1st time thumbing a dive

[billt4sf]

Thanks for the feedback!
I hadn't considered that 'new' conditions would be a factor in task loading. Having done all my previous dives in near perfect conditions certainly gave me a degree of complacency. I like the idea of not adding/changing more than one thing than I am familiar with. I'll definitely put that in my 'mental toolbox'.

New Conditions can be a HUGE factor! Salt to fresh water alone is a significant change to weighting, then thermal protection (more change to weighting), then (unexpected) silt, YEP -- that's a lot to deal with -- before you even get to doing the spool.

Excellent decision to call the dive. As my friend Ralph is fond of saying: "Diving is supposed to be fun! If it's not fun, why go?"

- Bill

 

[Dan]

Good call & desciption! No critics or suggestions, just want to share my 1st thumb-up experience. This happened after a bad experience of barotrauma.

The barotrauma incident
I normally equalize my ears continuously, every 1m descending for the 1st 15-20' by pinching my nose with my left fingers, while holding my camera with my right hand. One day in one of dive site in Bunaken, we hit an up-current that forced us to do a negative entry from the surface to the ledge of dive site wall. I didn't make any progress descending as I swam against the up-current. The lead DM then turned around and looked up and saw that I was struggling near the surface, trying to descend. He went up & grabbed my left arm and dragged me down to the ledge, 20' deep. So I didn't have a chance to equalize then. My ear was hurting after the dive and I had to sit out for 2 days in the resort to recover from the barotrauma.

The 1st thumb-up experience
Since that barotrauma incident, I always make sure that if I can't equalize my ears in any dive, I'll thumb-up the dive. One day, 2 of my dive buddies joined me going diving in Flower Garden Banks in Gulf of Mexico. After a rough ride to the site (about 100 miles from Freeport, Texas), I was a bit tired from lack of sleep, but my sinuses seemed OK. I made sure to drink plenty of water & skipped breakfast as the 1st dive was pretty early (7am). We went in for the 1st dive of the day by going down, pulling ourselves down by grabbing the robe, which tied the boat to the site buoy, as there was a slight current. We basically dragged ourselves down one hand grab after another & equalizing my ears between the grabs. I was in front of my 2 dive buddies. Then at one point of a depth perhaps about 12', my left ear refused to equalize. So I turned around & looked to both of my dive buddies, waving them to continue the dive & pointing to my left ear and gave a thumb's up for myself to cancel the dive & went back to the boat. I'm glad I did that for myself without causing my dive buddies to lose a dive that day. After a bit of rest, relaxing & had a cup of coffee & some light breakfast, I tried again on the 2nd dive. It went well. I was able to equalize the left ear. My buddies made all their 6 dives (4 on Saturday & 2 on Sunday) and I had 5 dives (3 on Saturday & 2 on Sunday). Everyone had a great time.

 

[archer1960]

A lesson I have learned is to add/change no more than one thing from what you are familiar with. For example, if diving in unfamiliar conditions--temperatures, vis, etc.--don't add a new piece of gear like a float.

Yup. I held off several dives in the same location before volunteering to tow the float for the first time last week. In the area where we were, with significant current, and lots of rocks and pinnacles to dodge over and around, keeping the float line from tangling takes a fair amount of attention.

 

[Bubblesong]

I canceled two dives for tiredness from previous dives, and one from cold from previous dive. One dive was shortened after buddy separation, although we met back at boat we waited before starting second dive of day.

 

[FinnMom]

I remember one thumbed dive exceptionally well. I went down a shot line with a buddy to search for a wreck in poor vis (maybe 3m). The shot wasn't on the wreck, so he picked up the weight and started searching for the wreck, dragging the weight. The line tangled in his tank knobs twice, and I had trouble keeping it away from my back, while not getting too far away that I might lose sight of him. The 3rd time I pulled the line off his tank and had great pains to keep it from catching me too, I thought this was looking like bad idea. My next thought was that to get hurt after I already realized this was a bad situation would be just plain stupid. I thought that accidents do happen, but they should at least take you by surprise. If an angel takes the trouble to whisper in your ear, you need to have the good sense to listen. I got my buddy attention, shook my head and thumbed for the surface. We dropped the weight, got the heck away from that line and started up. We drove 4 hours to get there and thumbed our only dive but geez, in that vis we wouldn't have seen much of a dive even if we'd found the wreck.

My general thought was that at least while underwater, the 1st moment you realize things are going sideways is an excellent time to quit.

 

[Freewillow]

Thank you for sharing. Two small advices:

your lesson 5) When diving in silty locations, stop 4-5' before you reach the bottom. Learn, practice and perfect the frog kick. ALWAYS STOP 4-5 feet before you reach ANY BOTTOM. Living creatures are living in the roubles, sand, wreck coral. So keep a distance to them of about that magnitude.

The secondadvise is that even after 850+ dives, the first dive of a vacation that I will do with my lifelong buddy , is without a camera or any disturbing stuff. We do not dive too deep, not more than 80 feet and rehearse a few basic skills, such as: bouyancy fine tuning, trim adjustments, air sharing, OOA emergency, DSMB deployment.....