For the first time in my life I breathed a tank dry on Saturday. No fuss or panic, I fully expected to breathe the tank dry, but it was the first time I have ever done it so I spent a bit of time reflecting upon the dive. Whilst it is clearly always better to finish the dive with gas in the tank, overall I am not too concerned about the way things unfolded, after the obvious errors which led to the situation.
To give the full picture - on Saturday I was diving a reasonably challenging site with two other experienced divers. It is a pinnacle which can only be dived in pretty calm conditions. Conditions on Saturday were borderline. All of us had dived it before, and everyone was happy to forge on. We anchored and agreed to descend immediately to check the anchor (set in the sand at about 75 feet) and then swim back to the pinnacle. When we got down to the anchor, she was dragging, and after trying unsuccessfully to set it in the sand, we gave up and wrapped the chain around a convenient rock. That having been done, we swam back to the pinnacle and got on the with the dive.
There was a decent current running and the dive was pretty active, so it was no real shock when one of the guys called the dive early due to low gas. Due to a navigational error on my part, we then took the "long route" back to the boat and clambered aboard, all pretty tired and all pretty darned low on gas.
At which point we remembered the anchor chain was still wrapped around a rock.
The oldest member of the team was pretty much flat out of gas, so we agreed he would stay aboard. My tank had about 300 PSI left, which was certainly less than ideal. The fittest member of the group had a whopping 500 PSI. None of us felt capable of free diving to that depth. We agreed that we would wait 10 or 15 minutes to catch our breath, and then the two of us left with any kind of gas would go down and free the anchor. My friend with the 500 PSI would go to the bottom and free it, and I would follow follow, but sit at about 60 feet to be ready in case some kind of emergency occurred.
That is pretty much what we did, and (amazingly) it all went to plan. We then mutually decided (having not really discussed it beforehand) to just hang at 15 feet until one of us (ie. me) ran out of gas. Neither of our computers had us in deco, but it seemed to be the smarter thing to do in a day not otherwise notable for smart decisions or good execution.
So after about 4 minutes at 15 feet I felt the regulator tighten up and for the first time in my diving career I gave the "out of gas" signal in earnest, got an "OK" signal back (which felt a bit surreal, but still) and strung out my last breath in over about a 45 second ascent to the surface.
Did I learn anything from the experience? Not really sure that I did. I fully appreciate that we did not execute terribly well on gas management (or navigation), but that is hardly news to me or anyone else reviewing the situation. It was... what should you say? I guess it was interesting to feel like what it felt like to run out of gas. But I suspect there is a marked difference between going OOG at 15 feet when you are expecting it, and going OOG much deeper when you are not.
To give the full picture - on Saturday I was diving a reasonably challenging site with two other experienced divers. It is a pinnacle which can only be dived in pretty calm conditions. Conditions on Saturday were borderline. All of us had dived it before, and everyone was happy to forge on. We anchored and agreed to descend immediately to check the anchor (set in the sand at about 75 feet) and then swim back to the pinnacle. When we got down to the anchor, she was dragging, and after trying unsuccessfully to set it in the sand, we gave up and wrapped the chain around a convenient rock. That having been done, we swam back to the pinnacle and got on the with the dive.
There was a decent current running and the dive was pretty active, so it was no real shock when one of the guys called the dive early due to low gas. Due to a navigational error on my part, we then took the "long route" back to the boat and clambered aboard, all pretty tired and all pretty darned low on gas.
At which point we remembered the anchor chain was still wrapped around a rock.
The oldest member of the team was pretty much flat out of gas, so we agreed he would stay aboard. My tank had about 300 PSI left, which was certainly less than ideal. The fittest member of the group had a whopping 500 PSI. None of us felt capable of free diving to that depth. We agreed that we would wait 10 or 15 minutes to catch our breath, and then the two of us left with any kind of gas would go down and free the anchor. My friend with the 500 PSI would go to the bottom and free it, and I would follow follow, but sit at about 60 feet to be ready in case some kind of emergency occurred.
That is pretty much what we did, and (amazingly) it all went to plan. We then mutually decided (having not really discussed it beforehand) to just hang at 15 feet until one of us (ie. me) ran out of gas. Neither of our computers had us in deco, but it seemed to be the smarter thing to do in a day not otherwise notable for smart decisions or good execution.
So after about 4 minutes at 15 feet I felt the regulator tighten up and for the first time in my diving career I gave the "out of gas" signal in earnest, got an "OK" signal back (which felt a bit surreal, but still) and strung out my last breath in over about a 45 second ascent to the surface.
Did I learn anything from the experience? Not really sure that I did. I fully appreciate that we did not execute terribly well on gas management (or navigation), but that is hardly news to me or anyone else reviewing the situation. It was... what should you say? I guess it was interesting to feel like what it felt like to run out of gas. But I suspect there is a marked difference between going OOG at 15 feet when you are expecting it, and going OOG much deeper when you are not.
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