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Cute - I think that your dive insurance company might be willing to pay for the lead. I know that DAN will pay for dive equipment lost in a diving accident.jlayman800:
The 'snowball' effect
- Thread starter Hammerhead
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Man what a harrowing deal. Definitely hits my paranoia-nerve. Must have been a pretty damn sweet-tasting cup of chocolate ;o)
I had a partially runaway ascent at Elfinstone in the red sea from 22 metres, after a deep dive to 47 metres - because we we're fiddling with my buddys camera and reg in a low air situation (We'd done negative entry and swimming descent and he'd spent a, for him, very unusual amount of air negotiating the currents with his camera that - in retrospect we should have never brought).
My eye was off the gauge for a few seconds and off we went withóut even noticing. Still don't know whether we caught an upcurrent or if it was just the result of all our horsing around.
When you're in the blue and drifting things just change so fast it's scary.
Like you we got off with a warning. But its sucks big time.
Glad you're okay
Sincerely
I had a partially runaway ascent at Elfinstone in the red sea from 22 metres, after a deep dive to 47 metres - because we we're fiddling with my buddys camera and reg in a low air situation (We'd done negative entry and swimming descent and he'd spent a, for him, very unusual amount of air negotiating the currents with his camera that - in retrospect we should have never brought).
My eye was off the gauge for a few seconds and off we went withóut even noticing. Still don't know whether we caught an upcurrent or if it was just the result of all our horsing around.
When you're in the blue and drifting things just change so fast it's scary.
Like you we got off with a warning. But its sucks big time.
Glad you're okay
Sincerely
slingshot:
Most of the time I don't carry lead. My rig is pretty heavy to begin with (I am not ditching two 130 cu ft. tanks with backplate and regs, LOL). If I have to be up there to wait for the boat, I do inflate the wing though
.
Moved from Accidents and Incidents to Near misses & Lessons Learned at thread starters request.
Zeeman
Contributor
That has to be one of the more fascinating dive stories i've read. As a newbie diver, it sure opens my eyes to some of the things that can go wrong. Glad you posted it, and glad you' both lived to tell the tale!
Z...
Z...
All I can say is "Well done"; you kept your cool and nobody panicked.
I have dived PG several times and know the site in question pretty well, in fact it's probably my favourite. The currents there certainly do rip along some, with up and down currents also present depending on the tide at the time of the dive, the vis can sometimes be a bit ropey too.
On a recent dive in the Maldives, me and the group I was with got caught by a really strong up current on one of the channel dives. Me and my buddy managed to cling on to the bottom but almost everybody else got blown up almost to the surface, I can still hear the symphony of computers as they disappeared (meep meep meep meep), most aborted the dive and luckily nobody got bent as it was still pretty early in the the dive.
Me and my buddy had to do spiderman impressions to try and traverse the current until it was going horizontal, we then let go for one of the most amazing drifts I have ever done with huge trevalley, tuna, schools of chevron barracuda, and all sorts of other interesting big stuff.
Our total dive time was 57 minutes and when we surfaced the boat was a speck in the distance, and we were in a shipping channel. Though we had four SMB between us (one orange and one yellow each), whistles, as well as strobes and heliographs, it still took us fifteen minutes to attract the attention of the boat.
I bought myself an air hammer from my LDS just as soon as I got home...that thing is loud enough to make your eyeballs bleed, so it ought to be able to attract the attention of the sleepiest boatman.
I have dived PG several times and know the site in question pretty well, in fact it's probably my favourite. The currents there certainly do rip along some, with up and down currents also present depending on the tide at the time of the dive, the vis can sometimes be a bit ropey too.
On a recent dive in the Maldives, me and the group I was with got caught by a really strong up current on one of the channel dives. Me and my buddy managed to cling on to the bottom but almost everybody else got blown up almost to the surface, I can still hear the symphony of computers as they disappeared (meep meep meep meep), most aborted the dive and luckily nobody got bent as it was still pretty early in the the dive.
Me and my buddy had to do spiderman impressions to try and traverse the current until it was going horizontal, we then let go for one of the most amazing drifts I have ever done with huge trevalley, tuna, schools of chevron barracuda, and all sorts of other interesting big stuff.
Our total dive time was 57 minutes and when we surfaced the boat was a speck in the distance, and we were in a shipping channel. Though we had four SMB between us (one orange and one yellow each), whistles, as well as strobes and heliographs, it still took us fifteen minutes to attract the attention of the boat.
I bought myself an air hammer from my LDS just as soon as I got home...that thing is loud enough to make your eyeballs bleed, so it ought to be able to attract the attention of the sleepiest boatman.
DumagueteGuy
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Thanks for posting this, an eye opener for sure.
Great story. I'd like to think that I would handle a situation such as that as calmly as you did. I'm sure we'd all like to think we watch our gagues enough to avoid situations like this, but the fact is "enough" is relative to the conditions and the diver.
OP
Hammerhead
Contributor
I'm still here btw, and will be diving that exact same dive next Friday! 
2 years late, but I can still answer. No typo at all, we were worried about nitrogen - I know, I know, we were on Nitrox, but we'd been so deep that we really weren't sure what to do.
Basically we communicated by sign language that we'd stay at 5m until both tanks were almost completely dead, and use the last couple of breaths to make the surface, hence we both had empty tanks when we got there, miles away from where we were supposed to be.
Still sends a shiver down my spine...could have gone much further wrong so easily.
2 years late, but I can still answer. No typo at all, we were worried about nitrogen - I know, I know, we were on Nitrox, but we'd been so deep that we really weren't sure what to do.
Basically we communicated by sign language that we'd stay at 5m until both tanks were almost completely dead, and use the last couple of breaths to make the surface, hence we both had empty tanks when we got there, miles away from where we were supposed to be.
Still sends a shiver down my spine...could have gone much further wrong so easily.
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