Michael Schlink:
What I have yet to hear or read is " I went to 95' and the s*@t hit the fan, but I fell back on my training and because I was properly equipped and prepared we worked through the problem and here I am."
Okay, how about these (some minor, one not so, but all based on our training and preparation, we're still here):
Event #1:
At 65', 10' vis, my air starts tasting really funny. Then my head starts pounding, I signal OOA and buddy whips out her Octo and sticks it in my face. I spit my reg out, grab hers and we call the dive.
1. We practice OOA drills and so there were no issues getting air when I needed it.
Event #2:
At 105', 15' vis, following a compass setting away from the wall. After 20 kick cycles, I only see barren wasteland of silt so I signal to turn around. Turn 180 and within a couple of kicks back we're silted out, less than 1' vis. No visual clues, but we're neutral and our depth isn't change. Remain calm, make a small navigational adjustment, and follow the compass heading through all of the silt till we reach the wall. Continue on our dive without any other issues.
1. Buoyancy was good so swimming in less than 1' vis, though nerve racking, wasn't going to cause to ascend or descend without our knowledge.
2. Practiced our navigational skills so we knew that they were trust worthy to not lead us astray (at least not by a few degrees).
Event #3:
Night dive, cruising the wall at 85', vis is 10'. Buddy grabs my arm, eyes wide open. I flash ok, and buddy shakes her head no. At this point, she grabs my harness and I grab hers -- she arches her back, and we're spinning! Heads becomes tails, left becomes right, bubbles are everywhere!
By now, we're in the water column with no landmarks, crappy vis, and in complete darkness. I twist our bodies and hold us straight. Check at the bubbles and see how they float to see which side is up. Check out bouyoncy, our bouyancy was good and we were neutral before we started spiralling, but heard enough stories of uncontrolled ascents or descents to be extremely cautious. We're at 90', I add air to the BC to stop our descent. Seeing that I added air, buddy grabs her inflator hose, and dumps all of hers!
So we start sinking. I add some air back into her BC, fin up hard, and check bouyancy (so happy I had my wrist mounted computer with backlight). From now on, I am in charge of all of the power inflators. Slowly we ascend, at 80' buddy grabs her light and we use it to look at our computers for depth control. I grab mine and start flashing it, signalling emergency. We both try to calm our nerves and breath slow. We had 1800#s on Steel 95s before the vertigo, but I wasn't sure how much air we had left at this point. And I wasn't going to let go of my buddy to check my SPG.
65' buddy flashes ok, we check our SPGs, we're fine on air. At 50' I grab my light, and point it upwards so others would know where we're at. At 35' others in our dive group find us and see if we're okay. Safety stop at 15' for 3 minutes. And then break to the surface.
1. Buoyancy, again. Even in the water column, in crap vis, in total darkness, our good buoyancy allowed for us to manage the other items with less issue.
2. Air management, we didn't get in a situation where we were low on air and had to deal with this emergency.
3. Signalling with lights help us get located.
