2 dives: fun or learning experience ... I just had a learning experience.

[Can111]

Help me figure out what went wrong:

I am a new diver with only 2 dives after my open water cert, same as my dive buddy.

We planned on diving in Lake Huron (Thunder Bay area) and made a call to the dive shop who told us to come in for gear and ideas for a shallow shore dive.

We drive 1/2 hour north from where we were staying to the dive shop to be informed they had rented all their equipment to a dive charter for the day. She sent us "1 hour" further north to Cheboygan, MI. She suggested a shore dive that was 200' from shore. (the Joseph Fay)

We drive to Cheboygan which was really 1.5 hours away. We rent our gear and tell them we are VERY inexperienced and ask about the shore Joseph Fay dive. He said fun and easy, but about a 300' swim from shore. Hmmm now I have to swim a football field away, but what the heck we have already invested 2 hours and we really really want to dive. We drive back the1/2 hour to dive location. (BTW - BEAUTIFUL area with light house and part of the wreck on the shore. Called 40 mile point lighthouse)

The wreck is marked. We start swimming ... and swimming ... and swimming. My husband says he watched us for about 1 - 1.5 hours struggling to get to the bouy. Had to swim on my back for a lot of the time because on my belly waves would wash over my head and get in my snorkel. Question 1: should we have dove and worked my way over under the water? We considered this but didn't want to waste air.

At one point I flip on my stomach and see the wreck. THRILLED. I yell to my buddy we made it. For some reason he wanted to keep going to the bouy. Like he thought it was the "beginning". So we struggle on because it is still about 100' away. We never make it to the bouy because the waves kept pushing us away. Finally i say let's just dive here. Buddy says ok. I descend about 20' down to the sandy bottom of Lake Huron, of course the wreck is nowhere to be seen. Buddy doesn't make it down at the same time. i wait for him for about 3 minutes (question 2: is that too long?) It felt good to just relax at the bottom and not be in the waves. He finally appears briefly but then pops back to the surface. I wait longer for him again (3 ish minutes) and then finally go up also. By this point he has drifted WAY away from me. Like the only way I see him is because of the dive flag. I motion to him to get his attention he waves back and starts swimming for shore. We are not within yelling range.

So I start the long swim back. swimming and swimming and swimming. We had drifted way down the beach from where we started. (Question 3: any advice on this?) When i get back i am met by an anxious husband, EMS, and state police. My husband panicked and called 911 when he saw me motioning to my buddy. Of course i was fine, just bummed i didn't do the dive and then embarrassed.

I talked to my buddy and asked why he bailed and went to shore. He said he had trouble descending. (lost about 30 pounds this year and reduced his lead), the dive flag line was "twisting and bugging him", and he was just plain tired from the waves.

One more thing. When I got home i consulted my Great Lakes Dive book (by Kris Kohl) and it said my dive was 800' (!) from shore and to get to it by boat! The first dive shop said 200' the second said 300'. I had stressed to the dive shop we were inexperienced, surprised they sent us there.

So people help me learn from our outing. What did we do wrong? Is there a dive stress-light that i would use to my shore person in case i really was in trouble? What can we do different next time?

Thanks!

 

[tbone1004]

Question 1. Should have gone on your back the entire time as it is significantly more efficient for moving at the surface in scuba gear. Get a fix on land and kick keeping those two points aligned and you will be far better off. Never try to kick face forward on the surface with scuba gear if you can avoid it.
I personally would have dove from shore and showed up at the wreck, but it is highly unlikely your navigation skills are strong enough to make that long of a traverse without ending up quite far from where you were supposed to be.

Question 2. You should always make descents and ascents facing your buddy. These two scenarios are very high risk for separation as well as equipment issues. In OW you should never be more than one fin kick away from your buddy. No exceptions at this level of diving.

Question 3. Over time you will learn to read the drift and current at the surface and aim "upwind" or "upcurrent" from your destination to arrive at that point instead of making constant corrections, zig zagging in, or ending up somewhere other than where you should have been.

My opinions, take them or leave them
You should have had red flags from the first shop that had rented your gear out from under you if you had it reserved. This is really unethical in my opinion and at that point that shop would have lost my business forever. When you got to the second dive shop and they had different info from the first, that would have sent off more flags about diving that specific location and would have sought out an alternate dive site.

Before going diving, and in this case before leaving the house, you should have had a plan. You should have known where you were going, how you were going to get there, what equipment you were going to be using, and what the full dive plan was. At this experience level you absolutely have to be diligent about all of that because it prevents situations like this from occurring. In the future you will be able to get a bit less strict about some things and be a bit more adaptable, but at this stage in your diving abilities, you have to be strict.

You should have made a controlled descent from the buoy line. At this stage you are arguably not experienced enough to be making free descents onto the wreck as evidenced by missing the wreck.

If you are diving with shore support *good idea*, then you need some sort of communication that is agreed upon by you in order to get a hold of him in an emergency. Rescue whistles are typically quite effective with a pre-determined sequence of blasts in an emergency, again to prevent unintended scrambling of emergency personnel.

 

[Dogbowl]

My husband and I had a similar experience as you and your buddy. We had several more dives under our belts than you at the time. People here (very experienced of course) advised that the shore dive we wanted to do was easy and shallow and it would be a breeze. It was shallow yes, but not easy or a breeze! We were just too inexperienced to handle things ourselves. SMB deployment, logistics of how to get into the water from the rocky shore, how to retrieve lost fin, weighting issues, communication issues, etc. It was horrible, one thing after another. We abandoned the dive of course. The lesson we learned from that embarrassing day was that we were not ready to dive without a guide until we were much more experienced (with our equipment, the local conditions, etc.). We ended up hiring a guide the next day and had a fabulous time with zero issues!

