Where was my head?

[utdivermatt]

After diving with the same buddy all summer, I find myself in a new position, that I really hate that I have gotten myself into:

We were diving this weekend at Mermet Springs in IL, our first trip there, and I had some new gear that I was dying to play with. I just changed to a bp/w system, and also had a new wetsuit (Henderson 7/5), and I knew in advance I would have some trouble with that much gear change in so little time. The part that worried me the most was fear of buoyancy problems, which really turned out to be the case. We arrive there, get everything set up, and get in. Looking back, I probably should have just overweighted myself for this dive, but decided to try to go with the least ammount I thought possible. Anyways, we start the dive; I sink, so I think I will have success. If you have not been to Mermet, they have a lot of stuff in shallow water near the docks, which is what we were exploaring. As we swim around in 15 feet or so of water, and I breathe down some more air, I start to realize I am a good deal underweighted. In my head, I tried to convince myself it was the new wetsuit (I had been using a 5 mil), so if I got deeper I would be fine. Unfourtunately, there was nowhere deeper to go on our dive plan. I would like to say I was not panicing, but rather very frustrated and iritated, even though I am sure it looked like I was paniced. I was definatly struggling to stay down, and probably should have called the dive at this point, but for some reason I could not convince myself this problem was worth calling the dive. She was leading, but soon noticed my frustration and called the dive. My next actions I still cannot quite explain; I answered 'no' to calling the dive. She tried again with more emphisis, and in the next minute or so we surfaced. Looking back, the only thing I can think is I did not want my buddy calling the dive on my account. I think most of the actions were cause by frustration, and just being iritated at the dive and the problems.

This whole incident really irks me now. This is very far from my normal dives, especially with this buddy. We talked after it, and she and I both noticed it was like it was not me on that dive. I hardly ever panic, and I can not think of a time I have truely been this frustrated on a dive. I also like to think I am usually very cooperative on any dive I have been on, in relation to what my buddy signals. I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out what I was thinking at the moment, when she thumbed the dive and I refused to go. I know the dangers of what I did, especially in other situations (deeper dives, different enviroments, etc.), and that makes me feel even worse about it. I realize something like this could have really gotten one of both of us seriously hurt in certain situations, which even further devistates me to think about. I would like to say this is a one-time only incident, but I fear if I get that frustrated again, I might get in the same mindset, no matter how much I beat myself up about it right now. I really just don't know what happened to me, and why I was acting like that. It was just a real out-of-body experiance to me, and I cannot really explain why it happened. This inability to place what I was thinking drives me nuts.

I am also worried about future dives with this buddy, which I hope to still have many with. We had been diving together all summer, and we both seem to feel really comfortable with each others diving and skills. In each of our dives, we have seemed to get more comfortable and more trusting in each other, but I am really afraid this is going to hurt that. I feel like no matter how much we dive, this will always be in the back of her head whenever I start to have anything less than a perfect dive. If I get just a tiny bit frustrated, I am afraid she will lose all faith in my actions as a dive buddy thanks to this one incident. We have talked about it, and I think it is a very serious problem to worry about. I want to be able to say this will only be what I think and hope it is; an isolated fluke that will never happen again, but I feel as though it is not something that will be forgotten by either of us, and will continue to affect of dives together for as long as we dive. I wish there was a way to regain the trust we had, but I know trust is a very fragile thing, and this easily could have broken it.

I don't really know what to say I want to gain by posting this, but I would like some feedback as to situations you have been in that may be similar. Is this something most people experiance and learn from, or am I really just a bad dive buddy? Do you think this is something that will happen to me again? Is it possible for my buddy and I to get back to the same place we were before the dive? I realy feel like I have been beating myself about this the whole trip, and just wish I could take back those 30 seconds or so of my life. Please respond with anything you have to say about the situation. Thanks


-Matt

 

[ReefHound]

You're overthinking it. Everyone has a bad dive now and then. But it's not reasonable for you to expect to master a whole new kit the first time out. Maybe get in some pool time to get used to your BP/W.

And now you know how easily being uncomfortable with equipment can lead to frustration and affect decision making. You'll be able to address it quicker with yourself and spot it more easily in others.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Hi, Matt. Take anything I say with a grain of salt, since I'm still very new to diving, but at this moment, the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up. Right now, it's not about being a good buddy or a bad buddy, but getting your weighting where it needs to be. It doesn't sound like you panicked, although frustration can eventually lead to panic. Once you get the weight situation rectified, you'll be back on your game. Don't let it eat you alive.

