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

[NauticalbutNice]

Well don't know if mine's so bad...but may as well pitch it in!

Was on a deepish dive with my buddy, and it was about my 10-15th dive. We were diving a wall at around 25m, nice dive. So what was my problem? I was pretty much in a state of major unease for the entire dive. I mean I hyperventilated my way through most of my tank, thinking I was about to descend into the abyss (wall goes down to about 70m) and die at any moment. AND AT NO POINT DID THE IDEA THAT I COULD CALL THE DIVE PASS THROUGH MY TINY BRAIN! Why not? Well how could I spoil my buddy's dive. I never even let the poor guy know I was having a crap dive.

*slaps self on forehead*

I have been a peer pressure dumbass. I know it. I've learned from it. Hope this helps y'all learn from it too!

Nauticalbutnice :fruit:

 

[brannanjoe]

My dive instructor taught me (some 250 dives ago) that the "best dive you ever take is the one you skip because it doesn't feel right". I've applied that sentiment more than once and will do it again. God grant me enough sense to follow my instincts.

thanks for the post....never hurts to remember that we are all mortal

 

[DandyDon]

I'm late here - sorry. :blush:

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.

OMGosh, yeah - I forgot to spit hard candy out of my mouth once. Those things do not breathe well at all. I did manage to hold my reg in my mouth, cough it up, spit it it out, and get the reg back in and purged without killing myself. Jeeze, I can't believe an Instructor suggested that?! :11: But some shouldn't be it seems.

I have a long list of other blunders survived, some quite infamous on this board.

Santa I have no desire to chastise you here, but I do want to offer that you had way too many new experiences planned at once. A 131 foot/40 meter dive on Nitrox without Nitrox certification is the one that screams at me the loudest! I do hope you were on a low O2 Mix, and that that was the sand bottom depth. Narcosis varies from dive to dive, and I missed a depth planned on Nitrox once going much deeper than planned on a bottomless wall. Scary! Indeed, I caught a lot of flake on that one - here with an audience, not on the trip. No one ever asked me if I switched to my air filled pony beyond 1.6 MOD, they just ragged me. I'm glad that folks have been kinder here to you, but then - they should be.

I'm in TDI training now. Suggest you spend the Krones and time to get trained on Nitrox and maybe Dry suits.

 

[FFMDiver]

This took real guts, it must have been a very harrowing experience, bravo.

- The dive where I rescued a diver who had gotten wrapped up in fishing line. He started sinking along a wall and I went after him, not thinking about anything except catching up with him. The incident started at 40 metres and we were so deep, and I was so narced by the time we caught him that I couldn't comprehend the numbers on my gauges and I had trouble thinking about what to do next. All three of us got out of that alive but it was flip of the coin and for the same money all three of us could have ended up dead. The thing I most vividly remember about being down there was my buddy franticly signing to ascend and me thinking "dude, what's your problem?". That was bad.

 

[Santa]

Santa I have no desire to chastise you here, but I do want to offer that you had way too many new experiences planned at once. A 131 foot/40 meter dive on Nitrox without Nitrox certification is the one that screams at me the loudest! I do hope you were on a low O2 Mix, and that that was the sand bottom depth. Narcosis varies from dive to dive, and I missed a depth planned on Nitrox once going much deeper than planned on a bottomless wall. Scary! Indeed, I caught a lot of flake on that one - here with an audience, not on the trip. No one ever asked me if I switched to my air filled pony beyond 1.6 MOD, they just ragged me. I'm glad that folks have been kinder here to you, but then - they should be.

It was the wreck of a russian sub resting on sandbottom in a low-current environment - the mix we did was conservative and all emergency deco plans sound - but still I agree it was all just way, way over the top.

This board can be great for expanding ones' perspective on diving. As you mentioned, ever so often in real life situations, things aren't really commented on but tends to slide a bit.

To err is human. Flaming people for it is assuming that they lack the capacity to reflect and learn - and therefore arrogant. It expresses lack of belief in people, the power of ones own arguments and bars the constructive Sincere Worry that I feel you express.

People will make bad or even stupid calls that need to be contemplated, addressed and learned from in a proper, respectful way. This post, if not this site, in my mind, should be a forum for that - not a place where you get to feel significant by leaning on those who at least strives for honesty.


My take is: Don't respect the mistake. Respect a persons potential to wise up and do better.



Sincerely Santa

 

[FreeFloat]

I'm only posting this because this is a requested "no-flame" thread.

Once upon a time.

I met a new potential buddy online and we chatted for a bit and figured we wanted to go diving, check each other out. We carpooled up along the St.Lawrence River in Ontario (since it was local to us) headed for a nice easy shore dive site. However enroute, we got to comparing (dive) notes and realized we got a kick out of the same kinds of dives. Somewhere along the way the plan changed to include Lock 21.