After re-reading that thread with so many SBers encouraging us to do that dive ourselves, I found one lone poster who suggested we hire a guide. I wished we had listened to that one poster. Lesson learned!

Just my thoughts...I'm sure people will have other opinions.

 

[billt4sf]

We found it a difficult transition to go from vacation divers to local divers.

I suggest you seek out other, more experienced divers in your area to dive with. Or, failing that hire a DM for the dives (at least for the dives you haven't done a few times yet). Dive clubs can be great for this. You then have the problem of diving with a diver you may not know, the so-called "instabuddy problem" but usually (not always!) it's better than nothing.

Also, make sure you ALWAYS have your surface safety gear: whistle, mirror, SMB (you can launch it on the surface) at a minimum.

Good luck. We struggled with this part.

- Bill & Emily

 

[Altamira]

Even experienced divers can have dives go sideways, especially if diving in an unfamiliar area, so don't get discouraged. Bilt4sf gave you some very good advice about joining a local club or hiring a DM to orient you to things you need to know about diving specific sites. While you are theoretically qualified to dive by yourselves after getting your OW cert, I do not think that is within the actual capability of most new divers with only two post cert open water dives. You really need to understand, and be able to handle, the hazards and issues relating to your dive sites before wandering off on your own. As a new diver, what you legally can do, and what you should do, are often not the same thing.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

1,054 feet from the end of the trail to the buoy.
tbone1004 is correct, it's much easier to swim at the surface on your back. Not only does water enter your snorkel when a wave goes over you but your fins come out of the water when kicking on your belly.
Aside from the previously mentioned points, you should chastise your buddy for deciding to abort the dive and swim to shore without telling you first.
Also, don't wave your arms to get your buddy's attention if you have someone watching you from shore. It's a sign of distress, which is why your husband alerted the authorities.
With information available on the internet it is simple to find location, maps and distances to a dive site before you even leave home.

 

[kelemvor]

Is there a dive stress-light that i would use to my shore person in case i really was in trouble? What can we do different next time?

If there are charters in your area, do some boat dives. That way at a minimum you have a captain that is interested in seeing you make it back safely. You might even get a guide this way, too. The only real drawback to boat diving is the price.

My first attempt at a dive after certification was also a shore dive. I didn't even complete the surface swim before I aborted. That was a few years and many dives ago. I've done both boat and shore dives, and while I like both I think shore diving is a lot more work.

 

[wheeledgoat]

We just did our first shore dive this past summer! +1 for lots of prep and research ahead of time.

I had a plan A and a plan B for about everything (please, noone chime in with trite comments about a Plan C). I pulled up a google earth image, verified GPS coordinates from several sites for the wreck (this wreck wasn't bouyed), and calculated what our heading would be from 2 different entry points. Wrote it all on our slates. Good thing, too - wound up using Plan B on the shore entry point, Plan A was inaccessible. Also, got a good idea what the shoreline would look like from the wreck position and what would be visible, and not visible (used the 3d feature of google maps to help with this).

Despite some pretty solid navigation, we never did find the wreck, though Lake Michigan was really stirred up that day, viz was 10' at best. We coulda been right by it and never known. Chop was rough, we did some back swimming but descended when it got to be too much. Also, it seems the sands had shifted, may have covered the wreck up almost entirely. The depth was just barely where we MIGHT have found something, but ultimately, nope.

On the way back the current got us too - by the time we realized we were drifting, it was too late. We just headed for shore and slugged it back wearing our gear. We were kinda tired... lesson learned!

And just to add a little spice to the adventure, I had left my weight bag and save-a-dive-and-sundries duffel sitting on my front porch! 2 hours into the drive, my wife calls me "did you need this?" @&#*(@&)(!&U!
FYI: weight alternative that worked really well - weight vest at WalMart. Each comes with ten 2lb weight pouches - dropped right into our BCD pockets. Worked pretty damn well in a pinch.

Despite everything, thought - goes in the plus column. We're definitely better divers for the experience, even if we were groaning by the end of it. We splashed, stayed safe, kept within arm's reach of each other, and blew some bubbles!

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

Our 1st "solo" dive after OW was a boat dive. I had assumed since there was a dive master that they would take us around. Not so here in So. Cal. We listened carefully to the briefing, and then asked more questions of the DM explaining this was our first dive after cert. She was great and told us where to go, what we would see, what to avoid and basically reviewed the briefing for us. We had a great dive, but I was so scared I could not go any further than the rock she pointed out to us. After that we only dove with clubs or with our instructor for the next 15 or so dives. then we dove the same sites alone now that I had more confidence in our skills, better buddy skills and communication, and knowledge of the sites. My avatar is me sitting out a dive in cayman brac. It's to remind me that no matter where I am that for whatever reason I have it's always ok to decide to dive another time. MAN THAT WAS QUITE A SWIM!! Good for you!! Thanks for your post, I never have really known it it was better kicking out on my back...now I know. And better yet I know the reason why. I wonder if the shops were measuring the distance in yards vs feet. 800' is 266 yards.

Dive safe, its a wonderful world down there.

 

[Marie13]

@Can111 I just sent you a PM since I would have been diving in Thunder Bay a few weeks back if bad weather hadn't cancelled the entire trip before we left. I have questions about the dive shops involved that I didn't want to make public.

I do have one question, though. What gear did you need to rent and had you made a reservation for the rentals?