Terrible dive today!Opinions?

[chasanova]

DTR-
I was glad to see your last post just above, and the recognition that your knowledge of DCI risk (with the profile you dived in particular) was woefully lacking and caused you considerable undue anxiety. Keep diving. ina conscious and controlled way. You should consider incorporating practice drills into your diving routine. Keep reading and keep asking questions and keep remembering that your goal is to increase your knowledge and experience.
Everyone has different tolerences for risk. Understand where you fit in that picture and make your choices accordingly.
Enjoy!

 

[DivetheRock]

chasanova, thanks for the advice. I feel I was insufficiently schooled in DCI during my OW course. It was a great course overall, and I had an excellent instructor, but DCI theory was sadly lacking. They should at least teach it sufficienty enough so as to ease any anxiety (as I was plagued with), if not to save lives.
However, through great learning tools , such as this board, I'm gradually learning what I need to for my level of diving.

 

[mm777]

It may sound over simple, but since I don't have hundreds of dives under my belt I spend a lot of time "messing" with my gear. Lots of times I'll get all my gear on (except tank) and then just walk around and imagine various scenarios (problems) in my mind and do visualizations of my planned reactions. I get comfortable with my equpment and completely familiar with where every gauge, buckle, clip and release is. Sometimes I do it at night with little or no lighting. And, I spend a lot of time with my computer, I want to know all the modes without having to think about it too much. It's paid off on several occasions. Works for me.

 

[IceIce]

The safety stop that I prefer is the multi level dive when the last 15 minutes or so is to be done at around 5 meter depth and then we surface.

OW, I was taught to hang in the blue for 5 minutes, so the first time I did the multi level dive I was not at ease, I kept signalling to the DM something means 'I have 500 bar left, can we do the safety stop please?' while we were actually in 3-5 meter depth.
The DM signalled 'OK', but he didn't stop and hang-out, but going around to enjoy. I signalled him again,'Safety stop? I'm LOW on air.' He shrugged his shoulder.

I thought he was a bad DM to ignore me requesting for safety stop when I hit 50 bar. Now that I know..

But it's always a good thing for new diver to be extra cautious and remember their training. For you, I guess it's a sign that you are going to be a responsible and cautious diver. We never stop learning.

 

[Desert Pirate]

Hey guys, Im new to this forum, but am impressed, I believe there is nothing better to help recognize when something is going wrong than talking about what has. youre dive profile lookes ok, The fact you didnt keep track of distance, or a real good track of how long you did things is a lil spooky, but what really got my attn was that you had ascended about 15 feet without knowing it in a somewhat controlled manner.... fact is... no you didnt. if you had, youd have know it. 15 feet isnt a big deal, but its good to be conscious of this, had you gone further you could have run into some lung expansion problems. Also, besides what some other posts have said, dont blow off your saftey stops, they might not be life or death sometimes, but you wont know until its too late. plan your dive out so you have enough air to complete them, or do them and suffer the surface swim. It sounds like your recognizing the problems which is a huge step to keeping them from reoccuring.
Dive Safe
Clay

 

[DivingCRNA]

Well, today my brother and I went for a dive. Here's how it went, and how it is playing on my mind.
We swam out from shore on the surface. I was using my snorkel, and accidentally hit my reg on the water. It started to forcefully hiss out air. I checked the SPG, and the PSI read ~2500 (there was ~2700 to begin, and I coudln't reach my reg quick enough, hence the large decrease).
We reached a point from surface at which we descended to ~20 feet (I believe). I played around with my camera for a couple mins.

I do not think that anyone has brought this up. If you are having difficulty with a somewhat straightforward 40 foot dive, maybe you should leave the camera at home. It sounds like photography is task loading you too heavily. Just get used to diving, then worry about a camera.