Lock 21 is up near the Lost Villages which were flooded to create the seaway. This is an area of stiff and variable current and typically low viz.

So here we have:
1. new unfamiliar buddy
2. stiff current
3. low vis
4. on the edge of a commercial shipping channel (the St.Lawrence Seaway)

Moreover, as I had been transitioning to double tanks for a bit, this new buddy was loaning me his double steel 72s.

5. unfamiliar gear

And I had dived the site before, but only with other buddies who were intensely familiar with it.

6. relatively unfamiliar site; buddy's never been there either

Oh yeah and I'm wearing my drysuit which I still had less than 20 dives on at the time, if memory serves.

7. more unfamiliar gear

So we gear up and go over the plan. There's a buoy you can swim to that marks the upstream edge of the lock face, and several permanent lines at various points along the weir and leading to the downstream exit. But the last time I had dived the site, my (knowledgeable) buddies had decided to enter at the downstream end, pull-and-grab along the weir bottom til we reached the lock face, then drift back downstream again afterwards for the exit. This plan seemed to work very well, so that is what we would do.

We get in the water and I discover I need just a bit more weight. We get out, I add weight, we get back in. We descend into a rather stiff current (hm, the river's "up") and begin our trek down to the weir. We're following the permanent guideline and all is good.

What's this? The end of the guideline? And no sign of the one that parallels the weir's edge. Well, no problem, we'll just pull upstream til we hit the lock face.

8. the dive site differs from plan

We begin the pull and glide, buddy gamely following me (I'm leading, of course, because buddy's never been to this site) I check my SPGs and switch regs. Oh, I forgot to mention these doubles were not manifolded, so they're breathed like sidemount tanks, switching from one to the other tank every so often to use the gas evenly.

9. less known gear configuration requiring additional task loading

We continue pulling and grabbing as the current seems to slack off. In fact, it's almost still. Odd, because at the foot of the lock face are three huge sluice gates that divers like to shoot through, so we should be feeling strong currents. Uh oh, not the current's pushing me! Quick, check the compass - uh oh, it's swinging to point at every piece of metal or iron rebar buried in this place.

10. Lost!

I see something up ahead - a dark blurry shape in the murk. I swim over. It's a wall. Phew. Okay, follow this upstream. Swimming, swimming... it STOPS. What the heck? I turn to look at buddy - he's showing me his SPG. It's somewhat less than 1000 psi!

11. buddy running out of gas.

And I check mine and realize I missed a gas switch along the way. I switch over to the other tank but they're a bit uneven now. Mind you that's minor. We have to figure out where we are. Currents are swirling and there's no wall or reliable visual reference, and my compass is useless. I think about the current, the low vis, the shipping channel just to the south of us. And the fact that we dived off what used o be mainland but is now an island, after the flooding decades ago.

12. we dived off an island, so we don't want to drift away

Drifting downstream off an island in a current is not my idea of a good time. Buddy shows me his guage again. It's looking much closer to 500 psi now. (we're at about 35') I offer him one of my regs; after checking my guages, he declines just yet. I contemplate for oment, then clearly signal to him that I'm lost, and that our best bet is a free ascent, but that I wanted us to hang onto each other just in case, to prevent separation in the current. Reluctantly, he agrees.

We started our ascent, sure enough starting to be carried downstream as we left the bottom. At roughly the same time as each other, we both spotted a slope of ground and pointed it out - we swam hard back to the upslope which could only be part of the island! We pulled and grabbed our way up the slope, staying low and out of the worst of the current, until we were to the edge of the water and able to stand up.

We emerged about 4' from where we had gone in.

Afterwards, I discussed the dive with my buddy and admitted that I had gotten very very worried down there when everything started to more or less pile up. "I know", he said, "I saw your big eyes. But you were still thinking things through, you didn't panic. I'd dive with you anytime, anywhere."




Although, that doesn't mean I'd stack the deck against myself that way again. And I haven't.

 

[Santa]

Great story. Thanks.

 

[JMD123]

During my advanced open water we went to a wreck. The dive plan was to observe it from the outside. I love wrecks from the outside. The idea of penatrating has never been one that Im comfortable with. So the im on this dive with an instructur in Cancun. Its me the instructor and one other dude who has already demenstrated bad judgment by giving the finger to a local boat who he thought drove to close to us. But that is a different story. So we get down to the wreck and the dm slips in side of it and than pops out and waves us in. I give him the single finger shake sayin I dont think so. He waves me in again. So I figure he is an instructor Im fine. I move in. Once in my first thought was silt. Im not wreck certified so now Im guessing at things I should be checking. I check and there is no silt. There is a strong current to take it all out. We go in to one room make a right than a left than move down a level there are openings cut out of the wreck but not big enough to get through. At this point I get really mad at myself. I can not believe I let myself get into this situation. Im this is text book MORON behavior. All the articles I reads about people getting lurred into wrecks and drown. So I come up with a plan. I signal the instructor that I was down to 700 PSI eventhough I till had 1700. I wanted out. It worked. He showed me the way out. I belive that in diving if you get in to trouble its your resposibilty to get yourself out. If your dive buddy helps you well great but ultimatley its on you and I put my life right in to this instructors hands.... DUMB DUMB DUMB.

