Dumb Things I've Done

[FinnMom]

I stood in maybe 130 cm of water and tested whether my dry glove was leaking. Every time I leaned over to put my arm under, my lower back felt cold. Did that 3x and thought "Gee, that's odd. Don't know what to make of that, let's try again...".

Finally, after several minutes and at least 5 tests, it dawned on me that the glove was fine but my across-the-shoulders zipper was open.

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My buddy's suit value wasn't working and he climbed back on the boat to fix it. Someone threw me a snorkel to help me wait on the surface in slight chop. 5 minutes later my buddy is back in the water and his suit works fine. All our other checks were done before the drysuit inflate problem, so we check that the suit is now fine and with two thumbs down signals we're on our way.

I got to maybe 1m before I realized I had a snorkel in my mouth.

Yeah, I like bungied backups too.

 

[TravisD]

Switched from reg to snorkel during my OW checkout dive at 18'.

 

[Johanan]

I have left the crotch strap dangling several times. The worst thing, however, was on my first wreck dive in the Baltic Sea. We had to go some 25km out to the sea on a RHIB, and on the half way I discovered that I left my weight belt in the car. Other divers were so kind that allowed me to dive in turns, using their weights. That kept us out on the Sea twice as long as we planned. I got punished for that - the long waiting on the RHIB made me so seasick that for the first time I gave my lunch to fish. Another time on a dive boat I asked for 8 kg of weight but didn't check that the DM gave me a belt with only 6. At the end of the dive the empty AL80 tank pulled me through the security stop kicking and screaming.

Sometimes I feel like a fish and tend to forget that I need a regulator in my mouth to breathe underwater...

 

[g1138]

Drank the stream water while my buddies were bathing/rinsing their gear and themselves........upstream of me.
Prior to this I jumped in the stream with full kit to rinse off.....sans fins. It was winter. I got swept 20ft down the stream towards the ocean. Only reason I stopped was because the rocks got real shallow. I had to crawl out.

Did I mention I was the senior TA for that class? .

 

[Donnah]

It was my first dive trip with the group from our local dive shop. I was trying very hard to look as though I knew what I was doing, but had already distinguished myself by jumping in without my air on. I hadn't noticed that Ron, photographer and owner of the shop, usually dove with 2 cameras. I noticed a camera on the bottom and brought it up, thinking that I had "rescued" it. On the boat, I was told that Ron always put one camera on the bottom, then switched when he ran out of film or wanted a different set-up. As each person got on the boat, the DM and helpers gleefully announced that I had taken Ron's camera and brought it onboard. They wouldn't go down and find him, and wouldn't let me go back down. They said "He'll come up when he runs out of air." We could see his bubbles going back and forth as he ran a search pattern, looking for his very expensive camera. After a very long time, he finally appeared on the ladder, took his reg out of his mouth and said "Has anyone seen my camera?" Everyone on the boat howled with laughter. He got his revenge by loaning me a camera on dive and getting me hooked on u/w photography.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

along with pocky21, nothing comes to mind. I do recall a buddy on a shore dive off Bonaire forgetting his weight pockets, but I did not. Oh yeah, there was that night dive on the Caribbbean Explorer liveaboard trip where all three lights Debbie and I had failed within minutes of each other. That was a true night dive!
DivemasterDennis

 

[Bob DBF]

Over the years, anything I haven't forgotten I probably didn't own 'till recently, as I'm a bit more organized now. Not diving or diving without part of my exposure protection in 50*f water cured me pretty quick. Now I'm the guy with a big save a dive kit which I never actually use.

The only thing I do on a somewhat regular basis, when tired, is descend on a snorkel after a long surface swim, usually on a lobster trip after a few dives. I figure it out between 15 and 30 feet, grab my reg and proceed as usual. I don't bother with the backup reg as it is stupidity rather than an emergency. That is one downside of free-diving on a regular basis, when tired the differences blur.




Bob
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I honestly feel I'm a better diver now. I learned to respect the ocean the hard way. One swallow at a time. Mark Derail

 

[knotical]

I'm quite forgetful in many aspects of my life (e.g. forgot what I just went upstairs to get). But in scuba I've had surprisingly few senior moments. Perhaps because I'm a big practitioner of checklists, I've only done 4 or 5 of those mentioned above.
But I can add another: Was on a boat with a hinged ladder, the ladder in the up position. Grabbed the ladder to steady myself while moving in that area. Ladder wasn't latched. Ladder and I both went overboard.

 

[Phil_C]

I'm usually very organised and haven't yet forgotten anything on a boat or dive itself that has stopped me diving, in fact I'm probably a bit OCD about checking bags and kit before the dive - (theres tempting fate for you) but I did switch out a reel for a finger spool a few dives ago. I smugly pulled the spool out of my drysuit pocket where it had neatly sat for the entire dive, none of this messy flapping about hanging on a D-Ring malarky.

I clipped it onto my DSMB and then part filled the DSMB with air from my octo to send it whizzing away towards the surface - as I let it go I suddenly remembered - I was sending it up from about 15 metres (45 foot or so) not a problem with my 100foot reel - but I'm sure the nice neat spool said 30 foot on it ! Doh -

I did manage to catch it up without anyone noticing but it wasn't very graceful. Longer spool on the X-mas list now - Phil

 

[TONY CHANEY]

But I can add another: Was on a boat with a hinged ladder, the ladder in the up position. Grabbed the ladder to steady myself while moving in that area. Ladder wasn't latched. Ladder and I both went overboard.

Care to tell us the rest of the story?