he though we were. Other guides were laughing and saying he got lost...hmmm. Well I think I did OK considering, but I'm trying to learn from this one. Tried to stay calm and pretty much did, but now I understand how some divers can panic and had just a taste of what that can be like. I used to think, how can you panic when you have the BCD, floating, see the boat, what's the big deal right? Well when you are out of air, out of breath, out of energy, far from the boat, in a current and seemingly alone I can at least imagine it now! Got pretty close to it and almost made some worse errors.

I'm interested in what folks think and what I could have done better to avoid that. I know you are supposed to swim into a current first, plan your turnaround better and stay with your buddy but on a guided dive I also feel the need to follow the guide and trust his judgement, and it is hard to "discuss" it underwater. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Scot M]

I have two thoughts.

First, you have to trust your own judgement more than you trust the guide's. That's hard at first, but it will come as your experience continues to increase.

Second, were the boat crew aware of your location on the surface? If they were, the swim might have been just as long but your mental status may have been more relaxed. A safety sausage or some other surface signalling device is cheap insurance in such a situation.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Well....sounds like you learned a set of cheap lessons...they could have been MUCH more expensive.

1. The dive you went on is known as a 'trust-me' dive, because you're allowing someone else to do all your thinking for you and blindly swimming along with them trusting in their abilities.

Lesson: You know where the boat/line is: starting point. It isn't moving: ending point. Watch your gas, watch your compass headings, make sure you get back to the line.

2. Surfacing with 500 psi is not 'back at the boat' with 500 psi. While surface currents and so forth will not always occur, many OOA incidents, exhaustion incidents, and other 'issues' manifest themselves closer to the end of dives.

Lesson: Give yourself a reserve. You can always hold your 10' stop longer, or burn it up around the anchor line after you've made it back to the line. Turn your dive at a point where you still maintain an emergency response capability. Depending on the sort of dive you're doing, aiming to be back close to the boat with 800 instead of 500 might be reasonable, for example. It depends on circumstances.

3. Pay attention to currents. They can be the cause of significant other problems, up to and including fatalities. People have died in strong currents anchored to reefs with reef hooks, and been blown off lines and drifted off never to be seen again.

Lesson: Be situationally aware of the environment around you, including currents. As was already mentioned, signalling devices should always be carried, something like a DiveAlert for audio and a large SMB and signal mirror for visual (at a minimum).

Biggest lesson: You are responsible for you. The guide isn't. If you feel that things are beginning to slide downhill, you don't discuss it underwater. You throw a thumb. Nothing down there is worth dying for. There will always be another dive another day.

Glad you survived your adventure. Now you're more experienced. Great stuff, huh?

Regards,

Doc

 

[dannobee]

Did you have a Safety Sausage/SMB? Did the boat crew see you? Another thing I notice is divers surface swimming face down, using their snorkel. Don't bother, you'll get more stressed by having your face in the water and breathing through the snorkel. Inflate your BC, roll over on your back, breathe normally (that is, without the reg or snorkel in your mouth) and start kicking, occasionally looking behind. With your head out of the water you'll be better able to see/judge the waves and keep your mouth dry.

 

[Scubaguy2]

Biggest lesson: You are responsible for you. The guide isn't. If you feel that things are beginning to slide downhill, you don't discuss it underwater. You throw a thumb. Nothing down there is worth dying for. There will always be another dive another day.

I couldn't agree with Doc more, its your life and the reef isn't going anywhere. I've called dives just because of a gut feeling. My buddies have all respected that, if the didn't it would be time for a new buddy.

Have fun but above all be safe.

See you on the bottom

Mark

 

[MikeFerrara]

Inflate your BC, roll over on your back, breathe normally (that is, without the reg or snorkel in your mouth) and start kicking, occasionally looking behind. With your head out of the water you'll be better able to see/judge the waves and keep your mouth dry.

Yes.

In addition, if 750 psi is the pressure you intend to ascend at and you want to be back at the boat you'll need to turn around before you hit 750. Right?

The basics of gas management...

Everything in your tank other than your 750 psi (in this case) ascent gas is useable.

If you don't care where you surface you can use it all and you know that you have enough gas to get you and your buddy to the surface.

