Out Of Air

[buddhasummer]

Virtually all of my diving has been with a buddy who has about the same number of dives as I do (i.e. we were and are beginners together). And neither of us had the super-top-notch OW training that one would hope to have. We also don't dive in such a way/place so as to have access to dive mentors - although that would be fantastic.

What we have done to help ourselves is read a lot (mostly here on Scubaboard but also linked articles), run through various potential scenarios in our minds, and then to practice drills and skills for a certain portion of many of our dives. We also chose to dive in "easy" locations (shallow, warm-water, decent vis) as much as possible, and we were careful about adding distractions such as a camera.

Our way is not as good as having real-live mentors, but I believe it has made us better divers than if we had simply finished OW class and dived without the extra measures. I figured I would post in case some of these ideas might be useful to you."

Great advice. My OW course wasn't that flash either and I did some pretty silly things when i first began diving, but I suspect like you, it was more out of inexperience and not knowing than purposefully putting myself or my buddy in danger. After all you don't know what you don't know.

I realised to become a safer diver and good buddy I had to take responsibility for learning more. I asked lots of questions of various DMs and experienced divers, re read and re read my OW manual, did countless searches on the net for articles, spent hundreds of hours on SB reading and asking questions, tried to imagine scenarios and visualize how I could respond and perhaps most important went diving as much as I could.

The article "g1138" links to is a very good article (thank you NWGD) I found it very helpful and also recommend you read it.

You need to take a step back and look at what happened, why it happened and what you could/would do differently. Diving isn't rocket science but its not to be taken too lightly either, sadly people do die and not just the inexperienced ones. As others have said until you have more experience maybe just concentrate on the diving and save the hunting for later. Im glad you both made it back ok, but dude it could have so easily been a much different, sadder story. Good luck.

 

[Blastman4444]

Good you are both alive when I was getting treatment last weekend for my DCS at St Mary's West Palm Beach they said they got someone from there who was DCS and another diver was found dead. I see another one found dead Diver Found Dead, Broward Sheriff's Office Reports - Broward/Palm Beach News - The Daily Pulp from this weekend not sure if this is the same one. I wanted to point something out when you go diving on your own you have no rescue or life support gear no training. On a professional dive boat they have these things like 100% 02 they are trained to deal with these things better then you or I. Ill never dive on my own unless I at least have 100% o2 in case of a DCS indecent. If you are out on a personal boat what are you going to do if your Girl Friend has an Air Embolism do you know what to do does she if you are injured? An OOA situation can easily lead to someone popping up to the surface and popping a lung or DCS that can change your life for ever. I'm glad you posted your story hope it helps others to learn from it.

 

[Simon-]

If the OP is not on a wind-up, then I would suggest that both he and his girlfriend take a long hard look at themselves and ask themselves "is a lobster really worth dying for"?

The fact that a second dive was done, compounding the complete balls-up of a first dive, beggars belief.

"Trust Me" dives shouldn't ever be done. Your guages don't work correctly - don't dive. Simple.

 

[c0r3yz]

Welcome to Scubaboard! Here's your mandatory beating.

Any mistake you can walk away from and learn from is ok by me. Luckily, when you post here, you will certainly be told about everything you did wrong. I think it was brave of you to share this experience, as embarrassing as it may or may not be perceived.

One thing that echos throughout the replies that I absolutely agree with is that as a new diver, you should focus on completing dives that will foster the new skills you've learned in your OW course and allow you to develop new ones. Two distractions were added to this dive that didn't allow you to think clearly about the dive and the skills you needed to exhibit and execute; a drift dive and bug hunting. Get some more dives in and work out your skills and remember that if anything makes you question about whether you should dive or not; bad weather, faulty gear, leg cramp, etc... call it off. It's better to ruin a day of diving than it is to suffer greater consequences that could result.

I wish you the best of luck in your future dives!

 

[buddhasummer]

Well..
Tell me where the "West Palm Marina" is, and I will help.

DD I smell a troll. I may be wrong.

You may be rigt Tim, hope not. Seems strange to post and then not return, could be busy I guess, unlike me im sure not everyone can skive off work and surf SB.

 

[Tortuga68]

Seems strange to post and then not return...

He's been back reading the thread, just not posting

 

[Hatul]

Good you are both alive when I was getting treatment last weekend for my DCS at St Mary's West Palm Beach they said they got someone from there who was DCS and another diver was found dead. I see another one found dead Diver Found Dead, Broward Sheriff's Office Reports - Broward/Palm Beach News - The Daily Pulp from this weekend not sure if this is the same one. I wanted to point something out when you go diving on your own you have no rescue or life support gear no training. On a professional dive boat they have these things like 100% 02 they are trained to deal with these things better then you or I. Ill never dive on my own unless I at least have 100% o2 in case of a DCS indecent. If you are out on a personal boat what are you going to do if your Girl Friend has an Air Embolism do you know what to do does she if you are injured? An OOA situation can easily lead to someone popping up to the surface and popping a lung or DCS that can change your life for ever. I'm glad you posted your story hope it helps others to learn from it.

I really think some of the advice is not realistic. You can go overboard on safety precautions. I don't think you need oxygen on a private boat to go diving. I'm also seeing ridiculous statements that you should not dive below 60 ft on an 80 cu ft tank. Just because someone has an accident does not mean you forget all common sense.

Adam

 

[Rick Murchison]

...at least we had J-valves...

One of those guys with the fancy stuff, eh? All us real men just had 'K' valves... getting hard to breathe? Time to think about ascending
Depth gauge? That's the anchor line, ain't it?
No drift dives except from shore, though... never left anybody in the boat...
We *were* lucky.
Rick

 

[Simon-]

J Valves, K Valves......pah! The little bottle on my ABLJ was enough.

To think we used to practice breathing off those things. Ugh, what was living in the bottom of the jacket

 

[buddhasummer]

He's been back reading the thread, just not posting

Cool, thats good to hear, theres been lots of good advice posted.