First dives without DMs or instructors, lessons learned

[Dam0]

I passed my AOW yesterday, logged 22 dives in total. I've done spent a lot of time with instructors and DMs to up today because the dive group / club i hang around with is close knit and a DM normally just comes along for some personal diving when others go.

Today 3 of us went into open water for the first time without our DM friends.

We planned two dives, the first dive was executed without issue, the second dive was a real test of nerve.

Surface swam to a marker and dropped down a shot line to a platform and started to head out to where we thought a wreak would be. Within a few minutes we entered complete darkness, so much silt and crap. The visibility was 0.5 meters (with lights only) we were down at about 15 meters.
The three of us had no visual references (other than each other) and started loosing our buoyancy control, we were going up and down like yo yo's, using our computers to try and level out. We were also completely lost, we had no idea where we were. A good few minutes of this.
Just about to thumb it and we found a rope line. (At this dive site, the ropes lead to points of interest) So we followed the rope line for what seemed like an entirety and eventually found a wreak, spent 5 minutes looking at it and had to surface due to one of us getting to our planned air limit.

On surfacing we were as far away from the shore as we could be. A long surface swim back.

Afterwards we were pretty hard on ourselves. We carried on regardless when lost, with no vis and crap buoyancy until we hit a rope line by chance. Even then we were still lost.

What we learned and realised:

Our dive planning was crap, it was completely inadequate. We had all become completely complacent due to executing dives previously with professionals who know the sites and did the planning for us. We just followed.
We failed to recognise when to call it, we should have do so earlier. No vis, lost control...what the hell were we thinking.
We should practice more dives without our DM friends.

On a positive note, none of us panicked. Even during our yo yo'ing in no vis we tried to resolve the problem but it was just something we couldn't solve until we saw the line.
Also, we clearly realise our errors and we intend on learning from them.

Thanks all, writing this out allowed me to analyze the day. Comments welcome.



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[TSandM]

First off, good for you for doing the dives in the first place! You will never learn what you have been depending on others to do, until you try to do without them.

Second, you dove, nobody got hurt, and you came home with a new awareness of things you need to work on. In my book, that's not a bad dive at all!

 

[spectrum]

That was a good big step, Congratulations!

My definition of a good dive:
1) Nobody got hurt
2) All of the gear came back
3) Something was learned

Go ahead and be critical but it was a good day of diving.

Pete

 

[tplyons]

Sounds like this was in a quarry/lake?

My first dive without a DM went smoothly as well. Second dive, my buddy "navigated" us to a wreck but we missed it by a long way. We swam what seemed like forever and then thumbed it. Turns out we missed the wreck by about a football field.

It was the first of many "whoops" in my logbook... it turns out we had one hell of a surface swim, but we learned. And if you're not learning, you're not getting all you can out of the dive.

Good for you. Learn from your shortcomings and keep going.

 

[Crush]

Those low-vis dives are great training, but perhaps doing them at dive #23 was a tad early. Glad that you all made out OK. I have two suggestions:

1. More practice/buoyancy control. Pay particular attention to the particulates floating in front of your face and use them to gauge your ascent/slow your ascent. Ascents from depth in low vis is a good way to do this; and
2. Practice deploying a DSMB - it can help you to make a controlled ascent when things get scary.

 

[live_2_dive]

First off, good for you for doing the dives in the first place! You will never learn what you have been depending on others to do, until you try to do without them.

Second, you dove, nobody got hurt, and you came home with a new awareness of things you need to work on. In my book, that's not a bad dive at all!

this


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PADI Rescue/DM 09100Z7445
Dr Dive/Wet Dream/Sea Cobra/Y-Knot

Diving is my passion...I live to dive!

 

[whaleboy]

Thanks for sharing your dive. Since my local dives are lakes and rivers, they tend to be low vis as a norm.
Most of my ocean dives have been rather bad vis, only one was decent, and that was after swimming through
a plankton bloom to get to the better vis. I just fly on instruments, I memorize what compass heading will take
at the surface and keep a close watch on my depth. If I feel out of sorts, I will look at my buddy to steady my eyes/brain.
I found that learn a great deal by reading stories of peoples experiences, especially one's I can relate to.

 

[Scuba_Noob]

My first dive without a DM or Instructor (just another buddy), I was yo-yo-ing and not noticing my depth changes quickly enough. However, that buoyancy improves with plenty of experience, so don't worry.

It sounds mainly like there were navigation problems. Maybe you need to practice your navigation in an area with better visibility. Also, like you mentioned, proper planning is important. You need to know that you're all on the same page if something comes up, like you get lost or it's way too silty. I think you guys did do a safe dive, as you were paying attention to depth, air, and buddies.

 

[Dam0]

Thanks all for your comments. Its a good wake up call which I'm glad I (we) had.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Learn from every dive. You grew alot as divers on your outing. Now go diving some more, and do a thorough dive plan, get more site information before the dive, and even when all goes well, you will still learn and grow. I am a big fan of working on compass navigation on every dive. Work that into you diving planning. Its a good skill to have when the viz turns to crap, as you said.
DivemasterDennis