If you'd like to get back to the boat but it's not all that important you can turn when half your useable gas has been used. You still start your ascent at your rock bottom (750 psi in this case).

If you absolutely must get back to the boat before surfacing then (at the latest) you turn when 1/3 of your useable gas has been used. In ther words you leave yourself twice as much to get back as you think you'll need incase there are problems, delays or you have to give gas to some one else. If, for example, you will be returning against the current you would need to turn before 1/3 is used. This is the rule of thirds correctly applied.

When buddies are using different size tanks then you must compensate by doing what we call gas matching. Both divers do their planning based on the lowest volume tank. This insures that the diver with the least gas always has enough to get both divers back in the worst case situation where the diver with the most gas suffers a total gas loss at the furthest point.

Forget that "be back on the boat with 500 psi" crap. You need to know how to leave yourself enough gas to get back on the boat. Once on the boat you don't need any more gas. Someday maybe some patient person will sit down with the folks at the agencies and explain this all to them and they can include it in their texts. Then we won't have divers who don't know how to plan their gas following guids who don't know how to plan theirs.

Beyond that...your buddy shouldn't leave you even at the surface and especially when you're low on gas and/or in difficult conditions. Some one should have thrown the bum overboard and let him swim back to port!

 

[MikeSXM]

Thanks gang for all of the great lessons to be learned here! I knew there were many things to learn from this one.

It is a great thing to realize that I have to be the one thinking about me! In diving and in all of life I suppose too. If I think about it, I did not know that guide at all, he was probably about 24 years old, 150 lbs, dives every day, has great equipment might have about 50 or more times more dives than I do. I am 44 years old, 200 lbs, only 11 dives in my life. For him to really think of my exact situation is probably impossible.

A few other thoughts..

1. Rental Equipment - no "Safety Sausage" I guess that is a dye marker or something? Gotta get some of that stuff. I don't know if the boat crew saw me, they were busy loading on other returning divers, and as it turned out I was not the last one in, but I though I was. I also realized that if I had rented the mask too, I would not even have been issued a snorkel. I was glad I decided to at least purchse a mask and snorkel before this trip.

2. Great thouhts on gas management... But here is an issue I'd be interested to hear more about. On these type of dives, (16 divers, 3 or 4 guides, buddied up with strangers) how do you go on a guided dive and at the same time try to do things your own way as suggested above. I am actually quite conservative when thinking about these issues, especially now after reading this and having had this experience, so if it were just me I would stay pretty close to the boat until I get much much better at navigating underwater. I definately relied on the guide to get us back to the boat on time. I do see the problem with that, he actually got lost I think, but I was probably lost after we lost sight of the boat. I'd like to learn how to navigate better so I could know the situation better and tell the group to turn around when I felt like we needed to if they did not.

Also, I now realize I was so busy following the guide, I didn't even realize that we had never turned around and that we were actually over 200 yards from the boat when we surfaced. I completely relied on him for that, which I now know I cannot do. Next thing I suppose is to learn this navigation part better - in some other setting I guess.

Thanks again for all the comments!

 

[Charlie99]

1. Rental Equipment - no "Safety Sausage" I guess that is a dye marker or something? Gotta get some of that stuff.

Rental gear often lacks stuff that I consider to be essential safety gear.

A safety sausage is an inflatable tube that is much more visible on the surface than is a diver's head.

Other items you should consider carrying are a pair of shears, a small signal mirror, a whistle, and a compass, and perhaps a knife.

signal sausage or more sausages

 

[Scubaguy2]

I always told my students to use the rule of thirds, one third travel gas one third back to the boat or shore and the remaining third can be used to play around the ascent line or for extra safety stop time, but it gets you home with 1000psi left out of a 3000 fill!

See you on the bottom

Mark

 

[wedivebc]

I always told my students to use the rule of thirds, one third travel gas one third back to the boat or shore and the remaining third can be used to play around the ascent line or for extra safety stop time, but it gets you home with 1000psi left out of a 3000 fill!

See you on the bottom

Mark

That's going to be a hard thing to sell to most divers. You should hear the whining on the boat when they only get 2900psi in their tank. Leaving the water with 1000psi just doesn't cut it when you've paid $100+ to get on the boat and god-knows-how-much to get to the destination.