Speaking of Drift Diving Incidents

[Reg Braithwaite]

Yesterday I drove out to Brockville to dive the Robert Gaskin and Lillie Parsons. I've dived both before, but I'm a new diver: these were my 47th and 48th dives. I was a walk-on, and I was on the boat with a group on a trip from Québec.

The first dive was the Gaskin.

After the briefing, the captain asked if anyone had questions. I raised my hand and mentioned that I needed a buddy. The DM for the group indicated that he had four advanced divers and I should dive with them, while he took the remainder who were less experienced.

Ok, so a group of five is not exactly a buddy team, what I did was note that the four were actually two couples, so I decided mentally to stay close to one couple. We gathered in the water on the mooring line, and when the five of us were ready, they waved me down to go first. I descended, looking back to see my buddy couple following. My system was to attach myself to whichever couple followed me first.

They signaled ok, and when we reached the bottom we waited, but no sign of the other couple or the rest of the group. After a while, the other two waved toward the wreck, so we set off as a threesome.

...blah blah, enjoyable dive with nice no-overhead penetration in 70F water...

We returned to the stern of the wreck, which is the downstream end. The mooring line is anchored to a block just downstream of this, and wouldn't you know it, we couldn't see it due to the area now being fully silted and all the silt flowing that way.

So I curse myself for not paying very close attention to navigating back to the mooring line. The other two are holding position, looking confused and shrugging. I take my SMB out, and they nod. Now, I considered a search for the mooring line, but at that moment I reasoned that an ascent with plenty of air in the pocket beats looking for the mooring line and falling back to Plan B with low air.

So I deploy the SMB, and--like the danger to life and limb that I am--am paying too much attention to reeling it in. Suddenly I am rocketing up. I blow the air out of my dry suit and my wing simultaneously, and drop back to 25', where I reel myself to 15' under better control. The other two have scended with me, and we drift down river together. I wait five minutes, then we surface together downstream of the boat.

A freighter cruises by some distance away, and I curse myself again: when ascending, I was looking UP, but not ALL AROUND ME. I was not navigating away from the shipping channel. I was told later that the boat was watching the SMB the whole way and the captain knew the freighter would not pass close to us, but *I* didn't know that so I am still cursing myself.

Anyhoo, the boat cruises down and picks us up, and I find out that the other couple were underweighted. Eschewing hand-over-hand down the line, they tried to swim down and were likewise carried downstream, but without the benefit of an SMB. The captain tells me he's very ok with my choice, but I'm left with the uncomfortable realization that I still have much to learn before I am reliably doing the right thing when something goes wrong.

Other criticisms/suggestions? What else can we learn from this? Should the captain have asked me to "step into my office with your C card and a match"?

 

[Ken abucs]

You survived, and you learned a few lessons, all-in-all a good dive.

1. Insta-buddy is only slightly better than no buddy at all.
2. Keep track of your exit point.
3. Practice deploying your SMB
4. Situational awareness during the ascent.

I've been on the Gaskin, currents are moderately strong, and you're in the middle of a fairly broad shipping channel. You really don't have much of a chance of getting out of the channel. All you can do is try to avoid the traffic.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

I thought you did remarkably well. The captain said he was fine with your decisions, so he probably was.

 

[TSandM]

I'll refer you to one of my all time favorite Scubaboard threads, HERE.

You appear to have done a nice job of managing a bad situation, but it's worth thinking about how the situation could have been avoided in the first place. When you came down the anchor line, and it wasn't on the wreck, you perhaps could have run a line to the wreck, to allow you to find the upline in reduced viz. (BTW, I learned this lesson by failing to do the same thing!) Of course, it might have been possible not to have so much silt stirred up, but sometimes it happens despite the best of skills and intentions.

You did well to keep the team together, and make a coordinated ascent, but you learned a lesson about the undesirability of free ascents in current with boat traffic. And you shared it, which is very cool, because we all get a chance to learn from your experiences without having to repeat them Oh, and kudos to you for having appropriate safety gear, and knowing how to use it!

 

[girlydiver]

My advice would be always check where you are when you enter the water and make a plan with your buddy's about where you will come up in the event you can't find the line. At the Gaskin there are actually two mooring lines to chose from. Even if you came up on the wrong one at least you would be on a line instead of doing a free ascent in waters you aren't familiar in. Secondly when using your "SMB" it is much easier to use it as a team. One person using the reel while the other fills it with air. You only need enough to make it rise slightly because it will soon take off to the surface. Before putting air in make sure the string is free of tangles and ready to roll and make sure it is not attached to you in any way so that if the string does snag you can just let it go. Hope this helps.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I say those are precisly the types of screw ups that motivate you to be a better diver. Just enought to scare you and be a little more careful to find the anchor line.

The feeling of being out of control with regard to bouyancy control and the navigation during the drifting ascent and the added stress from the ambiguity of an unspecified buddy team are all things that you have now learned to avoid.

I think everyone needs to get the crap scared out of them a few times to become a good diver.

Obviously you need practice in the smb deployment, but that is not a big deal. The other "stuff" were mental and tactical errors that I suspect you won't make again for a long while.