Embarrassing Scuba Related Incidents -

[MaxBottomtime]

I was diving with my buddy Ross from his boat one day. Ross is, well, a little impatient. That's one of his better traits.
He got tired of waiting for me to gear up so he said he would meet me at the anchor line. I rushed to join him, and proceeded to make a backroll without my weightbelt on. I told him I was going to get back onboard to put it on. I could sense steam coming from under his hood.
I removed my gear, donned my weightbelt, replaced my gear and made another backroll...without my fins!

 

[MrChen]

On my very first boat/drift dive, with 10 dives under my belt, I stepped off the boat and was waiting for my dive buddy. My dive buddy this day was my instructor, but this was not an instructor led dive, he was great enough to join me on my first boat dive. His wife was there too, also an instructor, and a member of the crew, but not working this day. She went in before me and my buddy after me. She taps my shoulder and points down. We are in 4-6 ft seas, pretty rough. I look down and see someone swimming 15 ft below me with haste. Ok?... I guess it's time to go down? We start our descent and am only at like 10 ft when his wife taps me again and points down. I look down and that diver that was below me is holding my right fin in both hands extended out for me to grab . I look at my feet and sure enough, I'm missing a fin!! I didn't even notice I was missing a fin yet. So much was going on with the surf, letting air out of my bladder, getting oriented with my buddy, and then add that it's my first boat dive ever. This was also my first dive with springs on my fins and they were one size too large. I grabbed the fin and put it on. I was quite embarrassed. The dive shop, Stuart Scuba, was nice enough to exchange the springs for the next size down and I've never lost a fin again.

 

[Jax]

In the immortal words of Gypsy Jim, "If you are not laughing at yourself, you are missing the joke!

On my trip to Bonaire, my drysuit seals were leaking (as I was to find out all drysuit seals do, on me!)

The Most wonderful person on the trip (H) offered me her 3mm wetsuit, a Henderson front zip.

Now, we don't have a lot of diving and dive stuff in my little corner of the world, and I had never heard of / seen a Henderson. I just knew that a 3mm would not be enough.

So, I rented a 3m shorty (all they carry on Bonaire), and prepared to put on the Henderson 3mm full. I have learned to put on full suits by turning them inside out and "rolling" the suit up my body from my ankles. (No struggles!) As I was wont to do with my 7mm full, I threw on the Henderson . . . with the zipper in the back. Between the 3mm shorty, and the slight largeness of the suit, I wore it backwards at least twice before someone pointed out that the knee pads were on the back. I never noticed!

 

[Rich Keller]

I dive alone so since there are no witnesses I can say without fear of contradiction that I have never done anything embarrassing. Thats my story and I am sticking to it! Stupid on the other hand there have been witnesses to. When I was in high school a friend lost a small engine off the back of his boat while he was underway and wanted me to find it for him. I get out there only to find out that he is not sure exactly where he was just that he was in the channel somewhere. Once I explain to him that there is no way I can find it without having a better idea where he lost it, he stands up, looks around and points to one spot on the water and says "It is right there". I guess the passing wave look familiar to him? So I am already out there with all my gear and figure what the hell I will give it a shot. Needless to say I did not find it, when I get to the surface I get a bad leg cramp, BCDs had not been invented at the time so this was a bit of a problem but not life threatening, I just could not swim back to the boat at that moment. The guys in the boat did not see it that way so one guy is going to save me by throwing me a line, the problem was there is an anchor attached to my end of that line. The other guy saw the line fall short of reaching me so he is going to dive out of the back of the boat to save me but the front of the boat gets in his way and he misses the water. Now I am in trouble, I am only floating high enough that just my face sticks out of the water when I have a full breath of air but now I am laughing my A$$ off watching this. I need to stay at the surface for the air and so I did not want to miss what they were going to do next. I did manage to save myself before my rescuers had another chance to kill themselves.

 

[dsr30]

When doing my OW cert dives in Lake Rawlins, we hit a thermocline that was frigid. I only had a 3mm and decided to get a 7mm suit. I found a nice farmer john type on ebay. When it got to me I decided to try it on. The overalls when on pretty good, they were just right and thick. I then proceed to put the top on, it was a bit of a struggle, it was tight and I had to suck in to zip it up. If I held my hands against my sides and then relaxed they popped up. I'm burning up and decided to get out of the suit, but I can't! I unzip it and then try to pull my arms out but it isn't working. I'm struggling trying to get this thing off, working up a sweat, getting frustrated and burning up. I trying my hardest to get it off and was thinking that I'm going to have to go to the neighbor to get help to remove this damn thing. I ended up having to lay on the floor and hold the back down and work my way out of it.