Was I Wrong? How to correct if so?

A few months back, I went on a dive with my significant other and two other people we were paired up with. We were newly certified and thought best to pair with them. No problem.

I blew through my air first being the new guy, and signaled to everyone that I was low on air, and needed to ascend. I made the sign that I was going up and also the boat symbol to the "leader" so that I could get picked up. When I surfaced, I was about 500lbs of air and noticed the boat was about 25ft away (lucky me!). I figured that since the boat was right there, I would swim over and get onboard. Unfortunately, we were on a drift dive and the boat took me aboard and then took off to pick up another group of divers that had surfaced.

Apparently, it seems that the leader didnt see my boat signal and when they all surfaced, they panicked when I wasn't by the flag. Needless to say, they spent 15min looking for me on the bottom of the ocean and then came back and were picked up. They were pissed when they found me onboard the boat and I got a good lashing from the girlfriend.

I thought I did everything right...but I guess not. Should I have waited for some kind of confirmation from the leader? From what I recall he gave me the OK sign. Though it seems to me he thought I was OK'ing something else...

Feedback appreciated. Just want to make sure that does NOT happen again :depressed:

well you have to remember that a divemaster on most dives is a leader of a group as most all divers are certified and self reliant in theory. With this in mind the divemaster has to watch for neat things to point out to new divers, look for potential dangers as well as monitor the group as a whole. With this in mind its easy to overlook a sign of low air. The best bet is to do what you did and make sure he understands you are going up for air. Its easy for him to mistaken what your sign was intending so make sure you make eye contact.

Dont let it bother you though as its part of diving that inevitably your going to boo boo once in a while when it comes to underwater communications so just look over it and learn from it. But while your in down time find you a quarry somewhere or dive park and start logging dives. The more you log the better your sac rate will become and youll be able to eventually hang the full length of the dive!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds good ellis!

You know, I think back and I probably thought "crap running low on air" and panicked. So I made the communications as fast as possible and something was probably lost in translation. Lesson learned, and I shall be more careful next time and not freak out just because Im running low.

Appreciate the feedback

Where you supposed to be by the flag when you ascended to the surface? Did they go over that on the dive briefing?

You signaled correctly in my opinion and did the right thing. If your girlfriend did not notice then you need to go over signals and dive procedures the next time to avoid this.

Normally on a drift dive one ascends and uses an SMB to signal their position to the boat for pickup not to follow the line to the flag.

As a matter of practice I usually coach buddies to make sure we echo signals back. All too often you can make a signal that is out of the recipients field of view or away from their attention focus.

However in all of my training that has not been required or even coached so. That being said, unless the DM did coach the divers to wait for an echo you did fine and it was a simple misinterpretation of the situation.

Pete

Sotgecho-
In all honesty, the dive brief did not cover that. So as a brand new guy just straight out of training, I thought it prudent to do what I did...mainly because I knew how much air most of them had and they would have been able to dive for a good 10-15 minutes more. While I can tread water that long (especially with the BCD), the boat was literally right there so I made a judgement call. Next time I know...cover that in the dive brief!!! Good call on that one

Spectrum/Pete-
You are also right. Misunderstandings happen and it's a lesson learned for next time (next week, actually). I appreciate your interpretation of the situation. Indeed, I can understand their worry...the ocean is a place where you don't want to surface and not find what you're looking for up top!

What were the instructions in the brief? You surfaces without your buddy? I was taught that you always stay with buddy. I can't be critical as I am newly certified as well. But we several drift dives early on and the brief said when low surface with your buddy, inflate SMB and wait for boat, don't need to bother telling DM. In a couple dives we were close to DM and let him know even though not necessary. Boat came and got us, we were back on board within minutes of surfacing. Mostly if there something was done wrong it may have been others who didn't tell you what to do on low air.

Edit: Apparently you were replying at the same time I was so ignore anything redundant.

Beowulf:

What were the instructions in the brief? You surfaces without your buddy? I was taught that you always stay with buddy. I can't be critical as I am newly certified as well. But we several drift dives early on and the brief said when low surface with your buddy, inflate SMB and wait for boat, don't need to bother telling DM. In a couple dives we were close to DM and let him know even though not necessary. Boat came and got us, we were back on board within minutes of surfacing. Mostly if there something was done wrong it may have been others who didn't tell you what to do on low air.

Edit: Apparently you were replying at the same time I was so ignore anything redundant.

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No worries!

It would seem to me that the biggest problem with this dive was the lack of an adequate dive briefing. One that would have convered what to do with low air, and pretty much anything else. Come to think of it, I don't even think there was one. It was kind of a "follow me" and lets go. Bad move on all our part!

What's a boat symbol?

And what does it mean?

I thought boat symbol meant boat overhead.

Well anyways, If you signaled "Me, low on air, ascending, Boat" he should've figured it out.

Ascending without your buddy is probably the thing that caused this entire canundrum!


I just did my 20th dive, and most of my dives have been with instabuddies, so one thing I have noticed is that you need to be (as the young kids say), straight up about things. I mean in the pre dive briefing.

For example, all of my dives are shore dives, with 5-10 minute surface swims. I make sure to tell whoever I have buddied up with that I like a slow, leisurely swim out to the reef, because im out of shape