vjongene
Contributor
There should be a special forum where divers can post their most memorable screw-ups (quite a few threads already, though). Anyway, and even though I was never in real danger, I wanted to share the rather messy dive I had yesterday.
I came back last week from a trip to South Africa, where I had taken along my reg. This being warm water diving, I had two second stages, an inflator hose and an SPG mounted on the same first stage. Dives were monitored with a wrist computer. When I returned home, I had to re-configure for cold water diving, using two first stages. So I moved the octopus to a different first stage, which already had an air-integrated computer (Suunto Eon) with a compass, and an inflator hose, attached to it. In order to streamline the setup, I removed the SPG from the other first stage. So the final setup was, one first stage with the primary second stage and the inflator for the wing, the second first stage with the octopus, the inflator for the dry suit, and the Eon + compass. Normally, I also carry a bottom timer on my wrist, and a set of dive tables in a pocket.
Sunday morning I went diving in the lake with some buddies from the club. We kitted up by the cars, then walked to the entry point. As I was wading into the water, I suddenly felt cold and wet around the midriff. Sure enough, I had not pulled the zipper all the way, and there was a 1-inch gap at the bottom. Duh... Not a good start. I asked a buddy to pull and make sure the zipper was closed all the way, and we started the dive. Going down I looked at my wrist, and guess what, no bottom timer. It was still in my dive bag, in the car. Annoying, but not enough to call the dive. I still had my computer, right? We were a three-man buddy team, with the two others being instructors. They asked my to lead the dive. Conditions were only so-so, with about 3 ft viz, water temp about 40 F. I know the site quite well, no problem. We descended to about 120 ft on a wall, horrible viz, no fish, I was feeling wet and cold, so I decided to come up a bit. At around 80 ft I looked at my computer, and the screen was a blank. I shone my torch on it, absolutely nothing to be seen. So here I was, without access to ANY of my dive parameters: no SPG, no depth gauge. Tables in my pocket, but no data to look up. I turned to my buddies, showed them the dead computer, and indicated that I wanted to call the dive. One of them took over the lead, and we returned to our point of entry while slowly ascending and making our safety stop.
I know that when the computer gave up the ghost we were still well within NDL, and I had plenty of air left in my tank. There was no problem in finishing the dive safely. But I was really kicking myself for my multiple levels of carelessness. I should have left the SPG connected, and just clipped it out of the way. I should have checked that the bottom timer was on my wrist. I guess that the main lesson to be learned here is that redundancy does serve a purpose, and should not be taken lightly. The second, at least from my viewpoint, is that a dive computer should never be the primary source of vital dive data, i.e. depth and tank pressure. If a similar problem had occurred during a deco dive, or with less experienced buddies, it could easily have turned into a really dangerous situation.
I came back last week from a trip to South Africa, where I had taken along my reg. This being warm water diving, I had two second stages, an inflator hose and an SPG mounted on the same first stage. Dives were monitored with a wrist computer. When I returned home, I had to re-configure for cold water diving, using two first stages. So I moved the octopus to a different first stage, which already had an air-integrated computer (Suunto Eon) with a compass, and an inflator hose, attached to it. In order to streamline the setup, I removed the SPG from the other first stage. So the final setup was, one first stage with the primary second stage and the inflator for the wing, the second first stage with the octopus, the inflator for the dry suit, and the Eon + compass. Normally, I also carry a bottom timer on my wrist, and a set of dive tables in a pocket.
Sunday morning I went diving in the lake with some buddies from the club. We kitted up by the cars, then walked to the entry point. As I was wading into the water, I suddenly felt cold and wet around the midriff. Sure enough, I had not pulled the zipper all the way, and there was a 1-inch gap at the bottom. Duh... Not a good start. I asked a buddy to pull and make sure the zipper was closed all the way, and we started the dive. Going down I looked at my wrist, and guess what, no bottom timer. It was still in my dive bag, in the car. Annoying, but not enough to call the dive. I still had my computer, right? We were a three-man buddy team, with the two others being instructors. They asked my to lead the dive. Conditions were only so-so, with about 3 ft viz, water temp about 40 F. I know the site quite well, no problem. We descended to about 120 ft on a wall, horrible viz, no fish, I was feeling wet and cold, so I decided to come up a bit. At around 80 ft I looked at my computer, and the screen was a blank. I shone my torch on it, absolutely nothing to be seen. So here I was, without access to ANY of my dive parameters: no SPG, no depth gauge. Tables in my pocket, but no data to look up. I turned to my buddies, showed them the dead computer, and indicated that I wanted to call the dive. One of them took over the lead, and we returned to our point of entry while slowly ascending and making our safety stop.
I know that when the computer gave up the ghost we were still well within NDL, and I had plenty of air left in my tank. There was no problem in finishing the dive safely. But I was really kicking myself for my multiple levels of carelessness. I should have left the SPG connected, and just clipped it out of the way. I should have checked that the bottom timer was on my wrist. I guess that the main lesson to be learned here is that redundancy does serve a purpose, and should not be taken lightly. The second, at least from my viewpoint, is that a dive computer should never be the primary source of vital dive data, i.e. depth and tank pressure. If a similar problem had occurred during a deco dive, or with less experienced buddies, it could easily have turned into a really dangerous situation.
