Trip Report: Scuba Club Cozumel

[ewong]

Just finished putting together my trip report to Cozumel:

http://purpleink.us/blogs/eddy.html

I was there last month. The diving was great and I got my Nitrox certification.
Details in the report ...

Cheers,


Eddy.

 

[Scott101]

Great report and beautiful pics......but I do have to wonder about allowing yourself to go into deco, run out of air and then only do half the reccomended stop for a sea horse.

 

[rottielover]

WOW!!!

I'm so excited now. My wife and I are booked on our LDS's Trip to Scuba Club Cozumel in October, We'll be there for the week....

I'm a little nervous about the travel, I've only been on airplanes for 2 business trips so far, and my wife has never flown in her life. Neither of us have ever taken any scuba equipment onto an airplane before, so that's a little scary....

But after reading your report and seeing your pic's, I'm sure it will all be worth it!

 

[ewong]

I wondered about that too, but I my buddy was an instructor. That day, my first dive was 95ft max, 50 min surface interval, second dive was 60ft. We pass the limit of 45 min limit by about 8 min. What should the safety stop be? We spent 11 mins for safety stop.


Eddy.

 

[Damselfish]

I wondered about that too, but I my buddy was an instructor. That day, my first dive was 95ft max, 50 min surface interval, second dive was 60ft. We pass the limit of 45 min limit by about 8 min. What should the safety stop be? We spent 11 mins for safety stop.
Eddy.

Very nice pics! But there will always be another seahorse, really!

You were right to be wondering about it. This tells you that just because your buddy is an instructor not to blindly follow when you see something you know is wrong. Unfortunately some instructors and divemasters aren't immune from doing dumb things.

Did you let your instructor/buddy know you were low on air/time and did you signal that you wanted to go up? I can see this situation would have been hard if the instructor was your buddy and still wouldn't go up even if it meant taking the group, or at the very least send up pairs of people that needed to go. I wasn't there so I can't know the whole situation, but if I was getting anywhere near deco and low on air (not that I would do that to begin with) I would probably be heading up myself if they wouldn't. I know, coz, current, boat traffic, sticking with the group - there may have been issues with that too. Not that going by yourself is good either, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

If what you said was accurate, you were on a deco stop, not a safety stop. A safety stop (typically 3-5 minutes between 10-20 feet) is optional but good practice to increase your margain of safety. A deco stop is required. If you are diving a computer and it is telling you you have a deco stop, you should do it for as long as it says, at the depth that it tells you. And you need to plan to have enough air to do whatever stops are needed, plus some. This is something you should really have more experience and training for, at your current level you should not be pushing your computer to the point of requiring a deco stop at all. If you are going to dive a computer you should read your computer manual and make sure you understand this all really well.

 

[HammerNoMore]

At about 55 ft and 55 minutes into the dive we found a sea horse. I was already running out of air and my dive computer was telling me that I was getting into decompression.

This would be the proper time to thumb the dive.

This is what nitrox comes into play, unfortunately, that day I was using air because I was planning to do only two dives.

Actually not. Nitrox would not have helped this situation one bit. You were LOA. In fact considering that you were willing to use other people air to continue your dive nitrox would have put you at more risk since your computer would have assumed you were diving your mix the entire dive and not another person's mix. The deco and O2 data on your computer would have been worthless from that point on.

Since this was my last dive and were in a group of four people, we went for it.

This kind of thinking gets people killed.

We checked our air and some people in the group had spare air to share.

So you continued a dive even though you were nearing deco and LOA assuming you could "borrow" air from others?

At 20 ft and 2 minutes into the safety stop, I ran out of air. I started to share air with Sofia, who was also in our group. She still had 1000 psi! We spent about 11 minutes on the safety stop, but still my dive computer was saying that I needed 10 more minutes of decompression. In the end, we ended the dive with no problems and that last seahorse was worth it

.

