Out of Air at 84 ft

[MaxBottomtime]

There was some good advice here, amidst the jocularity.
One thing that wasn't mention is the importance of self-reliance. I'm not advocating solo diving to you, but there may come a time when you find yourself in buddyless situation. Every dive should be treated as a solo dive by preparing and planning the dive as if there was nobody to help you. There is no diver in the world that I would trust 100% to be able to help me in an OOA situation. First and foremost, until you can get to the point of knowing your air pressure within 100 psi without looking at your spg I urge you to take the spg out of your save-a-dive kit, connect it to your reg and glance at it occasionally. Running out of air underwater is never an option.

 

[pilot fish]

Again, the premise is to find out which direction do you swim for air, horizontal to find a buddy, or vertical to the sunshine and seagulls? Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

 

[Quarrior]

Again, the premise is to find out which direction do you swim for air, horizontal to find a buddy, or vertical to the sunshine and seagulls? Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

Which is why I started my thread in Whine and Cheeze title Grrrrrrrrrr. So far IMHO you have received a hand full of responses to your question out of all of the posts toi this thread.

 

[jagfish]

Makes a good case for strong light use in daytime. Great for communicating with buddy, even over distances that are technically too long for a buddy pair?

I'm still waiting on my Helios 18, but looking forward to it for this reason...

 

[pilot fish]

This is certainly a scenario I keep in mind at all times when I dive.
I hate having a buddy that clings to me like white on rice, but I detest more having one whose attention I cannot get. I recall diving with a friend who did this, and we had sort of a falling out after I could not get his attention and had no choice but to go up without him due to some ear problems. Dork. I followed him around for ten entire minutes trying to get him to look for me. He never noticed that I was 20' above him. Still makes me mad. Anyway, we don't always have the luxury of diving with people we know so I usually make it a point to talk about paying attention to each other before we go down.

Given the choice of a controlled ascent or looking for someone's octo, I would say it depends. If nobody is within a couple of kicks, then up it is, as slowly as possible. I have had a HP hose blow at about 70', and had a similar decision to make. Should I take the time to grab my buddy and have her take me up, or would I have enough air to make a safe ascent? I took the safe way and spent the few seconds to shut off my tank and grab my buddy.

Ouch! When your HP hose blew did you have a free flow? Did you grab the octo of your buddy and then shut your tank off?

 

[pt40fathoms]

Again, the premise is to find out which direction do you swim for air, horizontal to find a buddy, or vertical to the sunshine and seagulls? Buddy skills is a different question, not getting yourself in that type of a situation is different question

I disagree, these two points are at the heart of the question. Barring equipment failure or poor/non-existent planning, your should never have an OOA. If your buddy is a real buddy, and you do have an equipment failure or brain fart and forget to watch your air, s/he would be your first choice.

The point I'm trying to make is that the choice you make in the scenario you have set is irrelevant because at that point you will either risk injury or death. You must, as a diver, always be in control of your dive. That means not allowing errors to pile up. The first error being the biggest, that being simply letting an assigned buddy leave you in his/her wake to fend for yourself in the event of an unforeseen emergency. The moment you find yourself face with that first domino falling, the dive either ends, or takes on a very conservative profile, depending on yours skill level and redundant gear on hand.

I know what you are looking for in way of an answer, but any answer would be completely meaningless as a learning tool. Your fight or flight instincts would kick in and any options discussed would be completely irrelevant.

 

[jagfish]

I disagree, these two points are at the heart of the question. Barring equipment failure or poor/non-existent planning, your should never have an OOA. If your buddy is a real buddy, and you do have an equipment failure or brain fart and forget to watch your air, s/he would be your first choice.

The point I'm trying to make is that the choice you make in the scenario you have set is irrelevant because at that point you will either risk injury or death. You must, as a diver, always be in control of your dive. That means not allowing errors to pile up. The first error being the biggest, that being simply letting an assigned buddy leave you in his/her wake to fend for yourself in the event of an unforeseen emergency. The moment you find yourself face with that first domino falling, the dive either ends, or takes on a very conservative profile, depending on yours skill level and redundant gear on hand.

I know what you are looking for in way of an answer, but any answer would be completely meaningless as a learning tool. Your fight or flight instincts would kick in and any options discussed would be completely irrelevant.

Seems like very constructive and reasonable analysis/advice to me....

 

[SueMermaid]

Ouch! When your HP hose blew did you have a free flow? Did you grab the octo of your buddy and then shut your tank off?

Didn't think much of it till I got back on the boat, but yuh, you could put it that way. Free flow. :11: It sounded like a galloping herd of elephants. I took a moment, looked around, saw that my buddy was already coming toward me, so I shut off my tank and swam toward her. It was actually not a big deal, although it was a bad day for the hose.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? I have seen it happen to one other guy (the DM in I think Roatan, who just went up from about 40'), and one of the guys on our boat got an aneurysm in his so he had to use a rental.

 

[pilot fish]

There was some good advice here, amidst the jocularity.
One thing that wasn't mention is the importance of self-reliance. I'm not advocating solo diving to you, but there may come a time when you find yourself in buddyless situation. Every dive should be treated as a solo dive by preparing and planning the dive as if there was nobody to help you. There is no diver in the world that I would trust 100% to be able to help me in an OOA situation. First and foremost, until you can get to the point of knowing your air pressure within 100 psi without looking at your spg I urge you to take the spg out of your save-a-dive kit, connect it to your reg and glance at it occasionally. Running out of air underwater is never an option.

Thanks. That is what I do with my dive puter, look at it often. Im getting so that I can guess within 200 to 300 PSI's. Not there yet, but I'm working on it.

 

[pilot fish]

Didn't think much of it till I got back on the boat, but yuh, you could put it that way. Free flow. :11: I took a moment, looked around, saw that my buddy was already coming toward me, so I shut off my tank and swam toward her. It was actually not a big deal, although it was a bad day for the hose.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? I have seen it happen to one other guy (the DM in I think Roatan, who just went up from about 40'), and one of the guys on our boat got an aneurysm in his so he had to use a rental.

You reached back and shut it off, or slipped out of your bc? That was great prescense of mind.Why did you feel you had to shut the air off first before getting that octo?