GearHead
Contributor
I wanted to get some input on what you all think about a situation that came up last week.
Here's how it went down: I had performed a fairly long single-tank dive earlier in the day to about 90-100 fsw, and drove to a shore diving site with my buddy Dennis (Pez de Diablo). After a couple of hours on the surface, we dove down to about 70 fsw or so and made a leisurely wall dive of it. Near the end of the shore dive, I shot a Surface Marker Buoy at about 30 feet for practice as we meandered our way back into the shallows and we made a nice slow ascent. After we surfaced, I rolled over to my back and started to swim toward shore. At that point, we were still in about 20 fsw, and I decided to roll up my SMB and stow it during my surface swim. I had the line tied-off to my spool with a large double-ender, and I unclipped the double ender to reel up the last bit of slack. As I did it, however, the line slipped out of the boltsnap, and the boltsnap slipped out of my hand.
Well, I stopped where I was and considered my options. Even with just two dives that day, I had plenty of Nitrogen in my system. I was down to about 600 psi, so I had enough gas to probably go down and find it. Another factor was that the bottom was littered with huge kelp leaves and eel-grass, so the search would be tough at best. Also, my buddy Dennis was diving doubles, and had used enough gas in two dives that he was too buoyant to go down again. And finally, I had paid full retail for the damned boltsnap and didn't want to say goodbye to $10.00!!
Taking this all into account, I decided not to try a bounce dive to search for the lost boltsnap. My reasoning was that it would just not be safe or smart to go down by myself, even to just 20 fsw for a $10 piece of gear. I had no guarantee of finding it, nor of being able to do another slow, controlled ascent with the AL80 tank getting more buoyant with every breath (I usually dive steels and added 4lb to account for the AL80). Plus, even with my buddy at the surface, it amounted to a solo dive in my mind.
Would you have done it differently?
Rick
P.S. Before you ask, I'm not telling exactly where it happened! If I ever get a chance to dive that site again, you can bet I'll be spending extra time in the shallows in an organized search pattern. I want that boltsnap back!
Here's how it went down: I had performed a fairly long single-tank dive earlier in the day to about 90-100 fsw, and drove to a shore diving site with my buddy Dennis (Pez de Diablo). After a couple of hours on the surface, we dove down to about 70 fsw or so and made a leisurely wall dive of it. Near the end of the shore dive, I shot a Surface Marker Buoy at about 30 feet for practice as we meandered our way back into the shallows and we made a nice slow ascent. After we surfaced, I rolled over to my back and started to swim toward shore. At that point, we were still in about 20 fsw, and I decided to roll up my SMB and stow it during my surface swim. I had the line tied-off to my spool with a large double-ender, and I unclipped the double ender to reel up the last bit of slack. As I did it, however, the line slipped out of the boltsnap, and the boltsnap slipped out of my hand.
Well, I stopped where I was and considered my options. Even with just two dives that day, I had plenty of Nitrogen in my system. I was down to about 600 psi, so I had enough gas to probably go down and find it. Another factor was that the bottom was littered with huge kelp leaves and eel-grass, so the search would be tough at best. Also, my buddy Dennis was diving doubles, and had used enough gas in two dives that he was too buoyant to go down again. And finally, I had paid full retail for the damned boltsnap and didn't want to say goodbye to $10.00!!
Taking this all into account, I decided not to try a bounce dive to search for the lost boltsnap. My reasoning was that it would just not be safe or smart to go down by myself, even to just 20 fsw for a $10 piece of gear. I had no guarantee of finding it, nor of being able to do another slow, controlled ascent with the AL80 tank getting more buoyant with every breath (I usually dive steels and added 4lb to account for the AL80). Plus, even with my buddy at the surface, it amounted to a solo dive in my mind.
Would you have done it differently?
Rick
P.S. Before you ask, I'm not telling exactly where it happened! If I ever get a chance to dive that site again, you can bet I'll be spending extra time in the shallows in an organized search pattern. I want that boltsnap back!