 

[DandyDon]

So I come up with a plan. I signal the instructor that I was down to 700 PSI eventhough I till had 1700. I wanted out. It worked. He showed me the way out. I belive that in diving if you get in to trouble its your resposibilty to get yourself out. If your dive buddy helps you well great but ultimatley its on you and I put my life right in to this instructors hands.... DUMB DUMB DUMB.

Great escape plan - love it!

 

[getwet2]

Two Instructors ( We'll call them A & B )
One OW student
One Cert. AOW = Me

Instructor "A", a friend, who had just started with the dive op, does the briefing and explains that the student will stay with her and that I will be with instructor "B" for my dive, we all agree. The dive site, which instructor "A" has only been to once before, isn't too deep, maybe 30' - 40', sandy bottom and some nice coral heads. I think OK, no problem, I've never been to this site before but instructor "B" has and the seas are calm with good vis. Instructor "B" doesn't speak very good English but I'd been diving with him a few times earlier in my trip and had no problems with him.

Anyway, we gear up and instructor "B" rolls in, I'm right behind him. Instrustor "A" and the student are doing their thing. We get to the bottom and instructor "B" is pointing at me and then pointing up, I think he's trying to tell me to look up at the other divers so I look up and don't see anything going on so I look back at him and shrug my shoulders to indicate I don't know what he's trying to say. He indicates never mind and for me to follow him, so off we go.

We're going along looking at the nice coral and fish and we come to what looks to me like a large "swim through". Instructor "B" looks and asks me to follow along, I agree. We go in and I'm looking around, not much in there, a few fish, I'm looking out through the openings above at the nice view thinking "it sure would be nice to have a camera right about now." Oh BTW, one small thing I should point out, these openings that are very nice to look out of, well...... they're not quite big enough to get out of if you needed to but I'm following along like all good little sheep do, right behind the leader. We come to a corner and turn, another corner and turn, things are getting smaller, then it's opening up again and I think we're coming to the exit, we're not, we get to the end and have to turn around because that's the only way we can go. We go back the same way we came, all the way back out. We finish our dive.

When we get back on the boat I ask him where the heck was he going and what was he trying to tell me at the beginning of the dive. He says that he was trying to tell me to go back up and stay with the other divers. He then said that he had come across this "SWIM THROUGH", (I would classify it as a "CAVE") on another dive and he wanted to check it out but wasn't sure if I should go with him.

Well at this point I'm not too happy with him or myself for that matter for trusting that he knew where he was going, I never would have thought that an instructor would do something like this. His rational was that he had seen that I was a good diver and had good buoyancy control so I wouldn't have a problem with it. I told him that it would have been nice if he had mentioned this "SWIM THROUGH" before hand plus the small fact that he had never been through it before and let me decide if I wanted to go in. He appologized and agreed that it wasn't the best thing to do, that was the last time I did a dive with him. I talked to the other instructor and her husband about it over dinner and they both agreed that it wasn't very smart but she didn't know about the cave and had no idea that he was planning on going in it. Later on in the trip she said she had talked to instructor "B" about it and he really did realize his mistake. I decided to let it go.

Ya Ya I know, I could've just signalled to turn around but I didn't, why? Well................... At the time, I really did think it was a swim through and that he knew where he was going, the bottom wasn't getting stirred up and there wasn't any question about which way to turn when you came to a corner plus hind sight is 20/20. Would I do it again if I was to go back to that dive site even with knowing what I do now about it.........NO! Why? Simply because I don't think it is a smart thing to do, I'm not trained for it and I don't have the right gear for it.

On the first dive of this trip, with a different local DM, I had declined to go through another swim through (this one was an actual swim through) for the simple fact that, IMHO it was too small to go through, you'd be bumping into everything along the way and damaging it as well as scraping your gear as you went. The others divers went though (my supposed buddy as well) and sure enough they all bumped and clanged into everything as they went in. I went over the top and met up with them on the other side, that was the first and last time I had that buddy.

Did I learn anything from this YES...........
Don't put too much trust in a buddy you don't really know, even if it's an instructor.
You are going to make poor decision's from time to time even if you think you won't.
If you realize you've probably made the wrong choice, don't panic.