cbl
Registered
I had a close call diving with a resort group in Cuba this week. The dive centre is very well equipped and the staff are all very well trained SSI pro's and have years of taking groups of all levels diving. The group of 7 divers consisted of 2 staff divers and 5 clients. We were assigned dive buddies during our briefing and the diver I was with had a few dives and was a certified PADI open water diver. We initially worked our way down to 85' and the DM inquired about everyone's remaining air. My buddy indicated he had 1/2 tank. I was about 2100 psi so he was either hard on air or misreading his gauge. Further into the dive, we were at 70' and the DM inquired again of everybody and my buddy gave the "OK" sign, which I thought was strange as I was down to about 1500 psi, so at the previous rate he would have been closer to 500 psi.. He was busy taking pictures, so I figured he may have been using up air quicker than others. I decided to stay close by. A couple minutes later I heard a a muffled sound, and he had already ran out of air, replaced his regulator with his octopus out of panic thinking there was going to be air, and he had the wide eyed look of death. I was able to get to him, replace his octopus with mine, and get him to surface.
Here's what I learned:
Buddy diving means staying close and paying attention to each other. Tell you buddy that before getting wet.
The diver was from Canada and used psi. Cuba uses bar Maybe that caused confusion in the briefing.
If you rent or use someone else's equipment - know how to use it and your buddies before getting wet.
Take more training so you can react to your and others needs if required
Don't be embarrassed to ask your DM or guide to explain things if you don't quite understand. Possibly the Spanish to English translation caused an issue.
It could have been a lot worse.
Here's what I learned:
Buddy diving means staying close and paying attention to each other. Tell you buddy that before getting wet.
The diver was from Canada and used psi. Cuba uses bar Maybe that caused confusion in the briefing.
If you rent or use someone else's equipment - know how to use it and your buddies before getting wet.
Take more training so you can react to your and others needs if required
Don't be embarrassed to ask your DM or guide to explain things if you don't quite understand. Possibly the Spanish to English translation caused an issue.
It could have been a lot worse.