In summary:

1. Continued a dive when all your data indicated it should be called.
2. Went into a decompression obligation unplanned, unprepaired and without the necissary air to complete it.
3. Ran out of air.
4. Omitied required decompression.

I must not be into this diving thing enough. I'm not willing to trade my life for a shot of a seahorse.

I wondered about that too, but I my buddy was an instructor.

Would you have followed this instructor off a cliff?

That day, my first dive was 95ft max, 50 min surface interval, second dive was 60ft. We pass the limit of 45 min limit by about 8 min. What should the safety stop be? We spent 11 mins for safety stop.

That wasn't a safety stop it was a required decompression. There is a big difference between the two.

James

 

[Christi]

Just finished putting together my trip report to Cozumel:

http://purpleink.us/blogs/eddy.html

I was there last month. The diving was great and I got my Nitrox certification.
Details in the report ...

Cheers,


Eddy.

I hope I don't come across too harsh here, but you are very lucky there were no serious consequences from your diving behavior and lack of following basic safety protocol. Allowing yourself to go into 22 minutes of unplanned deco is really careless...and foolish...regardless of who you are buddied with. The fact that you continued your dive to the point where you didn't even have enough gas to satisfy your deco obligation is simply unnacceptable. This would have gotten you "voted off" most boats, including mine...last dive or not.

Damselfish and James covered it all well, but I will add that the dive profile you posted in your blog is another point you should pay closer attention to in the future. You're all over the place and this is a sawtooth profile if I've ever seen one. Another basic concept taught in OW training.

Your diving experience is not indicated anywhere, but based on your trip report, and subsequent comments in this thread, there are some basics that you've clearly forgotten and/or don't have a clear understanding of. I'm also not sure that you have a true understanding of the benefits of nitrox.

For your own safety, I would highly recommend that you review and understand the theories of basic OW procedures, your nitrox materials, and read and understand your computer manual. A dive computer is worthless if you don't understand how to read it and use it.

As for your instructor buddy, shame on him or her...he/she should know better and should never have allowed you to get to he point you did.

Dive safe please!

 

[sharky60]

Eddy,

Thanks for the trip report, I guess I can save the tongue lashing, everyone else has weighed in there and I get on my soapbox about safety enough here anyway.

I have a question about the "sea snake" you saw on the nightdive? I thought sea snakes were only found in the Pacific Rim, Indoneasia and the Indian Ocean, those parts of the world?

The head of the animal you took a pic of does look like a snake although I think it may be a type of eel if it is a sea creature and if it was a real snake, maybe just a land snake that ventured into the ocean, hey, it happens.

I've done some reasearch on the internet and can't find anything that says that they are found anywhere but the Pacific as they are thought to evolved from snakes from Australia. Maybe someone else can weigh in if they know better.

Personally, I'm still waiting to see one of the crocs or caymans that are venturing out into the ocean down there, but that's just me.

 

[Christi]

Eddy,

Thanks for the trip report, I guess I can save the tongue lashing, everyone else has weighed in there and I get on my soapbox about safety enough here anyway.

I have a question about the "sea snake" you saw on the nightdive? I thought sea snakes were only found in the Pacific Rim, Indoneasia and the Indian Ocean, those parts of the world?

The head of the animal you took a pic of does look like a snake although I think it may be a type of eel if it is a sea creature and if it was a real snake, maybe just a land snake that ventured into the ocean, hey, it happens.

I've done some reasearch on the internet and can't find anything that says that they are found anywhere but the Pacific as they are thought to evolved from snakes from Australia. Maybe someone else can weigh in if they know better.

Personally, I'm still waiting to see one of the crocs or caymans that are venturing out into the ocean down there, but that's just me.

Not a sea snake...we don't have sea snakes in Coz. his picture was of a sharp tailed eel.

 

[PlanoDvr1]

Eddy,
Wonderful and informative trip report, excellent pictures, just a great expression of what you saw and what you did.

I'm not one to point out what people do wrong so I won't, I was just very impressed w/ the pics and trip report.

Doug