What's the most idiotic thing you've have witnessed divers doing?

[seatacea]

I've seen a lot of funny things, a lot of dangerous things, and definitely a lot of stupid things.

One of my favorite stupid/dangerous things was with a student in an AOW class a couple of years ago. It was December, and I took a class of 4 students to do their "Deep" and "Wreck" dives on the recently sunken HMS Yukon in San Diego's Wreck Alley (should be called "artificial reef alley").

Anyway, the Yukon is on her port side in 99-102 fsw. I took the students to 99 fsw and had them work a "narcosis" puzzle. This took 10 mins. I then took them up to 70 ft for a short look around before beginning a slow ascent. Student "John" indicated he was at 1/2 tank, so we headed up the ascent line as planned. We stopped at 15 ft for a 3 minute safety stop. All four students hovered nicely, fingers lightly cupped around the mooring line (not gripping), as instructed. As I scanned around watching the students, a pair of fins disappeared above me just out of reach kicking frantically. We were perhaps 20 seconds into our stop. I had to let the student diver go since it would have served no purpose to chase him, and take a chance on causing the other students to panic and follow me to the surface in the 10 ft visibility, risking injuring to them.

Upon reaching the suface, exiting and finding "John" to be okay on board the diveboat. I asked him what happened. He said he was down to 500 PSI and he had been told to always surface with at least 500 PSI. I was speechless for a moment, then told him to be sure and just stop his car on the freeway and get out if his fuel ever gets down to an eight of a tank.

 

[cyklon_300]

This is an easy one.

Blue Hole in Belize.

Two female divers from Norway were attempting to photograph an elusive arrowhead crab on a beautiful green tube sponge. One woman broke off the sponge and rolled it until the crab was in view, the picture was snapped, and then the diver dismembered the crab and fed some fish with it so that they could also be photographed.

When I voiced some displeasure at their actions toward the marine life, they replied that 'Americans talk so much and say so little..."

Helps explain why their country still participates in whaling.


Second worst example is the dufus in Coz who swam into the reef, breaking off a rather large piece of coral with his tank. Following the collision, he spun around to see what he hit and broke off a second piece. Flustered, he stood on the reef to readust his mask. Luckily for him I had no knife on that particular dive.

 

[Butch103]

....the most stupid thing I have seen was while doing an envirodive we were taking concrete blocks out to shackle a tree to them to create a fish habitat. Anyway my buddy and I took our block out ( 1.5-2 ft from the bottom) we surfaced and low and behold there were two divers under the direction of their instructor floating the concrete block out to place it at the surface!!! Yes they were floating 150 lbs of concrete out over other divers........Arrrggghhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:boom: :boom: :boom:

 

[nitroxbabe]

...I've seen was an OW diver at Gilboa Quarry. At the quarry you are required to agree that you will not enter the deep end unless you can provide proof of AOW certification. Well, one doofus ignored this and descended deep into the 140' side. He had a problem with his inflator sticking, didn't know what to do about it, and rocketed up from below 90'. Man, was the owner mad. So the guy had to go to the hospital. Never did find out if the guy took a hit or not.

I guess the second dumbest is this "nameless guy". He stayed up til the wee hours, killed close to an entire case of beer (!), making all kinds of noise and keeping the other campers awake. The next day he failed to close his drysuit completely before he dove (well, he had a little help with this but it's his responsibility to check!) He sucked up all his air within 15 minutes and had to abort due to low air and the fact that his drysuit had become a cold water bottle. He's probably lucky he made it to the surface! Not to mention the fact that once he got on the wreck he swam right into me as if I wasn't there and kicked up every single bit of silt in the lake, ruining the dive for everyone who came after.

 

[MikeFerrara]

cyklon_300 once bubbled...
This is an easy one.

Blue Hole in Belize.

Two female divers from Norway were attempting to photograph an elusive arrowhead crab on a beautiful green tube sponge. One woman broke off the sponge and rolled it until the crab was in view, the picture was snapped, and then the diver dismembered the crab and fed some fish with it so that they could also be photographed.

When I voiced some displeasure at their actions toward the marine life, they replied that 'Americans talk so much and say so little..."

Helps explain why their country still participates in whaling.


