Arnaud
Contributor
Vacation. Spain. Costa Brava, North Mediterranean coast, August 2003. This is where I have gotten my OW & AOW. In the area, most of the sites are pretty deep. You usually get to 100 ft each time. The dive boats are small with no compressor on board, so each trip is a one-tank dive. Did I mention Spain in August? Each dive takes about 3 hours all-in for 45 minute of actual diving
Bottom line: if you have a non-diving spouse, you usually do one dive a day and nothing more.
After a bad cold, after the dive boat broke and was fixed, my regular buddy had left and I was desperately looking for a new one. I wanted to do a night dive. The site: a 100 ft Italian war boat sunk in 1943 and lying in 105 ft of salt water. Not the place where you want to go at night with someone you don't trust But it's a great site at night. I've dived it many times. Amazing colors, full of life.
I finally find a buddy. We go diving the same wreck during the day. Two things are bothering me: the guy doesn't own his gear and doesn't have a timing device. But he's experienced (without being necessarily knowledgeable). Great buoyancy, good buddy awareness. The dive goes great, except that he feels I'm ascending very slowly (yeah, that's what I do). Anyhow, we make plans for the night dive.
It's 9 pm and we meet up at the boat. We'll only leave an hour later because Well, actually, that's just the way things are over there. The site is only 10 minutes away. My buddy and I have talked about the dive. Stay close, night signs. He wants to look around the wreck as well. That's cool. Based on our first dive, I feel comfortable.
We've been swimming around the wreck for 10 minutes, maybe 50 or 60 ft away from it, looking at stuff in the nearby reef at 100 ft. I signal that I want to get closer to the wreck and start ascending a little. The buddy follows.
We we get to the wreck, but he stays at the bottom while I ascend to the deck. That's when my primary rental light starts flashing. The battery's down. I get my backup light. Meanwhile, the guy is 5 ft deeper. I try to flash my light at him but he doesn't look up. I've been averaging 95ft for 15 minutes and I need to ascend to a shallower spot. I go get him. He hadn't even noticed that my primary light was down
He finally agrees to ascend, but only to the deck and that's not going to do it for me. I ascend to 75ft but he does not follow. I yell. I flash my light. The guy won't look up nor will he ascend. For more than 5 minutes, I'll try to communicate with him. Maybe I should go and get him again. He's 10 ft deeper and I'm on my own with a back up light. Luckily I still have 2000 psi left in a steel 95. I'm breathing air. I've been averaging 90 ft for 20 minutes and I've done another deep dive in the morning. I don't want to bounce back. It's time to go up.
I'm at 75 ft after 21 minutes in the water. I surface 12 minutes later, marking stops at 50, 40, 30, 20 & 10. My buddy is still down there. As I was ascending, I could see him staying at 85 ft Back on the boat, I tell the captain that my buddy's still at the site and that he doesn't want to understand the ascent sign. The captain wants to wait. He knows the guy. Some other divers are still there, too. Well, my buddy surfaced more than 10 minutes after I did and he probably took less than half the time I did to ascend. What followed was an unpleasant conversation about buddy awareness, night diving and the ascent sign, followed by his apologies (but who cares about that). This was my last dive in Spain that year and I haven't heard from him since then. By all accounts, he should have been bent. I hope he wasn't.
So what have I learned? In truth, not much I didn't know before. This was a deep night dive and it required more prep. I assumed things instead of spelling them out in details. I should have addressed the various depth levels we should have stayed at, rather than assuming we were going to dive the same way we did the first time (where I was leading). Also, I shouldn't have dived with someone who doesn't wear a timing device. A diver can't be fully aware of his dive profile without one and that's a reckless attitude underwater. The same recklessness that this diver showed to me, putting us both at risk. But more than anything, I let my craving for a night dive prevail over reason.
The one thing I have learned is that even after one actual dive, I didn't know my (then-)buddy. I relied on the fact that this one first dive went well when, looking back, we didn't prep it enough either. We both knew the site, the viz was 50 ft+ and everything went well. Too well for that night dive
After a bad cold, after the dive boat broke and was fixed, my regular buddy had left and I was desperately looking for a new one. I wanted to do a night dive. The site: a 100 ft Italian war boat sunk in 1943 and lying in 105 ft of salt water. Not the place where you want to go at night with someone you don't trust But it's a great site at night. I've dived it many times. Amazing colors, full of life.
I finally find a buddy. We go diving the same wreck during the day. Two things are bothering me: the guy doesn't own his gear and doesn't have a timing device. But he's experienced (without being necessarily knowledgeable). Great buoyancy, good buddy awareness. The dive goes great, except that he feels I'm ascending very slowly (yeah, that's what I do). Anyhow, we make plans for the night dive.
It's 9 pm and we meet up at the boat. We'll only leave an hour later because Well, actually, that's just the way things are over there. The site is only 10 minutes away. My buddy and I have talked about the dive. Stay close, night signs. He wants to look around the wreck as well. That's cool. Based on our first dive, I feel comfortable.
We've been swimming around the wreck for 10 minutes, maybe 50 or 60 ft away from it, looking at stuff in the nearby reef at 100 ft. I signal that I want to get closer to the wreck and start ascending a little. The buddy follows.
We we get to the wreck, but he stays at the bottom while I ascend to the deck. That's when my primary rental light starts flashing. The battery's down. I get my backup light. Meanwhile, the guy is 5 ft deeper. I try to flash my light at him but he doesn't look up. I've been averaging 95ft for 15 minutes and I need to ascend to a shallower spot. I go get him. He hadn't even noticed that my primary light was down
He finally agrees to ascend, but only to the deck and that's not going to do it for me. I ascend to 75ft but he does not follow. I yell. I flash my light. The guy won't look up nor will he ascend. For more than 5 minutes, I'll try to communicate with him. Maybe I should go and get him again. He's 10 ft deeper and I'm on my own with a back up light. Luckily I still have 2000 psi left in a steel 95. I'm breathing air. I've been averaging 90 ft for 20 minutes and I've done another deep dive in the morning. I don't want to bounce back. It's time to go up.
I'm at 75 ft after 21 minutes in the water. I surface 12 minutes later, marking stops at 50, 40, 30, 20 & 10. My buddy is still down there. As I was ascending, I could see him staying at 85 ft Back on the boat, I tell the captain that my buddy's still at the site and that he doesn't want to understand the ascent sign. The captain wants to wait. He knows the guy. Some other divers are still there, too. Well, my buddy surfaced more than 10 minutes after I did and he probably took less than half the time I did to ascend. What followed was an unpleasant conversation about buddy awareness, night diving and the ascent sign, followed by his apologies (but who cares about that). This was my last dive in Spain that year and I haven't heard from him since then. By all accounts, he should have been bent. I hope he wasn't.
So what have I learned? In truth, not much I didn't know before. This was a deep night dive and it required more prep. I assumed things instead of spelling them out in details. I should have addressed the various depth levels we should have stayed at, rather than assuming we were going to dive the same way we did the first time (where I was leading). Also, I shouldn't have dived with someone who doesn't wear a timing device. A diver can't be fully aware of his dive profile without one and that's a reckless attitude underwater. The same recklessness that this diver showed to me, putting us both at risk. But more than anything, I let my craving for a night dive prevail over reason.
The one thing I have learned is that even after one actual dive, I didn't know my (then-)buddy. I relied on the fact that this one first dive went well when, looking back, we didn't prep it enough either. We both knew the site, the viz was 50 ft+ and everything went well. Too well for that night dive
