Your biggest "lessons learned"

[high/baric]

+1^
I am continually surprised by the number of divers I see getting into the water (shore dive) with an active surf who have their regs hanging off their backside and no thought about the danger of slipping, tripping on the rocks on the way out. One slip in 3' of water with a nice surf coming in, a non-inflated BC and no way to get a hold of your reg is a bad recipe. I see it all the time here in NE.

I can't stress enough the importance of taking this seriously. A great deal of diving accidents (might even be the majority) happen on the surface, and entry into the water is especially dangerous. After all, that's when you will find out if you missed a problem with your gear during the pre-dive check. Even having your main regulator neatly over your shoulder and octo in its place, after rolling over a couple of times on the rocks in high waves those regulators can be anywhere. And it doesn't matter if there's hardly any water too, if there are 2'+ waves rolling over you every few seconds. After a particularly nasty experience with this I have always done shore entries with BCD full, regulator hanging from my mouth (just biting on the side of the mouthpiece, not necessarily breathing through it yet), and in addition having my mask on if the waves are at all bigger than I'm completely comfortable with. And if not wearing my mask, I will have it around my neck, NEVER on my forehead. I have met even DMs who told me that I'm being over-cautious, but since I don't see any harm coming to anyone else from it, I will do what feels safe for me.

 

[DiverRtNY]

Drinking and poor sleep get's you narced quickly! That's my "new to diving" lesson.
I enjoy my all inclusive resorts with divers and non divers and in Coz we tied on a good one. Woke up early to catch our boat. Slow played the rush because they were 30 minutes late every other morning (island time) but this morning they were just pulling up to docks and we reached the beach so we had to skip the much need breakfast. First dive, deep dive, was 90-100 ft and the current was ripping (in my novice opinion). Never been narced before and have exceeded 120 without a true appreciation of what "narced" was. I found it that morning and it came on quick and sudden. I knew what it was and ascended just a shy over 10 feet and was crystal clear again. Quite amazing how that happens. Dropped back down and found it again but much more controlled. Without being educated to what was happening, it can truly spiral into a panicked diver. From now on I know drink early and get good sleep! I'm just be honest with myself... it's not like i'm NOT going to drink when vacationing in paradise!

 

[victorzamora]

my buddy was not thinking straight and would have grabbed the reg out of my mouth no matter what my house configuration was.

That right there is why so many of us are proponents of that system. It takes a very comfortable brain to run out of gas underwater and not panic.....few divers have that. When your buddy runs out of gas, his brain sees the reg in your mouth as "life"

 

[mjbickford]

Lesson leared on dive #1 of being a newly minted diver. HOLD YOUR MASK while doing a giant stride entry.

the boat was doing out hot drop onto the dive site, in about 60ft. Then anchored about a quarter mile away for snorkeling. We were to get picked up by a skiff in a half hour.

The dive master and boat crew were not "fully observant" of the situation. They only realized the issue once we were preparing to decend.

DM: ready?
BUDDY PAIR #1 yes!
Buddy pair #2 lets go!
Me: uh, no, i need a mask, mine was lost on entry. Its on the bottom.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

[scottwilson1]

I can't stress enough the importance of taking this seriously. A great deal of diving accidents (might even be the majority) happen on the surface, and entry into the water is especially dangerous. After all, that's when you will find out if you missed a problem with your gear during the pre-dive check. Even having your main regulator neatly over your shoulder and octo in its place, after rolling over a couple of times on the rocks in high waves those regulators can be anywhere. And it doesn't matter if there's hardly any water too, if there are 2'+ waves rolling over you every few seconds. After a particularly nasty experience with this I have always done shore entries with BCD full, regulator hanging from my mouth (just biting on the side of the mouthpiece, not necessarily breathing through it yet), and in addition having my mask on if the waves are at all bigger than I'm completely comfortable with. And if not wearing my mask, I will have it around my neck, NEVER on my forehead. I have met even DMs who told me that I'm being over-cautious, but since I don't see any harm coming to anyone else from it, I will do what feels safe for me.

When Shore diving I would typically keep my snorkel in my mouth and my reg slung in front of me until I'm ready to descend to save on air - when boat diving reg stays in mouth until i'm back on board and in my seat
been pretty lucky so far no real issues have occurred other then what i've already posted about before which was my dive computer breaking on my first dive @ 30ft luckily I had a spg but drove home redundancy