The dive I went ahead with that I'd rather not talk about

[mongoose]

I doofed it on my first ocean dive trip. On my first dive, I had bouyancy issues. Had to thumb the dive & cut the dive short for the two guys I was diving with, that I met on the boat.

Second dive, still can't believe I did this, I went solo, so that I wouldn't blow anyone else's dive. Got down to 60 feet & realized... "You idiot! This is your second dive in the OCEAN and you have no one around if you get into trouble." I went shallow & found a class that I kind of hung with until time to go up.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

[Zeeman]

This is not really a biggy, but seeing as I'm a newbie, I have lots of mistake syet to make.

However, my first "fun" dive after being OW certified was in Vanuatu, into the "Cathedral", a great dive in itself, but there was also a group doing there advanced course, and the instructor told them they could equalize by eating candy as they descended. they decided to try this out with snakes. they offered me the snakes to try it too - though I missed the brief about breathing and eating and the part about keeping your mouth closed while you chew etc..

Well, I start to descentd, so do they, we pull out our snakes, regs out of mouths, start to chew.. and all of a sudden, I realise just how much you breathe while you eat. I was chewing sugar snakes and salt water, and it was all goign down the wrong way. Luckyily, the Ow training kicke din and I remembered to breathe out, put my reg back in and cough and breathe through the reg. Tragedy averted, and then I finished chewing my snake (with reg in). That day also gave me the confidence to trust my training and to trust myself to not panic when I was sucking water instead of air at 40 feet down.

Oh yeah, chewing on candy while descending is great for equalising.

Z...

 

[Diver0001]

Oh yeah, chewing on candy while descending is great for equalising.

It's also great for getting stuff in your reg that you don't want in there.

R..

 

[Charlie99]

My dumbest ever move was a snorkle, not a scuba dive. My nephew was doing his confined water work in a sandhole in the inner reef at Maui's Olowalu, aka MM14. Even though it was good 6-8' swells, I got bored and snorkeled out through the cut in the outer reef to see if there was any viz. This was after the iron stake marking the channel had disappeared. Once out, I couldn't find the cut through the reef. Everytime I approached the outer reef edge, all I could find is hard crashing breakers pounding on the reef. The depth changed abruptly from 30' to just a couple feet on the reef edge, and I couldn't see anyway to get in without getting pounded badly.

After 15 or 20 minutes of swimming back and forth looking for the channel back in, just a few feet from the zone where I'd get picked up and smashed on the reef, I gave up and started swimming north to where there is just the shallow inner reef and lots of broken coral.

I swam more than halfway up towards the next point before heading back inshore. Here the waves were breaking on the reef, but in a more controlled and predictable fashion. I rode/body surfed a wave over the top of the reef, landing in dead broken coral rubble on the shallow side. After that I just stood up, walked in, and hiked back up the beach. I managed to get away without a scratch, although getting pounding senseless was a fairly likely result if I had not timed it right.

It was scarier than anything I've ever experienced underwater before or after. It definitely renewed and restored my respect for the power of the ocean.

 

[verona]

I put it that most of us at one point or another went ahead with a dive, or did something stupid during one that we really, really shouldn't have - because of peer pressure, selfrightiousness, stubbornness, excessive zeal, poor judgment or whatever ...

How right you are. But these dives are fantastic learning tools, as long as you survive them!! Doesn't mean we should do them but at the least we should learn from them. Doing them without learning is unforgivable.

 

[Scuby Dooby]

I'll give one.

Went on a really booooorrrrrrrrinnnggggg night dive a few years back in puerto galera, philippines with a very young DM who had us as his 1st customers. All's well, but he didn't want us to go beyond a depth of about 15 feet. My buddy and I have a fair ammount of experience / bunch of C cards in our wallets / yada yada and really thought about just losing him but we decided to stick with him and not give him such a hassle for his 1st paid dive. After our 45min on the dot were up we surfaced into a current that was hard to realize at night with a dark shoreline and waited a few minutes for the boat to circle around and pick us up.

As it came around I dropped my flashlight and watched it float down. Thinking that we were still at about 15 / 20 ft. I just took my buddies flashlight and told him i'd go get it and be right back up. Little did I know that we had drifted a fair ways in the couple minutes we'd been on the surface. As I descended I kept going . . . and going . . . when i finally saw bottom i took a look at my spg and realized I was now in about 65' of water and it was obvious that we had drifted a bit. Of course, that meant that my flashlight wasn't right there, I thought for a few seconds and decided that i really didn't want to lose my $30 flashlight after such a crappy dive and since the bottom was flat sand i thought i'd have a decent chance of finding it. I began swimming into the current to find it and within about 3 - 5 minutes there it was, shining out from the sandy bottom.

I grabbed it, made an ascent and then a 3 min safety stop. After coming up 10 minutes later and probably a 1/4 mile off where the boat was I realized that it probably hadn't been the best idea in the world. The poor DM was well into crapping his pants because he'd 'lost' me and even my buddy was beginning to get a bit concerned because I'd been down so long.

I don't think this was the worst thing in the world - no emergencies or problems, i found my light and all turned out well, but it did make me realize a few things. Rash decisions don't belong when you are scuba diving. Even if something looks like no big deal it really doesn't pay to ignore the procedures you've been trained to follow. Lesson learned, I should have at least thought a bit more and made the descent with a buddy.

 

[Santa]

I doofed it on my first ocean dive trip. On my first dive, I had bouyancy issues. Had to thumb the dive & cut the dive short for the two guys I was diving with, that I met on the boat.

Second dive, still can't believe I did this, I went solo, so that I wouldn't blow anyone else's dive. Got down to 60 feet & realized... "You idiot! This is your second dive in the OCEAN and you have no one around if you get into trouble." I went shallow & found a class that I kind of hung with until time to go up.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

... but now a really useful lesson about the social pressures of diving. Thanks for posting.

 

[Santa]

these dives are fantastic learning tools, as long as you survive them!! Doesn't mean we should do them but at the least we should learn from them. Doing them without learning is unforgivable.

my point exactly

 

[Santa]

After 15 or 20 minutes of swimming back and forth looking for the channel back in, just a few feet from the zone where I'd get picked up and smashed on the reef, I gave up and started swimming north to where there is just the shallow inner reef and lots of broken coral.

It was scarier than anything I've ever experienced underwater before or after. It definitely renewed and restored my respect for the power of the ocean.

I know exactly what you mean. I've done a fair amount of boat channel entry snorkling too and I remember when I first realised how any narrow entry/exit point has that inherent danger - even for otherwise simple shore-dives. With reefs or rock especially if they're laid bare at low tide or if theres a strong coastal current. Never had an incident though. Just that sudden recognition of reality.


regards

 

[Santa]

I don't think this was the worst thing in the world - no emergencies or problems, i found my light and all turned out well, but it did make me realize a few things. Rash decisions don't belong when you are scuba diving. Even if something looks like no big deal it really doesn't pay to ignore the procedures you've been trained to follow. Lesson learned, I should have at least thought a bit more and made the descent with a buddy.

I will at times ascend a little too fast to catch a runaway student or new diver. I find that for me the difference lies in whether I truly recognise the nature of the increased risk that goes with a specific choice of action and the context in which its takes place. Then at least I can consider my possible counter-measures before committing.

But of course when there's no time it's just down to experience, reactions and, as you say, training.