The first thing I expected when I made this post was, "you don't know what your doing, you need more training, you screwed up and need to quit diving, I would never dive with you, you the kind of person that gives this sport a bad name" kind of stuff. So please, feel free to tear into me. I'm the only one who knows the accuracy of those statements and will not bother fighting them because it's just too much trouble. - which leads right into...
----PASSIVENESS-----
yes, I'm an extremely passive person. Maybe overly passive. I never thought about how that applies to my diving. It's something I will self-examine and work hard at adjusting. Thank you for pointing it out. That observation is gold.
I've recognized the fact that I'm passive for years. I react passively to anything I can. I do, however, have a track record of being the leader in most situations.
I was not in this situation because my buddies are both Master Divers, fixing to start on DM's, have done tons more than I have on diving, have far superior gear, and have 2x the number of dives I have. Plus they are both middle aged adults with families and are quite respectible people. There was alot of underlying phsycology here that contributed to my state, but I blame no one but myself for anything.
It's been said quite a few times: why didn't you just surface? You had plenty of air...
1. If you bring a tank back with less than 300 lb's, I belive they are supposed to do a visual. With that in mind, that's one good reason NOT to get down that low. At the very least it takes them MUCH longer to fill a tank that's brought back on empty.
2. If you get too low on air, you risk flooding your 1st stage - the o-ring might not have the amount of enough pressure to maintian a seal.
3. We had a 4 minute deco and a 3 minute staftey stop ahead of us that I knew of. I knew we had those ahead of us even though I didn't have a computer because of past -experience-. With the above two thoughts in mind, I treated it as an OOA situation. There aren't very many good excuses for actually running a tank dry, and breathing your tank dry on deco's and saftey stops is just pointless when you've got 2 buddies with 1500 lb's of air each.
Regarding the LP Octo-
I referred to the Octo as the reg I was breathing off of. I did indeed have my buddies primary and he was breathing from his LP hose stage. The issue in this case was: He's got the shortest freaking hose you can possibly get for his 1st stage because it makes breathing more comfortable on his jaw he says. Buddy breathing in this situation isn't much different than if I actually WHERE breathing from his LP octo. It's real tight in there.
Regarding not knowing the equiptment:
I've done buddy breathing ascents with him on 5 seperate occasions. I was versed in buddy breathing with him.
In retrospec, the thing we where doing more wrong than ANYTHING ELSE was making it a regular practice to buddy breath because of how efficient my buddies are with their air. I keep telling them it's got to have something to do with their high-end equipment, but they remind me that it took them quite a bit of practice to get it so effiecient.
We had just finished putting the gear together for a bail-out rig at the saftey stop but did not implement it for that dive since we had JUST finished it. In the future, we will at least already have a bail-out system readied.
We are all trained in the use of lift bags.
Quote: You should have just stayed at the surface instead of dumping your air
Quote: You should have put a plan together on the surface instead of dumping your air
I stress: I was not the dive leader. I was following the instructions of my more experienced buddies. It's hard to put down every detail of the dive in a post, but here's another piece of info to consider:
When I hit the surface:
1. I knew we had missed a deco. Not a saftey stop - a deco.
2. My buddy who I was breathing off of yelled at me, "GET BACK DOWN NOW!!!". He later stated that he should have said, "drop to 15'" The urgency made me dump my air without a plan.
3. My other buddy (who's profile is shown), came up under me and started yanking on my fins pulling me back down right as my head was breaking the surface.
Those 3 things meant: go down. sort if out later. Not chill out at the surface and chat about what to do.
Prior to any deep dive, we always, I stress ALWAYS do a double-buddy check, We each check each other over. Occasionally we'll find a problem (like an octo not positioned right) and correct it.
We ALWAYS cover emergency procedures, and have DAN's number in the hands of our surface support before we go down. We also always make sure our surface support (which we did not have, and don't even think about flaming me on that one) with what to watch out for and what they can do about (which is usually, "Call DAN").
Beyond emergency procedures, we cover contengicies. We have always said, repeatedly before any deep dive, "If we miss a saftey, drop back down to 15' and sit there for as long as your air will last you if you can.".
The point is, we aren't just running out and shooting down to 120' without a plan. We don't consider it terribly deep because we do it routinely. It's a matter of perception. Most people dont' care to do that deep for any number of reasons. The 1st few times I did it, I was a bit worried, but now it's second nature. The problems did not occur deep. As it was pointed out, the real problems didn't start until the last 20' or so when we shot up real fast.
It's been gone over and over by many - the 2nd drop was the big problem. I'll break down once more WHY we bounced down to 80'. It was not, by any means, any of our intentions.
1. During the ascent, I was disoriented. This was NOT because I was ascending at night. It was because I had just hit the surface when I thought I was at 60' - then got screamed at to drop like a rock, was getting my fins pulled at and was shoving an octo back in my mouth.
2. When I became disoriented, I did not belive I was descending - take careful note here. I was listening to my ears for indictations of descent. I felt NO SQUEEZE all the way to 80'. I can only think of the reasons and if you're experienced enough, you'll know why.
3. My buddies had taken charge and put me into Remorah/fetus mode. Being a person with a passive personality, I said, ok, until I RECOGNIZE A PROBLEM I will simply wait for some kind of info to come across my field of view to help. Maybe like a bottom contour for instance.
The point on not being trained for night ascents with buddies is very very important. That's a post that shows someone who not only understands and identifies with the situation, but can offer an explantion. Only a very experienced and wise person can make that observation. My hat's off to you!
I think that's about it. And if any of you think a similar situation is not something you would ever be in because you are careful enough to put get in it in the first place, then the chance is likely that you may experience something simiar someday.
As I see it, it was a learning experience, and I'm taking it very very serious.
Btw, most of you aren't familiar with the Texas Highland lakes. Where I was diving, visibility is less than 6'. I prefer diving in low vis at night because the lights help illunimate things better and assist in providing a better, clearer field of vision. Either way, such low vis can easily result in miscommunication.
In the case of my miscommunication, it came because I was holding the light on my hand in front of my buddies mask so he could make it out through the silt we had knocked off treelimbs.
Overall, I'm glad we are all ok, and am certainly going to take steps to work on the lessons learned that you aren't taught in class, and also take the time to review things I had covered in the past, but use very little.
