Personal Incident

[idive2]

The fact that she went for the octo and not the surface is a very positive
reaction considering her LOA or perceived LOA situation. I was diving with a gal I was dating a few years back and she somehow totally depleted her tank just as we hit the surface, her BC had very little air in it and she was just maintaining above water as she turns to me and asks "you got air" ? I said yes and she politely asks "can I have some" ? It was a little stressful in the few moments before we manually inflated her BC but we laughed later at her cordial request for air.

 

[PerroneFord]

I'll admit that I haven't seen every dive computer, probably not very many, but as of yet I have never seen one that will tell you that you are bent. Most I have seen will lock you out or advise you not to dive but not diagnose decompression sickness.

Joe

My computer is special. It has a dumb***** mode. Four screens:

DESCEND
DIVE
ASCEND
BENT

Works great.

 

[RLarsen]

I don't mean to change the subject but I'd really like to know more about a "bounce dive" and the potential problems from it.
Thanks
Rex

 

[Cacia]

I think having even microbubbles recompress and passing through physiologic shunts or degrees of PFO contribute to most of the concern.

Keeping profiles clean just makes it easier to predict outcomes too.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Diver0001 taught me something a year and a half ago or so: The only true emergency is a lack of air. Everything else is an inconvenience.

One of my favorite sayings: "As long as you've got air, everything's gravy."

 

[do it easy]

I was reading your first post, and everything LOOKS "fine" except the vigorous hand holding. I'm not a big fan of holding hands since that task loads both divers. I prefer handing onto BC straps, arms, etc.

I think most of the issue here is mental- your buddy was worried and the reg was probably not breathing well. Did she know that she had enough air for the stop and the ascent or was she just following the 700 psi LOA guideline? A similar question is did you know that she had enough air? Most of the emergency seems to be in the perception of the problem.

How do you deal with a nervous buddy underwater? Esp when it's someone like girlfriend/wife? She is very independent, and doesn't let me help her with anything diving related, but she can become dependent in a heartbeat as I've noted. Are there any Husband/Wife dive teams listening? How did you develop your repore underwater? How long did it take? I was thinking about taking a course in ASL (sign Language) with her.

One of the problems I think is that she is trying to show me she can do it all herself, and doesn't listen when I tell her what we're going to do. Maybe diving with someone else until she doesn't feel this way would help.

My free advice for this is to let her lead and plan the dives. This will prevent her from diving beyond her comfort level and also give her dive planning and management skills. Your job would be to execute her plan as instructed. If she tells you to signal her when you hit 1000 psi, you better do it. Of course, I'm a single guy, so this might not work in your particular situation.

 

[Doc]

I told her we could both sit out the next dive (which only made her change her mind and decide to dive), and we had a great dive on the second tank.

Instead of telling you what went wrong, here's the long term fix., going along with the post above.

It will only work... if you do it.

Take her to a 15 foot line. Tag off to it... that is, tether yourself or just hang on. Tell her that her mission is to relax and just look around. Enjoy the sights. Critters will swim by and be curious.

Start with a full tank. Tell her to watch her SPG and time it as it drops a total of 500 psi. She will then, and only by doing ths, realize how long 500 psi will last at 15 feet.

It works.

 

[Mike Edmonston]

Instead of telling you what went wrong, here's the long term fix., going along with the post above.

It will only work... if you do it.

Take her to a 15 foot line. Tag off to it... that is, tether yourself or just hang on. Tell her that her mission is to relax and just look around. Enjoy the sights. Critters will swim by and be curious.

Start with a full tank. Tell her to watch her SPG and time it as it drops a total of 500 psi. She will then, and only by doing ths, realize how long 500 psi will last at 15 feet.

It works.

If a REALLY BIG CRITTER swims by, 500 psi will last around 11 seconds.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Thalassamania]

get comfortable sharing air on routine safety stops, it's an option when things don't go as planned and allows one of you to keep an 800 psi reserve.

Share air at the start of EVERY dive and at safety stops on the way up, then when you really need to it's no big deal.

 

[citydiver]

Well I am part of a husband/wife team...so hopefully I can help! I was doing OW and my husband was a 10 plus year diver.. I don't think it was a good idea for you to teach her if thats what happened, because with your husband you are so much more relaxed and you think well its my husband, I don't have to be hard core..he will keep me safe. Plus who wants to listen to their husbands!

Now going forward, it does take extra communication when diving with your lovely spouse. Since you come into the buddy team with a previous relationship all of the "usaual niceites" are not their, also most buddy teams don't argue like husband and wife, so your agreed upon communitcation and comfort levels have to be talked about prior to diving.
I am sure for her she was just counting on you keeping her safe and enjoying the dive, you are a DM and of course her hubby...what better buddy. I thought the same thing at the begining..he will keep me safe, it wasn't that I didn't think I was responsible to be a good buddy to him but that I thought I was the one who would need something down below...he would never need my help!
After a couple of dives together it kind of hit me on a safety stop one day that hey what if he needs my air someday..or something else from me..it was then that I started consciously thinking about how I needed to be an active part of our team, instead of passive one enjoying the furits of his labor. I started planning dives, leading dives and it has helped immensley!

We also talk before every dive about what we are both comfortable with in terms of depth, when we will come up etc...this of course would be part of your dive plan. We have found that I am the more conservative of our team, and I always like to come up before he does in terms of how much air we have...We are constantly checking each others air. It has been something he had to accept in terms of when I am comfortable surfacing. He wants to wait until he is down to 600 or 700, I like to start making my way up around 800..just in case anything happens on the way there...This is conservative, but it is something that makes our dives together so much better than at the begining. I would be nervous and constantly wathcing my gauges, and it took the fun out of diving for me. We both have had to agree on stuff that maybe sound silly or unnecessary but for our team to work and be enjoyable and safe we both had to bend! When I started it was hard for me to voice my opinion because I thought he has so much more knowlege than me...he has been diving for 10 years...what do I know?

I would talk to your wife about what happened, ask her what about your diving together does she think she can improve. Tell her to ask you how much air you have, not just wait for you to ask her...Work on signals...it helped us alot...we have some of our own signals hehe...I took us a good long while to work ut all the kinks...It's a work in progress!! Practice the buddy breathing at 15 feet...and deeper..it really helps to practice practice...
And when things like this happen you should do a thorough dive debriefing a day or two latter to talk about the whole thing when you both aren't fired up and upset about what happened.
Husband/Wife buddy teams take more work and cohesion than most buddy teams, but they are worth it!! Who better to spend you days doing what you love most, then with who you love most!