Hello everyone!
I jsut did my first open water dive this weekend post-certification. We were on a wreck at about 50 feet with about 15-ft. visability on top of the structure, which was at about 20 feet. My buddy decided (also first time diver) he wanted to go over the side of the wreck. I followed. Within about 30 seconds I was totally lost with no visability, but I still had my buddy. We descended to about 40 feet. He was telling me we should swin in one direction, but I thought it was the other. I was really scared about being lost, I did not want to have to do my first safety stop without a line. In any case, we did not swim really anywhere. We had no navigation coordinated to go off either. I wanted to go to the top, but buddy didn't want to because we would probably not be allowed to back down due to air supply. In the end, we did not find the structure again and we did the safety stop on our own. We were about 50 feet off the structure/dive boat, so nothing major, but I have been panicked about it since.
My question is this: What were we supposed to do? Should we have never gone over the edge (seems obvious to me) or is that usually okay to do? Then, should I have swam the way my buddy said, even though it seemed liek the wrong way to me (and we didn't have any visiblity to confirm)? Should we have just gone up?
Thank you for your help! I jsut want to understand what I was supposed to do and what to do if that ever happens again.
I jsut did my first open water dive this weekend post-certification. We were on a wreck at about 50 feet with about 15-ft. visability on top of the structure, which was at about 20 feet. My buddy decided (also first time diver) he wanted to go over the side of the wreck. I followed. Within about 30 seconds I was totally lost with no visability, but I still had my buddy. We descended to about 40 feet. He was telling me we should swin in one direction, but I thought it was the other. I was really scared about being lost, I did not want to have to do my first safety stop without a line. In any case, we did not swim really anywhere. We had no navigation coordinated to go off either. I wanted to go to the top, but buddy didn't want to because we would probably not be allowed to back down due to air supply. In the end, we did not find the structure again and we did the safety stop on our own. We were about 50 feet off the structure/dive boat, so nothing major, but I have been panicked about it since.
My question is this: What were we supposed to do? Should we have never gone over the edge (seems obvious to me) or is that usually okay to do? Then, should I have swam the way my buddy said, even though it seemed liek the wrong way to me (and we didn't have any visiblity to confirm)? Should we have just gone up?
Thank you for your help! I jsut want to understand what I was supposed to do and what to do if that ever happens again.