Have you ever done anything on a dive that you KNEW you weren't supposed to?

[MXGratefulDiver]

What about the rest of you? Done something you knew you weren't supposed to do? How did you deal with it mentally?

My first "solo" dive ... as a moderately inexperienced diver (about 50 dives total).

Cheng and I were on a dive charter at Orchard Rocks ... a site I very much enjoyed. Back then, Cheng was using a steel 72, and I was on an AL100 ... so she was going through her air much faster than I was. When she signaled me that she needed to ascend, I accompanied her to the anchor line, and up to 15 feet for her safety stop. Looking at my own gauge, I still had over half a tank of air. Another couple came to the line about a minute behind us, and I signaled that I wanted Cheng to go up with them. They all said OK, so I waved bye-bye and went back down alone. About fifteen minutes later I surfaced ... literally beaming from the experience. The woman working crew that day ... a good friend ... took one look at my face and said "get a pony bottle, Bob" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Rooster In Ohio]

So, db, what was going through your mind when you did the blind jumps? What was going through your wife's mind when she followed the instructor into the wreck? It's the mental process that gets people into situations where they get into trouble that I'm really curious about. We all know people do things that are generally regarded as imprudent at best; I want to get at how folks convince themselves to do it.

What was going throug my mind with the blind jumps was more anger than anything else. I thougt about calling the dive and frankly was just too macho to do so. I did finally move up to the DM to show him that I was below 1000. We started out with light fills of 2800 or so and the course we took was not an in and out but more of a circle (I attribute this to his jump - we took one route in and another back but it was never clear to me that we were heading back to the entrance point). He shrugged it off and indicated that we were close to the end. My wife loved the whole thing, but I think it is because she did not know the right way (and I am not saying I know the right way - I am not a cave diver - I just know enought to know when something is not right).

The icing on the cake was that the DM didn't have an isolation manifold on his doubles - just a crossbar. I asked him what good he thought that would do if he had a tank or manifold failure and he said they are required to dive doubles in the Cenotes but it isn't like they have a DiveRite shop in Cancun...Ugh! So I guess the answer is that I went along with the program against my better judgment. A choice that I would now rate as a mistake - one I survived but one I hope I will think hard about before doing it again.

 

[freewillie]

Entered the water without my snorkel.

 

[freewillie]

On a more serious note.

While on a wall dive in Turks in Caicos I noticed that I was at about 70 feet. I had OW certification and was not supposed to be below 60 feet. I then descended little more, I wanted to get to 75 feet. Once at 75 ft I came back up to 60 ft. Not the most serious of dive transgressions, but to asnwer the question I knew I shouldn't go deeper but I did anyways. Technically and by the book I was deeper than my training, and we all know about how we feel on SB about diving beyond your training.

 

[Splitlip]

Some scary stuff guys.

 

[ktomlinson]

I dove 15' deeper than my certification allows.

 

[Bigd2722]

on a planned deep dive (135') my computer crapped out at the start. I knew how much gas was in my tank, I was able to keep track of time, and I never lost sight of the dive group (it was a drift dive). I went ahead and completed the dive

 

[BabyDuck]

not quite, lynne, but i *have* done things that i knew would be hot fodder for the gossip mills if the dive went south that i was comfy with.

my big problem is that i think i just haven't understood what the plan was when someone deviates, not that they're deviating & i should call them on it.

 

[Splitlip]

I've actually broken a lot of the rules we learned in open water. Probably most typically surfacing without a buddy. But that is not unusual at all locally.

A had a few Dan Volker type experiences, but I was like 20 or 21.

The most stupid thing I ever did was to loop a float line and reef hook around my wrist/fore arm. No reel so at the surface I let out 120 ft or so of floating nylon line. As my brother and I began our descent..well you can guess what happened. It was, after all, mini season.

 

[ktomlinson]

I thought about it more and in addition to the diving deeper than I am certified for I've also dove solo and I'm not certified for that either.

The decisions to violate both of these rules were made prior to the dives, and the justifications I gave myself for doing them I for the most part still believe.

I won't break the depth rule again, but do prefer to spearfish alone and will continue doing so.

There are also things that I am allowed to do by certification that I will not do again, such as diving caverns without redundant regulators.