How often do you get Scared?

[herman]

I've heard that before! I heard all those sand tiger stories and I went to dive Nc. No sharks! Since then I have concluded that sharks don't really exist. The stories are merely propogandy to sucker tourists and the TV shows are just cheap special effects to aid in the deception.

Oh they do exist. A lot depends on the wreck you dive and the season. They migrate in and out so there are times we don't see any and other times they are all over. You have to come back and give it another try. We also have lion fish.

 

[stardust]

I'm really surprised no one's mentioned this yet, I thought it might be more common. We had an unusually aggressive 12' male alligator in the Cooper River in Charleston SC pursue us in our effort to get back in the boat. This is very rare; they normally avoid humans except protective females which are obvious and easy to avoid. This male was sneaky, hiding at the bank then coming in and hovering above the bubbles like he was waiting for a snack. The boat captain had to keep running the boat at him. When the captain said "um swim faster" I about fainted. The next trip we went better prepared for that unlikely event. The boats/jet skis scare me too; they run fast and sometimes don't know/respect dive flags. I have prayed for God to make them stop for a moment to let me get on the boat when it was really busy. You must use a sausage.
The other time was when my very light daughter got pinned to the bottom of the pool in 3 ft of water by a big tank; I just yanked her up out of the water, she didnt have the reg in her mouth. That was horrifying even though she had only been there seconds, to see her struggling.

 

[ciret]

Twice, I've been scared in ways that affected my diving. One of those was good for me. I was extremely over confident and screwed up royally. I thought there was a good chance I would die on that dive as a result. I've kept the ego under control since (a thousand dives since and I'm still careful).

Walter, can you share what the situation was and how it changed your diving? As a newbie with less than 100 dives, I find hearing experianced divers discuss what they have learned and mistakes they made with more experiance than me to be very helpful as a learning tool.

 

[Paco]

I got really worried, almost panicky once. I was 92 ft. down in very cold Lake Superior, diving wet. I think that the cold water caused my breathing to get really shallow and I ended up with too much CO2. I felt the panic coming on and thought of my rescue training. I swam to a port hole on the wreck. grabbed ahold of it and told myself to stop, breathe slowly and deeply and the panic feeling went away after a bit.

Don't know if this is what you mean by scared, but it sure scared me.

I dive dry now when I dive in really cold water.

 

[Walter]

No time to write out the details now, but I'm sure I've posted it before. In short, I was cocky (760 logged dives), thought I could get away with anything and as a result found myself haing in a sphere of darkening gray with a flopping bloody fish on my stringer, no idea how far away I was from the boat nor in which direction. I was rapidly running out of air with about 20 minutes of deco remaining and didn't have enough light to see when to move from 20 feet to 10 feet (I moved from 30 to 20 when I still had ambient light). I was much smarter at the end of that dive than at the beginning.

I did get away with it, but it was close. I completed all my deco (best guess on moving to 10 feet) with rust in my teeth.

Since then, I always carry a light. I won't start a dive unless I know I have more than enough air to complete it. I don't let any task distract me from watching depth and time. I'm much more conservative in my diving than I was when when that day dawned.

 

[SBP Studios]

Exactly...thats why I started this thread. Im new too.

Walter, can you share what the situation was and how it changed your diving? As a newbie with less than 100 dives, I find hearing experianced divers discuss what they have learned and mistakes they made with more experiance than me to be very helpful as a learning tool.

 

[ciret]

. . . I was much smarter at the end of that dive than at the beginning.

I did get away with it, but it was close. I completed all my deco (best guess on moving to 10 feet) with rust in my teeth.

Since then, I always carry a light. I won't start a dive unless I know I have more than enough air to complete it. I don't let any task distract me from watching depth and time. I'm much more conservative in my diving than I was when when that day dawned.

Thanks Walter

 

[jbichsel]

Night diving in Texas lakes 9(mud holes). Vis in daylight is maybe 2'. At night my King Pelican was a dull glow at 12". Combine that with reports of alligators and it makes for interesting diving. All kinds of stuff runs through your mind.

I was involved S&R diving for one summer in the early '90's. My last dive in that realm was in Lake Whitney searching for a 9 year old boy that had drowned. Vis of 2-3'. No thanks. After about 15 minutes I quit. Couldn't deal with that.

S&R for stuff....ok. For people, especially kids......not for me. Sorry.

Glad to be in back in Colorado. Clear water most times. Cold water good. I like water in the 50's and 60' vis.

 

[Gary D.]

Vis of 2-3'. NQUOTE]
jbichsel;

Without the proper training dives like that can be very dangerous. At least you had some vis.. Most PSD goes from zero to the lack of light. 2-3’ is almost luxury searching.

I’m glad and very proud of you for calling the dive. Peer pressure is one of the biggest PSD killers and maybe divers in general. Some teams have that macho thing stuck in their head, as do some divers. It will come back and bite them in the posterior some day.

My teammates know from day one that if I ever get wind of them doing a dive because of peer pressure I will personally take them behind the barn and kick their butts.

On a recent operation every one of them backed out of the dive to the bottom but one went and hung a third of the way down. This is what we strive for, if you don’t feel comfortable don’t do it, no questions asked.

Again, I’m proud of you for calling it.

Gary D.

 

[sharkattack]

Only time I was truly scared was when my wife and I were entering a swim through cave. We had to surface and swim over a reef and back down into the hole. There were a lot of waves crashing and it was causing a white out. I knew where we were and continued on. When I turned to check on my wife she wasn't there. I swam back out and surfaced. She was not on the surface. I stayed and waited in the surf while the wave kepts crashing on the rocks. She finally sufaced and was obviously shaken. I felt very bad. She said when I had entered, she got sucked back out of the hole and washed into the rocks under water. Because of the white out she did not know where she and I were. She did the right thing by staying submerged until she could egress away from the rocks when the white water had subsided. She the found her way back to the whole and surfaced. Not know where she was made me very anxious. I aplogized over and over again. I felt soo bad. She followed her training and did what she had to do. It still ended up being a good dive.