Should I have done something different?

[wolf eel]

[spear_friend what i have done , was i slide my bc off with regulater still in my mouth and i just restrap it on]

This is not to say you are wrong at all.

If you have an intergraded BC. You had better KNOW how to do this or you may be on your way to the surface in a hurry.

I agree with you but how many new divers are going to be able to do it. ALL it takes is to get your system wet then strap it down. Or do it up tight from the start.

Cheers
Derek

 

[TheOtherCraig]

Sounds to me like you handled it beautifully. Great job!

 

[fookisan]

Hello, Feedback?
I recently went on a dive to Key Largo. A group of 6 people rode down from a Miami dive shop. We went out with a different dive op, which had a few more people on the boat.
I met some great people and buddied up with a guy from Toronto. During the first dive, I was following my buddy. I was into the dive, enjoying the view. As I happened to look in back of me, another diver was struggling with his tank. The tank had slid down through his tank strap and the tank was floating above him. I quickly swam forward to my buddy and tugged on his fin,waved for him to follow, and then swam back to the struggling diver. I reached him, asked for an ok, got it and then proceded to assist him with restrapping on his tank. My buddy assited. The other guys buddy was the third to arrive and looked bewildered. After all was settled we gave the ok to the two divers and received it back, and then we went on our dive.

A week later, I am sitting here wondering about the situation. Was it correct to spend that few extra seconds to grab my buddies fin? Being an alert buddy, and in highly visable water, he would have seen me heading back? What if the struggling guy had been unable to breath and that few seconds was too long? Should the guy of aborted the dive at that time? Because of the tank? Because of his buddy? Would you have said something to the guys buddy after the dive? The guy did thank me after the dive and the four of us talked briefly about it. The guys buddy said he was unaware of the tank comming out.

Nick

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Don't have much "second guesses" to supply about your etiquette questions, but will say this tank issue happened to my wife 20 years ago when deep diving at Catalina. We were using steel tanks and adjusted them as tight as we normally do with the single strap on a BC. Near the bottom of a 95' dive her tank just dropped down through the strap and started to sink. Luckily I caught it and was able to reset it.

Some say to wet the strap and retighten on the surface since it stretches when wet and can loosen. (I have had poor luck with this method.) I've seen some people use the tank locator strap on the BC as a "safety" around the valve, but I don't. I use a mesh tank protector and have 2 straps on my BC instead of one strap as many BC's use and seem to have no problems with tank slip anymore. I solo dive sometimes and can't afford problems like this. A company advertising in Dive Training magazine makes some spring loaded tank straps for $75 each that is supposed to help. It is no fun diving when your tank comes loose.

 

[DartRay]

...You didn't panic, you assessed, you
acted, not just REACTED, and you did damn well!!

Two cents woth.

Allways tell your buddy when you are about to go off in another direction. Not only for your saftey but hers/his

Thats that training part. Why did he not connect with his Buddy? Why when they got in the water did his buddy not notice the tank slideing out ?. Had he been struggling you may have wanted the two of you there to calm it down a notch or two anyhow.

I would have forsure. Thats me though.

The other buddy was not aware because he was not a buddy at all.

You did it all the right way.

Cheers
Derek

You know it's funny, I was diving with someone who was supposed to be
my buddy and was notoriously left. I got told I should've gotten their
attention before stopping to look at something (which btw, we all stopped
to look at) OR STOPPING TO CLEAR MY MASK!!! Glad to know I wasn't the
only one trained that a buddy is someone who watches out for you and
you for them.

My new rule of thumb is to make sure that the new person I'm diving with
has the same definition of buddy as I do....We make sure we know where
each other is, you take a heading when you start off, if you get separated,
you first go back where you came from, and that our hand signals match
under water. Its ok, IMHO, to be a few feet away, but if suddenly, in
very turbid 10' vis water, they've disappeared w/out a trace (TWICE!),
something is seriously wrong. When the vis is good, I do kinda drift off
a little, MAYBE 15', but when the vis is bad, I make sure I can see my
buddy at ALL times and I keep double checking to make sure that I can
see them. But I do expect them to do the same thing, not leave me if
we're all peaking into a crevices on a rock or I have to stop and clear
my mask!

It sounds like you'd be my kind of buddy, MR. Nice Guy.
I'd dive with ya'!
Again, job well done.

 

[Squalus]

You did the right thing, I would have done the same thing. However, I probably would have said something to his buddy for not being close to help him out. On looking at some of the diving accidents/incidences that have occured, I have noticed that some (out of speculation), the buddy was not even close enough to help when needed(I may be wrong but, I call it the way I see it).