Problems for a Kelp diver on a Caribbean dive,rental gear.

[jimmy71]

I would rather have a best guess then no guess.
BUt I guess that is just me..............:chuckle:

 

[Ben Prusinski]

I sync up my Atomic Cobalt with my Suunto D4 backup computer. The Cobalt is much nicer to keep track of safety stops and works well in dark bad viz places like Monterey.

 

[Lake Muroc Diver]

FJpatrum "Jimmy, that's funny. I wasn't trying to be a jerk, though it may have come across that way."

I agree with Jimmy. You succeeded at being a jerk, and I agree that you were not having to try very hard.
With that attitude, you may want to delete the reference to the Hawaiian saying in your signature. There is no aloha in your bones.

 

[jimmy71]

If it makes you feel any better, It is my experience that hawaiians are actually not very nice to tourists (at least on Oahu) once you get off the resorts.

just sayin'

Jimmy (i'm a Haole and was called one often while there)

 

[Lake Muroc Diver]

Jimmy71
A little History lesson
Hawaii was captured by the USA in a politically motivated move initiated by Spreckles Sugar and Dole.
With an army of Marines in the harbor, they forced the Queen to abdicate or witness the bloodbath. Some Hawaiians have not gotten over that. A lot of property was taken away since it was owned by the royal family. ( They are just savages, right)?
Sorry you were mistreated in Oahu. With the tourist industry down, a lot of locals are out of work and not happy. And some do not like Haole. Did you get some stink eye? or someone ask you to kindly leave our local beach?
I Love Hawaii but have not been there for 12 years.

---------- Post added April 18th, 2012 at 06:43 PM ----------

Jimmy71
Thanks for pointing out the rudeness in the reply from FJpatrum. He is from Wash D.C. a lot of harsh words come out of D.C.
HAHAHAHA
Only good dives for you my friend.

 

[fjpatrum]

FJpatrum "Jimmy, that's funny. I wasn't trying to be a jerk, though it may have come across that way."

I agree with Jimmy. You succeeded at being a jerk, and I agree that you were not having to try very hard.
With that attitude, you may want to delete the reference to the Hawaiian saying in your signature. There is no aloha in your bones.

No aloha... interesting. I also mentioned that I think you're probably a nice person who intended to make your experience a learning experience for everyone and that I thought it would be important to point out some of the other obvious (to me, a newb) lessons that could be learned other than just unfamiliar gear can be bad. Those lessons were:

1) Don't assume a "master diver" or DM or anyone else can tell you the right amount of weight you need. Do a proper weight check.
2) When in doubt do refresher training, even if it's just rereading your training materials.
3) When a computer says you're in Deco, or locks you out (apparently Suunto will do that for runaway ascents--see many of us learned something just from that), don't just ignore it.
4) If there's a likelihood of losing gear on a flight, carry your personal gear with you as a carry on.
5) Unfamiliar gear can be a problem for many reasons. Computers are the most likely to cause problems to unfamiliar users because they vary so greatly.

Please don't take one post of mine and assume you know me. Try reading more of my posts and get a better picture of who I am and why I said what I said before judging me and I suspect you'll have a different opinion. You might not, but I suspect you would.

My post, as I said, was to point out that there are an awful lot of mistakes you made and that a lot of them don't make sense from someone with a lot of experience. Maybe it's been a while since you were an active diver, maybe not, we don't know. The information you've provided throughout this thread is inconsistent at best.

Take it however you want, but I stand by what I said. There were more lessons to learn than just "don't rent gear".

 

[jimmy71]

What a nice post fj! You said what you needed to say and make your points simple and concise. I also have no fault with what you said. I also think that those lessons would be fairly obvious to an experienced diver. I do not see the need point out or question his experience. The posts speak for themselves and allow people judge on their own.

Just sayin'
Jimmy

 

[altaskier]

You said you think the computer was a Suunto Gecko. I believe Suuntos penalize you for rapid ascents, and since you were underweighted and yo-yoing you could have run into that limit. Of course we can't know what was happening with nitrogen microbubbles inside your body, but rapid ascents can't help and I think it is correct of Suunto's algorithm to penalize you if you come up too fast. I dive with Suunto computers and they have caused me to ascend much more slowly than I did before diving with a computer, and I think that's a good thing.

 

[fjpatrum]

What a nice post fj! You said what you needed to say and make your points simple and concise. I also have no fault with what you said. I also think that those lessons would be fairly obvious to an experienced diver. I do not see the need point out or question his experience. The posts speak for themselves and allow people judge on their own.

Just sayin'
Jimmy

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not I'm going to assume you're not and that you're just pointing out how I might have been "less rude".

Yes I think the issues would be fairly obvious for an experienced diver to recognize but I was enumerating them specifically for inexperienced divers to recognize.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Lake Muroc, sorry you felt pushed around, in the advanced divers forum no one pulls punches and sometimes go over the line.

Anyway, your experience is one of the reasons to keep key pieces of gear in your carry on. Dive computers are not standardized and not always easy to use. The idea of using a rental makes me very uncomfortable even though I have been diving a long time. Ditto for mask with prescription lenses for different but obvious reasons.

Second, coming from diving a full 7MM, you probably were a little slack in compensating for air weight. The compression of the 7MM at s/s after a dive allows you to ignore that 6lbs of air to some degree. When you switch to a thin suit (or dry suit) that 6lbs can come back to haunt you. I learned that the hard way too.

Tough lesson, glad you are back safe though...