Bounce Dive to Recover Gear?

[roakey]

Uncle Pug once bubbled...
A friend of mine got a ride in a Learjet doing something like that.

A bounce to 20 feet?

Me, I'd go for it, a rock bottom calculation gives you about 5 minutes of bottom time assuming an AL80.

Unless my buddy truely couldn't get down, then I wouldn't and have a talk with him about his weighting.

...and if you have the sue-mcdonalds-for-hot-coffee mindset, blame your buddy's buoyancy for being unable to search for the boltsnap and ask him to replace it

Roak

 

[Big-t-2538]

ahhh...probably best you didn't go down for it....who knows exactly what would have happened...for 5.95...or even 10 bucks for that matter, is it worth it? Nah.

 

[The Chairman]

As an instructor I have to make many of them. I am not sure why the agencies require/allow that, but they do. For personal things, I have only had to make the decision once... and I had a metric butte tonne of gas and a buddy pair to take my buddy. ALSO... it was a $200 light which I did not want to loose even though it meant a trip to 130 fsw right beside the Grove. If I had the decision to make over again... I would probably do it.

 

[HarleyDiver]

If any one of half a dozen things you mentioned had been different, them it might have been an easier call. But given the number of things that were marginal, I feel you made a very smart decision.

It's not usually 1 thing that gets you, its the string of little mistakes or events.

Keep diving safe.

 

[AzAtty]

roakey once bubbled...
...and if you have the sue-mcdonalds-for-hot-coffee mindset, blame your buddy's buoyancy for being unable to search for the boltsnap and ask him to replace it.

You're getting closer to thinking like a lawyer. What he should have done was sue his buddy's certification agency for negligent instruction on buoyancy control; sue the buddy's BC manufacturer for a negligent misrepresentation concerning the weight needed to make the buddy neutrally buoyant; sue the snap bolt manufacturer for a design defect that allows the bolt snap to be dropped too easily. Oh yeah, and sue McDonalds for negligence, too, since if they had done a proper job of advertising, your buddy would have bought and eaten a second Egg McMuffin, which added weight would have compensated for tank swing, which would have allowed him to make the dive. Then you retire on the settlement money. You'll never need to worry about losing a bolt snap again.

 

[GearHead]

I didn't realize there was a Pitbull roaming this board! Thanks for the advice AzAtty, the retainer is on the way. Please include everybody mentioned in the suit except my buddy. Dennis is an awesome buddy and even gave me some duct-tape when I needed it last week. When it comes down to it, that's almost better than sharing air, isn't it?

 

[scuba-sass]

Based solely on value vs risk - $10.00 doesn't buy much "risk" in my book.

Happy Diving,
Scuba-sass

 

[LUBOLD8431]

However, I was diving last summer, and my brilliant buddy decided to "help" me with my stage bottle, and, well, to make a long story short, it dropped to the bottom (we were on the surface, and i was getting ready to go up the ladder of the boat) We were going to hand the stages up before climbing the ladder. Stage with reg attached goes buhbye...

Well, I am not willing to let that go. It was in about 120 fsw. So, instead of doing a bounce dive, we marked the spot were we think it went down by dropping a 5 # lead brick over with a reel attached to it, and let the line out. That way we could follow the line back down to the general area where my stage dropped.

Then, after a surface interval of about an hour, and fresh tanks, we went back down the line... Well, wouldnt ya know, my stage was within ten feet of that lead brick... Cool stuff, and I didnt lose a stage with a nice reg on it...

I dont let my buddy "help" me anymore...

 

[Uncle Pug]

LUBOLD8431 once bubbled...
So, instead of doing a bounce dive, we marked the spot were we think it went down by dropping a 5 # lead brick over with a reel attached to it, and let the line out. That way we could follow the line back down to the general area

If the item isn't worth doing this then it certainly isn't worth a bounce dive.

Now as far as a 20' bounce goes... that really isn't such a big deal and several instructors have weighed in that they essentially do back to back bounce dives (saw tooth profile) while teaching.

However I would say that bouncing down to get dropped gear is a bad habit to get yourself into.

And yes... I had a friend get a so called *undeserved* hit doing that. He came up paralyzed on the left side. I don't buy undeserved. And I don't go after dropped boltsnaps either.

 

[MikeFerrara]

It's best to send a working instructor down to recover lost gear. We're not allowed to get bent unless we're on our own time.