Whats the dumbest thing you've done?

[Jim Ernst]

Well I'm gonna sound really stupid because I've made the same mistake 4 times, you'd think I'd learn. On 4 separate occasions I've started to descend and as soon as a gulp of water enters my mouth I realized I never put my regulator in my mouth and was descending using my snorkel. The first two times I did it as a very new diver and thought for sure I was going to drown and frantically kicked up to the surface. The last two times I did it I calmly thought "you idiot", found my reg, spit out my snorkel and put the reg in mouth without even slowing my descent. So I figured I was still very stupid but becoming much more calm when I made mistakes. At least I haven't done it again in my last 100+ dives, maybe I've finally learned better.

Same here twice while teaching

I was a New Instructor, and was so preoccupied, I just descended, I don't use a snorkel anymore, It is now a fold up in my pocket!

 

[Compression]

As well as the usual forgetting mask, fins and open the air etc. Once whilst guiding I hadn't rinsed my mask properly so had this lovely bit of thick spit left inside ... After a few minutes in the water I thought I saw a Manta which I excitedly made every1 aware of and we proceeded to head out at speed in its direction, me continuing to point it out and following it further and further into the blue, after a few minutes of thinking why o why can't they see it??!! ...

I realized it was the spit in my mask ... I felt like such a dick and casually gestured it had gone to far and proceeded to back to the reef. Now I have a stringent mask preparation routine whilst gearing up ...

 

[Inalara]

Gearing up on a boat I realised I was still wearing my glasses and took them off just as someone asked for help, so I finished helping the person, did my buddy check, oh yes he also didn't notice the glasses casually looped over my BCD...

Did a back roll entry into the water, but feeling like having some fun I added an underwater somersault.. as I came up, saw some glasses casually drifting down .. *doh*

I learnt to take my glasses off early and my insta buddy to question!

 

[TonyW388]

I still like the captain's signature. I hope he doesn't mind that I borrowed his line!

Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool!

My dumb thing I did!

There was the time I turned my air on ¹/₄ of a turn! I made it to 40' then realized oops no air. My buddy was there for me.

My favorite funny dumb thing!

I was on the boat already. I got all my gear out and setup at the dive site. Wetsuit on and the whole shebang, then realized "where are my fins?" We debated putting one of my buddies fins on each of us and locking arms and seeing how far we could swim like that.:shocked2: The only problem was we both have bad right knees. So we were fighting over who gets to be the left foot.

Lucky for me one of the other divers was having trouble getting down because he had just gotten over a cold. I got to use his fins. Now we carry a "spare pair" of fins on the boat!

 

[Water Monkey]

I realized it was the spit in my mask ... I felt like such a dick and casually gestured it had gone to far and proceeded to back to the reef. Now I have a stringent mask preparation routine whilst gearing up ...

I’ve also learned not to eat Oreos before spitting in my mask.

 

[JLambus]

Before taking my nitrox course i did not know what a PO2 limit was. During this time i made a number of dives on air well beyond my Po2 limits for 21%. Using a single steel 72 with no redundancy, solo. I know... I know.... we are talking about stupid things we've done though.

 

[Jax]

I’ve also learned not to eat Oreos before spitting in my mask.

 

[paddler3d]

As a new diver, going out with a divemaster buddy who was diving double HP80's, but they were too low on his back and couldn't reach the valves, and we were at 70ft and both of his regs froze. I offered him my octo, but I didn't know what else to do. He did a CESA. In the end, no one was injured. Sort of freaked me out.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I’ve also learned not to eat Oreos before spitting in my mask.

A friend of mine who is married to a naturalized Chinese girl gave me a Halcyon facemask because it didn't fit his face. He was always bragging about his wife's home-made traditional Chinese cooking. I'm reminded of what a good cook she is every time I wear the mask. No matter how much I scrub it, it still smells like Chinese food after he'd spit in it.

 

[TMet]

Diving with certain "buddy" more than once. He's done some really stupid things putting mine and other divers lives in serious jeopardy. For example: When we were all newly certified he, myself, and two friends of ours were diving together as two pairs. His buddy went OOA and signaled to him. He responded by giving the "OK" and swimming off. Luckily, my buddy and I noticed and were close enough to assist. He's done things like this to all of us. You could just copy his dive log into the accident analysis forum for some great discussions. I no longer dive with him for obvious reasons. I did learn to be self sufficient and my personal confidence went way up after a year of diving with him regularly. Thankfully my friends and I lived through it.

Dropped a set of 104s on my dive computer. Lesson learned: Don't do that!

Got really mad because my can light would fail ofter about 5 minutes of use resulting in 2 days of diving getting ruined when it was brand new. I never read the manual and didn't know you had to cycle the battery. RTFM!

My first saltwater dive I didn't bring extra weight and couldn't sink. Lesson: The instructor is right, you're more buoyant in salt water then fresh.

Going into a small cavern. This is for two reasons 1) I was not certified and completely oblivious to the extra risk. 2) I'm now hooked on caverns and caves resulting in a TON of money spent on gear and training with lots more to come. Still love it though

I'm sure I can think of some more..

So far the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know about diving.