hi everyone. just wanted to share my experience.
I currently have about 27 dives under my belt. At my 6th dive, I was in calm waters with minimal current and good visibility with my dive buddy (my wife with +80 dives).
I must say I was pretty excited to hit -18m for the first time and wanted to ascend a few meters back up to level off with my buddy, at around 15m depth. Unfortunately the only way I could think of (the laziest way) was to add a tiny bit of air in my bcd. next thing I remember is my wife looking at me with " wtf are you doing?" kind of look and she was around 5m BELOW me. Before I realized what was going on, I surfaced. The entire dive group was ahead of us and no one except my wife realized that I surfaced from 18m up like a rocket. I did not panic, looked underwater and saw my wife signalling if I was ok. I was fine but I lost all my confidence and joy to continue the dive. Luckily i close to the boat so did a nice comfy surface swim to the boat with my wife.
Lessons Learned:
- never inflate the BCD before ascend. I later talked to the DM about this. Now got it figured out .DUmping tiny bit of air off bcd and kicking upwards seem to work perfectly fine. Obviously my OW instructor never talked to me about how BCD air inflates with ascend if you dont dump a bit.
- remember to use the quick air dump valves on the BCD in such cases. I was desperately trying to use the inflator hose to dump air but it didnt seem to work efficiently in certain positions. I totaly forgot that i could pull the strings on the dump valves.
I currently have about 27 dives under my belt. At my 6th dive, I was in calm waters with minimal current and good visibility with my dive buddy (my wife with +80 dives).
I must say I was pretty excited to hit -18m for the first time and wanted to ascend a few meters back up to level off with my buddy, at around 15m depth. Unfortunately the only way I could think of (the laziest way) was to add a tiny bit of air in my bcd. next thing I remember is my wife looking at me with " wtf are you doing?" kind of look and she was around 5m BELOW me. Before I realized what was going on, I surfaced. The entire dive group was ahead of us and no one except my wife realized that I surfaced from 18m up like a rocket. I did not panic, looked underwater and saw my wife signalling if I was ok. I was fine but I lost all my confidence and joy to continue the dive. Luckily i close to the boat so did a nice comfy surface swim to the boat with my wife.
Lessons Learned:
- never inflate the BCD before ascend. I later talked to the DM about this. Now got it figured out .DUmping tiny bit of air off bcd and kicking upwards seem to work perfectly fine. Obviously my OW instructor never talked to me about how BCD air inflates with ascend if you dont dump a bit.
- remember to use the quick air dump valves on the BCD in such cases. I was desperately trying to use the inflator hose to dump air but it didnt seem to work efficiently in certain positions. I totaly forgot that i could pull the strings on the dump valves.