Second worst example is the dufus in Coz who swam into the reef, breaking off a rather large piece of coral with his tank. Following the collision, he spun around to see what he hit and broke off a second piece. Flustered, he stood on the reef to readust his mask. Luckily for him I had no knife on that particular dive.

Hey, I saw that diver at Gilboa! I saw him at Haigh too!

 

[O-ring]

Divers going into overhead environments with single tanks and no redundant air sources.

 

[mddolson]

Last summer we were diving on a wall in Muscoka Lake, near the Wyome ship wreck. The water is dark tanin stained, lights are required below about 20 ft.

My buddy and I were swiming along the base of the wall at about 110 ft. Suddenly we could hear this scraping, sliding rock sounds.

We immediatley assumed a rock slide, and swam away from the face, the sound stopped when we were about 50 feet out, so we started our way cautiously back to the surface. We moved closer to the wall and at about 60 feet we could see the marks, where the rocks had been sliding down the wall. This was about 15 feet from where we'd been , below.

On the surface we met up with another buddy team who was part of our group. They were casually taking about the huge rock they had tipped over the edge and the cool sound it made as it slid to the bottom.

NEEDLESS TO SAY WE HAD WORDS!

MikeD
:blfish:

 

[Arnaud]

I dove with that guy once. Had the whole outfit. Brand new. Expensive stuff. I had seen him on a previous dive the same day. No weight check. It took him 10 minutes to sink after much kicking because his buyancy was so bad. Not good for a safety stop on the way back.

Anyway, it's the last dive of the day in Catalina. Very shallow, like 15 feet. No current. Beautiful day to be in the kelp forest. The boat is less than 20 kicks away. We're swimming at the bottom along the border of the forest. All of a suddent, the guy starts acting up. Shows me his gauge so quickly that I can't see it and ascend. I thought he had run out of air. I ascend and ask him what's going. He shows me his gauge. He has over a third of his tank left. I tell him to relax. The boat is right there. It's almost as if we're snorkeling. You suck very little air at that depth. Worst case, I have over 1,000 psi left. Let's go back for a little more.

We go back. After 2 minutes, I see this guy starting kicking like crazy towards the deep end, away from the boat, with his head down, so he's getting deeper.

Had we been at 100 feet, his behaviour could have been a sign of narcosis. At 15, it looked more like inexperience and stupidity. I went after him, finally caught up with him. Held him and calmed him down and signaled for a slow ascent.

I asked what was wrong. He said he was going back to the boat. Well, thanks for letting me know! You went down to 40 feet in a sec. Also, the boat is not that way. And you don't have enough air to get to Long Beach on your own...

I guess this help me learn that no matter what the depth and the environment, you want to be careful in chosing your buddy...

 

[wrecNcaver]

two things come to mind......

First, to set up the day. Two divers board the boat and immediately start bragging about how they are great tech divers. They bang into everyones gear, are loud and generally a pain. First dive of the day, my buddy and I penetrate the wreck running a line. As we are exiting we find the line between the first tie off to the second tie off has been cut!!!!! No accident! Get up on the boat and you guessed it, these two idiots are saying that there was a line in their way so they cut it. No big deal??!!!?? They had no idea what it was and they had a big knife they really wanted to use. Needless to say, after I got done taking them apart verbally, the captain notified them their diving was finished for the weekend with him. Moral, there is a very good reason you were taught to do a secondary tie off inside the wreck!

Second, arrive at a charter with my buddy. A third diver shows up and wants to dive. We are fairly new and he says he is very experienced. Captain asks if we will dive with him. We say ok. He goes in first and goes down a little ways. All of a sudden he shoots up to the surface, breeching half his body above water. Seems he was up drinking all night and he paniced when he went down! Captain got him on board and ended his diving. We got in and had a great dive.

 

[WgOaLnFg]

FL Springs - four guys, two with a combined experiance of about 25 years, and two new pups in the water.

Only one was Cavern certified, but they all registered as OW divers, so they weren't allowed to take any lights in the cave.

Well, they took lights into the cavern.

Upon the second dive, they came out, and started discussion their dive.

When one of the guys mentioned to another to keep it quite, the one taking out loud said "Why is there a ranger or cop around." At that time they all looked up and the DEP Officer said "Yep! You've been caught."

Luckly they all got out of going to jail and having the equipment confinsaked but they all ended up with a fine of $125.00.

To this date, I'm aware of two of them have enrolled in a cavern course.