The RIGHT thing to do in a blackout.

[rameus]

As already mentioned (and PADI teaches us: stop - breathe - think - act)
stop: don't make your situation worse and just "relax" for a moment
breathe: get your normal breath back since when you notice you will most likely get nervous and your breathing-frequency will go up --> less air
think: if conditions like the thermoclines are already known in advance the visibility will most likely be, too. so you discussed this before the dive and the normal procedure is (in case of very low visibility) a slow ascend (with the safety stop) and then wait for your buddy. DON'T search for him in that case since you will only get lost or make the situation worse... and maybe he already started his ascent.
act: do what you remember from your briefing or what you figured out for yourself (should be the same as you heard in the briefing ;-))

Thomas

 

[fnfalman]

Assuming that I've already established neutral buoyancy or damn close to it before the silt-out happened, I'd just relax for a moment, breath in a bit deeper than usual to initial the ascend process. Do loss buddy procedure. Keep on truckin'.

 

[Frosty]

Hopefully (knowing the risks at a particular dive location) my buddy and I will have established a protocol for that eventuality.

Nail--HEAD --Goodonya mate
Thats exactly why I started this thread.

 

[gbray]

I had a similar situation 2 weeks ago. A buddy and I drove a couple hours to get to a quarry. It had recently rained and vis was not good to start with. We wanted to go to 80 feet to see a tractor trailer. At 77 feet vis suddenly went to about 1 inch. the only way I knew I was at the truck was I felt the lights on the cab as I stopped descending. I lost all contact with my buddy who is actually very good at staying close and in sight. It is always unnerving when the lights go out. My 440 lumen light would not penetrate the blackness. The first thing I did was to slow my breathing down. The next thing I did was to listen for my buddy's breathing to know if he was still near me. I have learned if you are quiet in 0 vis you can sometimes hear your buddy's bubbles from their heavy breathing. I did not hear anything so I started a slow ascent. At about 50 feet vis cleared to about 2 foot, enough to see my buddy,s fin tip above me. we reconnected at about 20 feet where visibilty cleared to a whopping 4 feet. We continued the dive at 20 feet for another 45 minutes. Never did see the truck but I did get to feel it. The water temp was 40 degrees F at 80 feet.

0 visibllity is manageable if you just don't panic. It is the same water with the same buoyancy characteristics, just a little more stressful. I don't necessarily like cold dark water but in the midwest it is either that or don't dive (and the don't dive part is NOT an option).

 

[Frosty]

Hey thanks a million folks. Its fantastic to be able to bounce ideas off of people with a truck load more experience than us.
The senario outlined is a definite strong possibility at one site we dive at if we choose to go out to the deeper water (beyond 60 feet) We discussed a plan should this senario happen but I thought hey why not use the brains trust in case theres something we hadn't thought of.

 

[Chris874]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance here, haven't been in the water for about 3 years, I'm going to redo my certification and so have been reading many of these threads as a refresher.

My question, why wouldn't one establish a couple of simple audible signals for an event where a lost buddy may happen do to visibility, i.e. 5 quick taps on my tank means 'I've lost you start to end the dive.', with maybe a two or three quick tap acknowledgement. Kind of like Morse code.

I know sound direction cannot be determined under water, at least not by humans, but the audible gives one piece of mind and lets the other person know that we have a problem but we are dealing with it.

Short of that, and please correct me here if this is totally the wrong thing to do, assuming I have plenty of air/time, I would ascend until I hopefully had a bit of visibility and could hopefully see a bubble stream of my buddy, I would then swim over to this and try to slowly descend down the bubble stream to re-establish contact.

 

[Some X Dry]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance here, haven't been in the water for about 3 years, I'm going to redo my certification and so have been reading many of these threads as a refresher.

My question, why wouldn't one establish a couple of simple audible signals for an event where a lost buddy may happen do to visibility, i.e. 5 quick taps on my tank means 'I've lost you start to end the dive.', with maybe a two or three quick tap acknowledgement. Kind of like Morse code.

I know sound direction cannot be determined under water, at least not by humans, but the audible gives one piece of mind and lets the other person know that we have a problem but we are dealing with it.

Short of that, and please correct me here if this is totally the wrong thing to do, assuming I have plenty of air/time, I would ascend until I hopefully had a bit of visibility and could hopefully see a bubble stream of my buddy, I would then swim over to this and try to slowly descend down the bubble stream to re-establish contact.

I see nothing wrong with your idea of tank banging to relay intention or info. As long as it is practiced and understood as part of the dive plan by all involved. You must remember that adding steps to a plan though increases task loading during a possibly stressful event.
Try and keep things as simple as reasonably possible.

Following a bubble stream down to regain contact has a lot of variables. In that case I would wait in clear water until my buddy/team ascended to me. Again though as long as the idea was discussed as part of what-ifs of a dive plan.

 

[Quero]

A pre-arranged signal as part of your dive plan is fine. And if you use it, then you won't have to follow the bubble stream down--your buddy will also ascend and you can meet in the water above the silt cloud. I would advise not descending into the silty water again but rather would recommend waiting at the bubble stream for your buddy to ascend and meet you.

 

[ianr33]

Hey thanks a million folks. Its fantastic to be able to bounce ideas off of people with a truck load more experience than us.
The senario outlined is a definite strong possibility at one site we dive at if we choose to go out to the deeper water (beyond 60 feet) We discussed a plan should this senario happen but I thought hey why not use the brains trust in case theres something we hadn't thought of.

Our local lake has some similarities to what you describe. At 100 feet or so it has no natural light,thick silt,often very bad viz and the added benefit of large trees to get tangled up in.
IMHO it is not an appropriate place for regular OW gear. In zero viz,or effectively zero viz you are solo diving. Have a gear problem, maybe a reg freeflows due to getting silt/sticks in it, and you are going to be lucky to survive it.

At the very least would suggest diving with a pony,and know how to use it.

A line is a great comfort in zero viz. I much prefer following a line back to doing a free ascent. Less chance of colliding with a boat that way!

 

[DaleC]

I'm a little confused?
Are we talking about visual distortion caused by a thermocline mixing or a silt out?
The thermocline mixing is easily avoided by either ascending or descending a couple of feet. No need for elaborate responses.
I've found lake siltouts are best dealt with by continuing to travel through them. Usually they are localized and once past the disturbance, vis returns to whatever it was. Lakes usually don't have much in the way of currents/tides so silt generally doesn't spread that much, that fast. Staying in a lake siltout and shooting bags etc... seems like self imposed hardship to me.
In either case, good lights are very helpful for buddy reestablishment and should not be underestimated for lakes. If one still can't find the buddy then the SOP agreed upon pre dive should come into play.

If you're talking plain old bad vis then you should either plan ahead or rise up out of it and reassess. I've done solo dives where I've had to put my hand out in front of me to ward off any tree branches etc... it's doable when that's your intention but not for the faint of heart. I've also done buddy dives where, shoulder to shoulder, we could only see vague outlines of each other and only maintained contact by touch and by pointing our lights ahead and towards center. Both were done by divers who were experienced and very comfortable with being self reliant. I would never suggest such dives to someone who wasn't. It's a different kind of diving.

In this shot the diver (me) is about 10' away from the camera. The light is a powerful communication/contact tool in these conditions. I wouldn't even consider this particularily bad vis personally.