"Bottom" three diving experiences

[Shasta_man]

<<Jellyfish Lake>>

I think they're laughing cause they took you to their sewer pond instead.

And you didn't even mention the poison trees.

 

[Melicertes]

Imediately after my first dive with my new weight integrated BC I also learned that weight belts are an evil design of the devil.

Funny, when I've had to haul divers' gear on board our pontoon boat dives I swore I thought the same thing of integrated weight systems! :mooner:

 

[Melicertes]

1. off Key Largo, in 6 to 8 foot seas ... first dive more or less ok ... came out of the water ... hurl time ... hurl time .... hurl time ... wanted to die ... Marvel was chain-smoking next to me ... thanks, PAL!

2. off St. Augustine in 4 to 6 seas. get in water, make it to anchor line. i felt
awful. hurled. felt weak, about to pass out. let myself drift back with the current,
got into boat, spent rest of dive on my stomach, hurling out the back. actually managed to get the last two dives in, once the seas calmed down.

3. (see a pattern here?) off Jacksonville, 4 to 6 seas. did the first dive more or less ok. came up. hurled. hurled. hurled. hurled. went up front, laid down and tried
to die until we made it back to shore.

H2Andy, you're in good company here m8. My wife and I know all about hurling too, at the surface, below the surface, from the boat, you name it. It's the one sure fire thing that's cramped our holiday style on several occasions. I'm not so prone to it, but put me anywhere near the outboard motors on a pontoon boat with the exhaust fumes, give me some choppy waves after a 50minute dive in some soothing surge and I'm as green as my lawn in my back yard. We finally discovered Epanutin but since it's prescription only weve tried finding something over the counter since moving to the U.S. Meclizine-based products like Bonine's next on our list as a extra to Ginger tablets.

At least "feeding the fish" has had its benefits of getting the blighters all together nice and up close.

 

[ChrisA]

So what diving experiences rank at the bottom of your list? If you are so inclined, share what you learned from them.

I dive on a pretty much regulaer schedule. Every Weds. night, every Sunday (and a few sat and fri. too) but some times we get the the dive site and like last Weds. nigh and decide it is un-diveablwe. The surf was well over my head, viz is about arm's lengh and it really dark. That dive does not count as a "worst dive" it just means I will not have to clean my gear when i get home. Now the "worst dives" are when I'm stupid and decide to dive in marginal conditions. One we whent out in big surf at night and got bounced off the bottom and rolled, push our way out water to deep to stand in only to get thrown back on the beach. Continued untill we said "this is stupid" and quit.

The other bad dive was in the daytime on a rocky beach I tripped and fell into 6 inch deep water then a wave came and I got tossed onto a waist high bolder got a bruise from hip to kee on one leg.

What have I learned? Big walls of white foammy water have lots of force, give then some respect.

Other bad dive, buddy almost kill himself. Shows my his SPG, is almost down to 500 and we are at 80 feet. gosh it's only been 15 minutes. Give "two thums up" sign, then point to boat anchor chain directly below us laying on the ground. Then make "let's follow this chain sign" and start to swimm along chain knowing that the chain will after a while eave the bottom an haed upwared to the boat. Buddy decides not to follow me because I'm going horizontal, not up. He bolts to surface and has run away acent from 80 feet. Others told me he was outrunning even his larger bubbles. The boat's DM had to haul him out of the water but he recovered just fine

What did I learn. New divers can panic even in a situation I think is perfectly under control. I figured he'd be much better off holding an anchior chain on the way up and if he did blow through 500 PSI on the way up I still had 1/2 a tank so he could do the saftey stop on my octo. From his point of view I agree to up up but then go on to swimm near the bottom, he thinks no I'mheading up but then with zero experiance doing free (no line) ascents from 80 feet fails to vent air from his BC and becomes a rocket.

I've now learn to think ahead and watch for stupid moves by divers I don't know. Now when someone else is low on air I tell them to lead, I follow.

In the above case that diver should not have been on that dive. It was way over his experiance level but how to know that? He was comfortable with the simple plan "go down the chain, look around the bottom within sight of the chain then go up.

 

[pterantula]

Swimming in up-chuck with a rest stop smell, eh?

Call me certifiable (the other kind...), but I would actually do that "dive", since it would then make just about any other conditions tolerable...

 

[pterantula]

Awww... the guy and the girl on the PADI "Go Dive!" DVD make it sound like Jellyfish Lake in Palau is the end-all, be-all of natural wonders. I just happened to watch it again last night since I'm thinking of showing it to some non-diving friends to see if they want to try it. Heh.

I've heard of a place like this somewhere around Phuket too - I wonder if that's the same situation (toxic muck, & all)?...

 

[djanni]

Say, Don ... the dive boat captain wasn't a BP/W wearer by any chance, was he ???



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yes he was and the Coast Guard increased his fine for it. Told him if they catch him in a bp/w again they'll strip his license.

Oh well, there you have it.

Thanks for asking BTW, that makes me feel real good.

 

[Jcsgt]

1. Woahink Lake, Oregon (cold, no viz, nothing much to see)
2. Ocho Rios, Jamaica (maybe it was just the sites we were taken to, but didn't see
much marine life, viz wasn't what I'd seen other places in Caribbean)
3. Can't think of a 3rd, but I haven't dived as much as most folks here

 

[ChrisA]

I don't do this but it has to be near the bottom of my list of "must do" dives
http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i040710/i040710.html

 

[Jcsgt]

I don't do this but it has to be near the bottom of my list of "must do" dives
http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i040710/i040710.html

:lol: I generally find myself in deep **** everyday, don't need to go there and dive in it.