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I had what I actually think was a fairly funny experience yesterday, and I thought it would make a good thread. I'm going to post about a dive I did, and I'm going to post in stages. After each stage, I'd like to hear whether you would have continued the dive or aborted it. (BTW, nothing bad happened.)
I think that this is a really juicy question.
Some information on me: Diving 9 years, over a thousand dives, tech and cave certs, DM regularly for OW classes. The dive site is a benign site, commonly used for training, and well known to me. Weather and water conditions were excellent, apart from viz, which was about ten feet, something to which I am quite accustomed.
Stage 1: A friend from work has been talking to me for a while about going diving together. He has been certified a while, but primarily dives on vacation. He got certified in Puget Sound. He owns all his own equipment. He hasn't dived in a while (months) and wants to get his gear into the water prior to an upcoming tropical trip. Would you set up this dive?
Yes. Like you, I would pick a shallow, easy dive.
I obviously agreed to do it. We meet at the dive site, go through a site briefing, because he has not been here before. The day looks great. My friend has told me he has his own, steel tank with air in it (which is fine) and his own 7 mil wetsuit which he has used in the Sound before. He has his own weights.
Our cars are a little ways apart, due to the availability of spaces. We each gear up. I am a little ahead of him and the day is sunny and warm, so I yell over that I am going to walk down to the water and cool off. I do so, which involves a little walk to the stairs and a longer walk and wade out to where water is deep enough to take over some of the weight. At this point, I became acutely aware that my dry suit zipper is not closed. (It turns out that I had caught the wire for my heater in the zipper.). Although I back up quickly, I get enough water in my suit that both of my legs are somewhat wet. Would you go on to dive?
Yes, for this kind of easy dive.
My buddy arrives, and we fix the zipper problem. We then start a gear check. He is a little flummoxed by the head-to-toe way I do them, but goes along. I ask him to check his primary reg, and I notice something odd -- it's coming over his LEFT shoulder. I look at his first stage, and yes, the hoses are set up that way. I look at the second stage, and no, it's not one of the ones you can route from either side, so it's upside-down. I point this out to him. He does not have the reg on wrong -- the hoses are installed incorrectly. We conclude he can dive while breathing his backup reg (which is on the right) and I figure out a way to secure the primary reg so it doesn't dangle. We fix a couple of other, minor issues of stuff being twisted or tangled, and all is good. Would you go on from here?
Yes. It sounds like his (now) backup is accessible to you. I like the backup hung this way, upside down (from the left). It still sits "in the triangle" and it comes off right side up for the recipient. Several people who dive with our LDS do it this way.
Further down the check, we discover he has 2200 psi in his tank. He has told me it's an HP100, which would be about 66 cf of gas, but he now maintains the tank is full at 2400. Bottom line, he doesn't know what size tank he has, but the likelihood is high that whatever it is, it isn't full. (Dive plan just got shallower.). Do you go on?
Yes, but like you, I would keep the dive plan shallow. Strange that he owns his own gear, but does not know what kind of tank he has. I wonder how it ended up partially empty?
We finish checks and swim out to the drop point. We then discover he can't sink. I have him remove one of the 3 pound weights I carry on my cambands. He still can't sink. He takes the OTHER 3 lb weight. I am now committed to doing the dive totally shrink-wrapped (and I'm wishing I'd brought a bigger tank with extra gas in it to help me sink!). Do you continue?
OK, this is not so much fun any more. I would think about whether to call it at that point. But I would read his mood and manner, and if he seemed calm and focused and keen to go, I would continue.
We descend down a long line that ends deeper than I thought it did, at around 45 feet. At the bottom, I give him the "okay" signal, and he doesn't respond. When I give it twice more, he eventually tells me his pressure, which is now down to 1800 psi. Dive plan just got WAY shallower, and we head upslope. We end up doing a nice 20 minute dive -- he's actually a very reliable buddy, stays with me, enjoys the two GPOs we found, plays with the Dungeness crabs, and at 20 minutes (in about six feet of water) he can't stay down any more and signals thumbs.
I thought at the time that the risk-assessment process I went through while figuring all of this out was amusing. It was definitely colored by the fact that my friend had driven two hours to the dive site, and I had driven one. I wasn't eager to call this dive!
(BTW -- on debrief, it turns out that my friend had no idea how much weight he needed for Puget Sound. He had never used more than 14 pounds in the tropics, so that's what he had brought. His tank is an Al80 (which wasn't obvious in water, because it was not colored, and had a boot on it). His BC was a Zeagle of some sort with a 65 pound doubles wing on it, which the dive shop sold him because he'd be able to use it no matter what kind of diving he eventually decided to doHe's a good guy; I will dive with him again, but we'll work out the weighting issues beforehand!)
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