Today's lesson, courtesy Mother Ocean

[TSandM]

Bob and I talked about it quite a bit after the dive. He did not see that my mask was flooded, and I think that would be hard to see. I did NOT signal distress -- this was a big lesson from this incident. He saw the back flip and then some odd behavior, but at first he thought I was just playing, and then he wondered if I was having some buoyancy issues related to diving my new drysuit. He stayed close, but just watched carefully. He saw me settle on my belly on the bottom and didn't know why, but again, I hadn't signalled any problem. I guess what I was doing didn't look nearly as bad on the outside as it did from where I was!

Miketsp, thank you for your post. I hadn't thought about it, but what really bothers me is when I close my eyes to clear my mask, and reopen them to find the mask full of water. I can take my mask off and open my eyes and swim, and I'm a little confused but I have enough visual information to stay oriented. But that shock of opening my eyes with my mask on and not being able to see has repeatedly been unpleasant. I think I'll get in the pool and play with swimming around with my mask flooded. Sounds like a good exercise.

 

[CBulla]

TS - it sounds like he was observing you very closely and would have totally intervined if you had really gone haywire. So even though you were nearing panic, you had presence of mind stay focused on what you felt you needed to do which was find reference to gain some sort of equilibrium and then correct the situation. I'd dive with you!

 

[Darnold9999]

Good post.

I often have mask leaking problems and had what sounds like a very similar dive a few months back. Mask floods, clear, floods again immediately cycle this a few times and a bit of water up the nose to complicate and get me frustrated. Cleared the skirt, the hood could not figure out what was causing it.

My response was to simply stop close my eyes and let my ears tell me what was going on. Headed for the surface as slowly as possible (rather be slightly rising than slightly descending in that particular spot). My buddy (a new diver) wondered what the hell I was doing, but followed me up. After a minute or two of drifting up and managing my frustration I managed to clear the mask and found myself about 10 feet above the wreck, but the thing that I took away from this was to unfocus from the problem and go back to diving. Then solve the problem. You really don't need to see to dive - we dive in low vis all the time.

 

[limeyx]

Bob and I talked about it quite a bit after the dive. He did not see that my mask was flooded, and I think that would be hard to see. I did NOT signal distress -- this was a big lesson from this incident. He saw the back flip and then some odd behavior, but at first he thought I was just playing, and then he wondered if I was having some buoyancy issues related to diving my new drysuit. He stayed close, but just watched carefully. He saw me settle on my belly on the bottom and didn't know why, but again, I hadn't signalled any problem. I guess what I was doing didn't look nearly as bad on the outside as it did from where I was!
...

This is a good point -- signaling deliberately with the light side to side (not quite "I'm OOA light signaling) would at least tell him something was definitely up.

Easy to say from my arm chair tho ... as always, "what I think I would do" is not always what ends up happening.

 

[pengwe]

Very interesting post, thanks. I like the way you break it down into each detail of what happened.

When you grabbed the rock, did you know which side of the wall you were on? I would have been scared to go totally negatively buoyant near the edge in case I went over and 'fell' into the depths. I would have wanted to go UP, UP too. I'm glad you got it sorted out, good job.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Attention signal with Light; communicate problem to Buddy --use Middle Finger and point to your mask (i.e "my mask is 'effed-up", or in my case --both contact lenses popped-out!); then communicate either I'm okay & dealing with it, or have Buddy help problem-solve, deploy back-up mask, and/or egress/thumb-the-dive using touch contact & performing a Buddy assisted "maskless" ascent drill. . .

 

[mislav]

TSandM, thanks for sharing this.

Being able to control panic in this situation was your biggest success here. As you know, there were a few options on how to handle this incident of which you chose one. What kept you in control and provided you with the way out through those options was your ability to stay focused and prevent panic. Way to go! I'd say it was an important victory against the worst of the diver's nemesis - panic!

 

[Marvel]

Excellent post- thank you for sharing! Although I've removed my mask on more than once occasion at 100 ft or so to scratch an itchy nose, there's a distinct difference between a deliberate choice to remove a mask & dealing with an unexpected flooding of that nature, as I know all to well myself. I think that my biggest take-away from your post is the importance of communicating immediately with your buddy so that he/she is aware that something is going on, whether you signal for their assistance or deal with it yourself.

 

[Darnold9999]

Was thinking that at the time myself - how do I communicate to buddy mask is flooded can't see anything I am thumbing the dive. Did give the thumbs up sign, but as I could see nothing who knew if they got it. Found out later he was beside me all the way wondering what I was up to.

Have since decided that I will lose the contacts if the mask floods and just keep one eye closed. Keep a spare pair in the Save a Dive kit. Contacts don't always stay in I have also learned. Mostly they do, but not always and I can't see 6" without them so would be totally lost at the surface. Keeping one is a must.

 

[TSandM]

Kevrumbo, you have it all nicely laid out. I should have signalled much earlier, but when the problem first happened, I thought it was trivial and there was no need to alert Bob. By the time it had become non-trivial, I was too stressed to remember to signal. That's the big lesson from this, that and that I need to get over this issue with not being able to see. I've done mask-off swimming with touch contact, and it goes fine, because the point of contact is a solid point of orientation. It's not having any at all that gets to me, and in this case it was worse, because I didn't know how deep the bottom of the wall was. (As it turns out, it was only about 60 - 65 feet, so even had I just ended up sinking I would not have been in any trouble. But I didn't know that.)

pengwe, not only did I not know which side of the wall I was on, I didn't know if the surface I had hold of was a horizontal surface or a vertical one. But I had a solid hold of it, and I just wanted to be as negative as I could be, because negative would make me more solidly connected to the rock, no matter what its orientation, and positive could float me off it into midwater again.