My two bits worth,
-Frank

 

[RICoder]

I'd say that at this point in your diving career you should be applauding yourself for being able to think back on an experience and realize where you went wrong. Fortunately you were shallow, so safety was not as big a concern.

All this is going to do is re-inforce everything you've learned, and make you a better diver. I say that with some optimism based on the fact you even had the courage to post.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

You've clearly already learned from it. You talked it through with your buddy. You apologized and now it's time to move on. Don't ever forget that feeling and how you acted so you don't repeat it. You were in a very benign position being in only 15' of water, so it was a great place to see how you can react when frustrated. Learn from it and move on. It is so easy to become focused on a goal, diving with new gear in this instance, and lose sight of the fact that diving is a hobby. It is supposed to be FUN! I say this because it is so easy for me to do as well given my personality. In the future, relax. Calling a dive is NO BIG DEAL. Call it. Add more weight. Try again.

 

[RJTY]

I would like to comment on your buddies actions. What a great job. As you have pointed out, this could have been worse, and she didnt allow that to happen.

 

[PerroneFord]

Dude, this is diving, not surgery. Buy your buddy a beer (or some flowers), add 5 pounds and get in the water again. If you're too light, add a couple more pounds. I generally do this in the pool. Get the tanks down to 300psi or so, empty my wing, and see if I can hover at 4-6ft. If not, get more weight.

Fortunteately, I've not needed any weight. Yet!

 

[Jason B]

Well, no one else said anything so I will. Screw the weighting issues...
When someone calls the dive (as your buddy did) it's not up to you to say no, you just do it.

 

[downdeep]

Dude! If you were a bad buddy, you wouldn't be beating yourself up about this. You just wouldn't care.

Come on down to the Philly quarry on Saturday (weather permiting). Let's do some diving!

 

[TSandM]

You did something wrong, and you know it was wrong. You talked about it. If you have the kind of buddy relationship that I have with my regular buddy, it'll get put behind both of you. You now know the warning signs of several things: A situation you can't remedy in the water, that really requires calling the dive; and a level of frustration BEFORE which you should call the dive, in order not to get to where you behave in a way you feel ashamed of later.

My guess is that there are a ton of other divers on this board who have made judgment errors that they regret and won't make again. Mine was to overface myself. It resulted in a great deal of embarassment for me, frustration for my buddy, and in the end, a situation where somebody could have gotten hurt, although no one did. I learned a ton of lessons from that dive -- I wish I could have learned them in a less painful and emphatic fashion, but perhaps it's just as well, because a lesson that dearly learned is not soon forgotten. This should be the same for you.

Now, to a couple of specifics: When you make gear changes, it puts your game off. A lot of gear changes puts your game a LOT off. You were doing the right thing in staying shallow and doing a simple dive. Did you warn your buddy that you might well have buoyancy problems, so that she could help recognize what the issues were?

Second, if you were getting light near the surface, then descending to compress your wetsuit would be precisely the wrong thing to do, wouldn't it? If you did succeed in compressing the suit and becoming stable at greater depth, you would breathe the tank down further, and then when you went to ascend (the only mandatory maneuver in a dive, to steal a phrase from flying), you would be unable to control your ascent because you would now be even lighter than you were when you were having problems before.

Third, sounds like you fell into the trap of not wanting to call a dive that should have been called, because you didn't want to "ruin" your buddy's dive. At the depths and times you appear to be talking about, it would have been a quite viable option to interrupt the dive -- get out of the water, go get some more weight, and resume the dive. If you regard this calmly, both you and your buddy can be perfectly happy and unfrustrated by that course of action.

Finally, there IS a technique for assessing your weighting WITH full tanks -- if you know how much the air in the tank you are using weighs, you can weight yourself neutral at the surface with full tanks, and then add the amount of weight that corresponds to the gas you will use in the tank. If you aren't entirely confident of the job you have done of that, you could ask your buddy to carry one or two pounds extra for that one dive, so that if you DO run into buoyancy issues at the end, you have an out. You don't want to carry them from the get-go, because you want the information you get from finding out you are light. Diving one or two pounds heavy for one dive is not that big a deal, and that's the kind of thing that buddies can do for one another when they are sorting things out.