She thinks she almost died..but she didn't!

[lamarpaulski]

Abigail is an excellet diver. She was the first to master skills in her class and has great buoyancy. She is not a strong swimmer, but adequate. She is not using me as a crutch, as much as she is making sure she doesn't loose me. (Not that I'd let that happen.) Understand, she is 13 years old. And this was her 8th ocean dive post certification. The first 4 were in 100+ viz Mexico.

This is the youngest of my 3 daughters and the only one that wants to dive. I finally have a full time dive buddy. And if she wants to hold my hand while she gains confidence, I'm not going to object. And she did let go as she got more confident.

She is at an age when she will want less to do with me soon enough!

She wouldn't be the first dramatic teenage girl. Probably ascend at 750psi and cut safety stop a minute if drifting, assuming you are good on N build up.

 

[BertStevens]

The biggest negative I see has nothing really to do with the dive, but rather the boat... I do not like anchoring one bit. There's just very little advantage to anchoring and we never do it. In fact, the only advantage is giving divers a line to cling to on their ascent.

If a diver surfaces in distress or further down current it significantly delays reaching the diver, if not completely losing them. If you get swept several hundred yards from the anchor on your ascent and safety stop you could potentially not be spotted. Eventually the boat thinks you're overdue and what they do next is critical. Do they wait? Do they start looking? Send a diver down? Meanwhile, every second that passes you are cruising further away. After 30 minutes or and hour, how big does that search area get?

I'm going to stay out of the 'anchor vs live' debate. That's how the panhandle dives. The bottom is mostly sand and artificial structures are the only reason they have dive sites. Very few and far between reef areas. I'm just glad to be absorbing N2.

 

[RyanT]

Back when I used to dive the Gulf a lot, we always used the buoy system that CuzzA described. The added benefit to the diver is that if you're exploring a large reef area (e.g. Trysler grounds), you don't have to worry about navigating back to the anchor line. Likewise, you don't have to go over the same area of the reef you've already seen. We often just did a free ascent (before SMBs were popular). This does require an additional level of confidence and control, especially when doing a mid-water deco hang. Today, you can just become proficient with an SMB which has the double benefit of identifying your location to the boat and making it easier to do deco hangs or safety stops. I don't mind diving anchored, but given the option, I'll dive unanchored anytime.

 

[Steve_C]

You are divng a wreck in 90-100 ft of water. There is moderate to light current. Surrounding the wreck is miles of sand. Viz is 20-30 ft. You have a dozen or so divers. I am trying to figure out what advantage there is in this situation to not tying in to the wreck.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Abigail is an excellet diver. She was the first to master skills in her class and has great buoyancy. She is not a strong swimmer, but adequate. She is not using me as a crutch, as much as she is making sure she doesn't loose me. (Not that I'd let that happen.) Understand, she is 13 years old. And this was her 8th ocean dive post certification. The first 4 were in 100+ viz Mexico.

This is the youngest of my 3 daughters and the only one that wants to dive. I finally have a full time dive buddy. And if she wants to hold my hand while she gains confidence, I'm not going to object. And she did let go as she got more confident.

She is at an age when she will want less to do with me soon enough!

Everyone dives the way they want. Personally, I would not allow my kid to hold my hand unless something very unusual was happening. If you and her feel it is justified for the time being, I would not argue about it, but I still think the goal should be to move away from that behavior. I taught my boys to scuba dive when they were 8 and 9 yrs old and did not take them diving in any location that I was not confident they could safely ascend - alone - if I had a heart attack and died on the dive. If they wanted to hold hands, I would have taken that as a strong sign that the dive was outside of their comfort zone and I had pushed things too hard.

I think it is great to be able to dive with your young child, I had my 10 yr old diving to 80 feet and even going inside a wreck or two at that age.

I don't want to sound confrontational at all, but what attributes does your daughter have to make her an "excellent diver"?

 

[CuzzA]

You are divng a wreck in 90-100 ft of water. There is moderate to light current. Surrounding the wreck is miles of sand. Viz is 20-30 ft. You have a dozen or so divers. I am trying to figure out what advantage there is in this situation to not tying in to the wreck.

Well, let me be clear that I'm not saying if you anchor your boat your going to die.

But I refer back to my post outlining all the reasons why anchoring a boat has its disadvantages. They all still apply whether the viz is great or poor, wreck or reef, deep or shallow, current or no current.

Myself and many guys I know do it this way in 60 feet of water and I know guys that are doing it in 300 feet of water. I think we all share the same philosophy when captaining a boat.

 

[BertStevens]

I don't want to sound confrontational at all, but what attributes does your daughter have to make her an "excellent diver"?

Compared to the majority of Scuba Board, she is not. But as a newbie, she has excellent buoyancy control, gas management and awareness, and command of beginner skills. She needs time in water to develop confidence. I think I said it before, but this was her 8th dive post training.

As long as she maintains control of her dive, just wanting to hold Dad's hand is a no brainer for me. I'm just going to enjoy it. We had a teachable moment and will learn from it.

 

[Peter69_56]

When you say mark it with a buoy, how exactly does this work? Is it weighted/have some sort of anchor that will keep it in place? What ensures you placed it correctly and over the site, especially at deep sites, 80+ feet?

Probably just my ignorance, but with a boat load (16ish) divers of differing experience levels and potentially only 20' of vis I could see have the divers spread all over and none on the site.

What is a typical Tampa area dive? Depth, vis, at what depth can you usually start seeing the site?

We usually drop a weighted line with a large float and the boat drops the divers off up current. We successfully do this with depths of 50-60m (150-180') onto wrecks and this then allows the boat to stay down current and available for pickup at any time. Viscan be 30m down to 5m, normally 6-8m).

The rule being that ALL divers have an SMB so they can be clearly located on surfacing.

 

[Bubblesong]

When my daughter was 12, we got separated in low viz, then we surfaced separately and reunited at the boat. The second dive that day we held hands. now five years later, she looks out for me, but is very confidant and self reliant Rescue Diver. Low viz is not fun, so I am going to be more picky about dive conditions.
BTW, she STILL hasn't let me forget that I lost her and she had to save herself. I will admit that I never felt closer to God than those few minutes.

 

[flyboy08]

Diving with your daughter is precious and hand in hand isn't against the laws of scuba .....I did the same with mine at first. What strikes me as odd is the amount of air she used compared to you. I m assuming you had more than 500 at ur safety stop?

My daughter always had and still has considerable more unused air than I do once the dive is over. Is she breathing properly?