What would you do?

[Scared Silly]

Like to hear from someothers on this situation.

7 divers and 1 divemaster, on "drift" type, no current, around a small caye in Belize. 60-80' multilevel dive for 40-50 minutes or so.

EDIT - I say "drift" type as in start in one place and end in another with the boat following our bubbles. No SMB.

DM gives the briefing of the above and says after we go down he will unhook the anchor and we will do the dive keeping the island on our left.

EDIT - The boat is anchored because the wind can move it as well the current though lacking. The anchor is in rocks so instead moving the boat forward and unhooking it from the rocks the DM does this ... The operation seemed to like doing this way.

Everyone goes down about the same time. At about 25' one diver (on rental gear) loses his reg but not the mouth piece. He is not sure what is going and is searching for his octo. His buddy and I arrive at the same time and give him an octo. We three ascend and sort out the situation. He tries his octo and finds that it is not working either. About this time the DM who is at the anchor, has been alerted by my buddy that something is a miss and ascends. The buddy team decides to abort the dive. On the surface I tell the DM what is going on and descend back down to my buddy.

At this point what would do?

The rest of the story tomorrow ...

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

How do you do a drift dive without having any current to drift on?

 

[hvulin]

I would wait for some current

btw. nothing special, just continue the dive if you feel ok (if you feel stress, abort!)... problems do happen and that's why your buddy should be there... (and you should buy your own regs and service them on regular basis)

no big deal...

 

[zahner]

is the boat still anchored? if i'm the guy with the broken gear, i get on the boat with my buddy and curse the crappy gear and be thankful i didn't get injured. if i'm you, i get on with the dive.

what did i miss? is this one of the stories where the diver with two broken regs does the dive on the DM's octo or something?

 

[DeepBound]

Why would he unhook the anchor? Letting the boat drift away while you're diving?

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Why would he unhook the anchor? Letting the boat drift away while you're diving?

This was confusing to me, too. Then again, I'm easily confused...

 

[musicalmike]

At this point you say you decended back down to your buddies location. I assume they are waiting on the bottom at the anchor line. You don't have a divemaster present and you are most likely in unfamilier territory. It really depends on the level of experience as to what to do. The first and safest is for everyone to ascend, regroup, and attemp to descend again if air supplies are good. Sice there is no current, you are not too deep, and I'll bet the visibility is 100+, I would enjoy my time underwater but stay close to the anchor line.

 

[Orlando Eric]

I would wonder about a drift dive with no current and why are we anchored then removing the anchor? WHy not anchor and swim around, back to the boat and end dive.

IF the guy rented the reg from the boat Today's boat ride is free (refund) and the next dive (coupon) is free so he will come back and have a good experience on the boat.

The scenario you put forth I'm diving with me and my buddy.. we dive on, I'd watch to see if the DM comes down to pull the anchor and disappears though.

 

[Nudgeroni]

Did anybody check their octo before the dive? There seems to be a malfunction theme going on here. Since some folks didn't perform a pre-dive check, I'd want everyone to check their octo before continuing the dive. I would not want to be pulled into someone else's emergency.

Regarding the 'drift dive' reference, the dive is probably in a single direction and the boat will pull anchor and meet the divers at the end of the dive. When I was in Belize, the DM called it a 'drift dive'

 

[piikki]

On the surface I tell the DM what is going on and descend back down to my buddy.

Was the DM planning to come back down?
If I went (back) down to the group, I have now become the messenger by default, so I need to know what to tell the group

I prefer not to go down (or up) alone ever, so I would have rather waited for the DM to join me - particularly if there was any chance of the current blowing the group (including my buddy) away.