Very, very proud of my dive buddy

[raviepoo]

I have done several hundred dives. My buddy had done about 20. We were on Santa Catalina Island at the casino dive park. Our dive profile took us down to 59 ft. We swam around, darted through the kelp, looked at stuff.

Then the bat ray came.

My buddy is a marine biologist. She has spent many, many hours snorkeling in the waters off of Catalina Island. At the time of this dive she could count the number of dives she had done there on the fingers of one hand. She was excited to be seeing the environment she loves and knows so well from a different perspective.

I can't really blame her for darting off after the bat ray.

Before the bat ray came we both had about 1250 lbs of gas left. But she swam hard after the bat ray. She was never out of my site, but I wasn't able to keep up with her. She is a much stronger swimmer than I.

After the bat ray she had about 300 lbs in her tank. I gave her my octo. We shared air and swam up to do a safety stop. No worries. I had plenty of air. We had done out of air drills at Dutch Springs a few weekends earlier to prepare for the trip. I'm really glad I suggested doing those preparation dives.

Then I noticed her fiddling around. Her weight belt was on the bottom. I don't know how it came off. Maybe the kelp monster got her.

I had hold of her. She reached for the belt. I helped her get it in position on her back and she buckled it back up. Nobody paniced. Nobody popped to the surface. Nobody dropped a second stage. Nobody sucked in water. Both of us were completely calm and focused on what needed to be done. I am really proud of her ability to remain calm under the circumstances.

We could have gotten hurt but we didn't. Luck was part of that, but so was preparation and determination not to panic. We got back to the surface and had a little talk about gas management, the rule of thirds, the value of additional training and the habit of chasing off after critters. We learned. Mostly we learned what not to do, and how to be better buddies. We also learned the value of remaining calm and focused.

I assume I will be flamed for "letting" her swim of after the bat ray and not sticking to her like glue. To that I offer a pre-emptive, "Whatevs." I'm here to talk about what happened. Nothing can harsh my mellow.

 

[H2O Gal]

No flames here--I know what it's like to see something really cool and take off after it....sounds like she's amazingly comfortable in the water to have only done 20 dives! Props to both of you for not letting a potential disaster happen, and not to make mountains out of molehills about it!:cheerleader:

 

[openmindOW]

Raviepoo, thank you for sharing your expereince here. An objective of this Board is to allow divers to write about their experiences so that divers can learn. Thank you for your contribution.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Sounds like a good dive buddy, better keep her around!

 

[gndpdr]

no flames here either ...well done!

 

[bsumner]

I think that many new & enthusiastic divers have zoomed away from their buddy in such circumstances. This was a good example of how to deal with that situation and I'm sure others will benefit from your story.

 

[fisheater]

Cool.

She's obviously growing nicely in her diving skills. However, as she's a marine biologist she should have known what a critter is going to do when a larger critter accelerates towards them. She doesn now, for sure.

 

[spectrum]

My definition of a good dive:
1. Nobody got hurt
2. All of the gear came back
3. You learned something.

Great job on each of your parts! Thank you for sharing.

Pete

 

[ItsBruce]

No flame here, either. ... At least not for you or your dive buddy.

However, for all the divers who say that one should always be able to control their buddy and that when your buddy abandons the dive plan by taking off after something, you should be able to just grab the valve and ascend, I think this is a perfect example of the fallacy of that position.

 

[TSandM]

Well, it sounds like once the problem was created, you both did everything exactly right to prevent yourselves from ending up any further down in the incident pit.

"Thirds" is one approach to gas management -- I'd like to recommend THIS excellent article which has a little more detail to it.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure was never truer than in diving.