greg somers
Guest
Yesterday I was diving in the eastern sea off the Korean coast with members of a local dive club.Here is a series of events that happened to my dive buddy.She is Rescue qualified in Padi and they put her with me because her english skills were better.We drove across by bus and I spoke to everyone about the importance of pre and post dive briefings and alcohol and diving and buddy safety.There is a big problem with alcohol and diving here in Korea.In fact they sometimes have a meal with Korean whiskey in between dives.Many people smoke,including the instructors,who also are drinking culprits.
My buddy isn't,but there was smoking on the bus which was annoying.She went in with me and we dived first on an artificial reef at 25m.I had just noticed as I got her to show me her SPG that she had an unbalanced regulator.Anyways,She got donged on the head by another divers tank...(They swim oblivious to where they are here,and far too close to each other.), poor girl,and then as I started to go through a feature I turned around and she was gone.Nowhere to be seen.I was out of eye contact for no more than 15 seconds.She didn't know her regulator was unbalanced...something the shop she bought it from should have made sure she understood,and she had no idea how it would affect her diving.It was her first korean dive.
She thought that she was running out of air and headed for the surface without getting to me and my octopus reg.We were
deep and in 10 degrees C,so her air was running out faster.
When I couldn't see her I decided to do a search with my torch because at that depth,if I went up for her I wouldn't be able to safely go down to find her if she wasn't there.After a thourough search I decided that she had gone up to the boat and headed up and did my safety stop,surfacing to find her already in the boat.She was embarressed but I reassured her.The next dive after checking the reg first was halted when her SPG hose started leaking.Probably the O'ring.She got a reg from a diver who didn't do his second dive,(too much alcohol...heheh),and we went down on a natural rock feature.I set our maximum time and depth and I noticed that the borrowed reg was leaking through seals (probably not serviced regularly) but her air loss wasn't that serious when I checked her air and the dive was going to be a short one.However after 10 minutes she was cold and we surfaced doing a safety stop and got into the boat.My point is that there are going to be days like this.How we deal with them if they happen to us or to someone else is important.The fact is that we never react like we think we should.Regular practicing of skills,servicing of gear and knowledge of how our gear works and what's going on around us could have avoided all of the above.Keep upskilling and let's learn from our mistakes and keep diving safely.The last chapter of this day was when divers who smoked and drunk heard about this at the dive debriefing,(the first one they ever had and instigated by myself),where I asked my buddy to bring everything up and anyone else that had problems so we all could learn and support one another,they chose to try and blame me because of my stand on alcohol and diving.Hahaha.
They said that this is Korea and we do things our way.I laughed at them and said that the ocean doesn't recognise international boundaries.All diving has risks and a wise diver will try to minimize them.
Safe diving everyone.
The Gasman
My buddy isn't,but there was smoking on the bus which was annoying.She went in with me and we dived first on an artificial reef at 25m.I had just noticed as I got her to show me her SPG that she had an unbalanced regulator.Anyways,She got donged on the head by another divers tank...(They swim oblivious to where they are here,and far too close to each other.), poor girl,and then as I started to go through a feature I turned around and she was gone.Nowhere to be seen.I was out of eye contact for no more than 15 seconds.She didn't know her regulator was unbalanced...something the shop she bought it from should have made sure she understood,and she had no idea how it would affect her diving.It was her first korean dive.
She thought that she was running out of air and headed for the surface without getting to me and my octopus reg.We were
deep and in 10 degrees C,so her air was running out faster.
When I couldn't see her I decided to do a search with my torch because at that depth,if I went up for her I wouldn't be able to safely go down to find her if she wasn't there.After a thourough search I decided that she had gone up to the boat and headed up and did my safety stop,surfacing to find her already in the boat.She was embarressed but I reassured her.The next dive after checking the reg first was halted when her SPG hose started leaking.Probably the O'ring.She got a reg from a diver who didn't do his second dive,(too much alcohol...heheh),and we went down on a natural rock feature.I set our maximum time and depth and I noticed that the borrowed reg was leaking through seals (probably not serviced regularly) but her air loss wasn't that serious when I checked her air and the dive was going to be a short one.However after 10 minutes she was cold and we surfaced doing a safety stop and got into the boat.My point is that there are going to be days like this.How we deal with them if they happen to us or to someone else is important.The fact is that we never react like we think we should.Regular practicing of skills,servicing of gear and knowledge of how our gear works and what's going on around us could have avoided all of the above.Keep upskilling and let's learn from our mistakes and keep diving safely.The last chapter of this day was when divers who smoked and drunk heard about this at the dive debriefing,(the first one they ever had and instigated by myself),where I asked my buddy to bring everything up and anyone else that had problems so we all could learn and support one another,they chose to try and blame me because of my stand on alcohol and diving.Hahaha.
They said that this is Korea and we do things our way.I laughed at them and said that the ocean doesn't recognise international boundaries.All diving has risks and a wise diver will try to minimize them.
Safe diving everyone.
The Gasman