Bounce Dive to Recover Gear?

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GearHead

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I wanted to get some input on what you all think about a situation that came up last week.

Here's how it went down: I had performed a fairly long single-tank dive earlier in the day to about 90-100 fsw, and drove to a shore diving site with my buddy Dennis (Pez de Diablo). After a couple of hours on the surface, we dove down to about 70 fsw or so and made a leisurely wall dive of it. Near the end of the shore dive, I shot a Surface Marker Buoy at about 30 feet for practice as we meandered our way back into the shallows and we made a nice slow ascent. After we surfaced, I rolled over to my back and started to swim toward shore. At that point, we were still in about 20 fsw, and I decided to roll up my SMB and stow it during my surface swim. I had the line tied-off to my spool with a large double-ender, and I unclipped the double ender to reel up the last bit of slack. As I did it, however, the line slipped out of the boltsnap, and the boltsnap slipped out of my hand. :(

Well, I stopped where I was and considered my options. Even with just two dives that day, I had plenty of Nitrogen in my system. I was down to about 600 psi, so I had enough gas to probably go down and find it. Another factor was that the bottom was littered with huge kelp leaves and eel-grass, so the search would be tough at best. Also, my buddy Dennis was diving doubles, and had used enough gas in two dives that he was too buoyant to go down again. And finally, I had paid full retail for the damned boltsnap and didn't want to say goodbye to $10.00!!

Taking this all into account, I decided not to try a bounce dive to search for the lost boltsnap. My reasoning was that it would just not be safe or smart to go down by myself, even to just 20 fsw for a $10 piece of gear. I had no guarantee of finding it, nor of being able to do another slow, controlled ascent with the AL80 tank getting more buoyant with every breath (I usually dive steels and added 4lb to account for the AL80). Plus, even with my buddy at the surface, it amounted to a solo dive in my mind.

Would you have done it differently?

Rick

P.S. Before you ask, I'm not telling exactly where it happened! If I ever get a chance to dive that site again, you can bet I'll be spending extra time in the shallows in an organized search pattern. I want that boltsnap back! :D
 
I would just replace it with one from Lowes for $5.95.

A friend of mine got a ride in a Learjet doing something like that.
 
Well, it sounds like I did make the right call. And lucky for me, I had a backup boltsnap in my pocket and didn't have to deal with the spool unravelling all over the area. Lowe's, here I come. :D
 
In the course of teaching I do lots of bounce dives to 20 ft there just isn't any other way to get through the day. However given that you would have had to split up and that gas supply was limited anyway I agree, best to say buy buy to the snap.
 
Unfortunately, the international nature of your dive trip adds a whole new twist to the aforementioned circumstances. On behalf of the government of Canada, I hereby lay claim to said ss boltsnap. However, if you were to let me know exactly where it is, I might...in the spirit of international relations...bring it to you in exchange for a Pete's Wicked Ale (or two)...
 
bwerb once bubbled...
Unfortunately, the international nature of your dive trip adds a whole new twist to the aforementioned circumstances. On behalf of the government of Canada, I hereby lay claim to said ss boltsnap. However, if you were to let me know exactly where it is, I might...in the spirit of international relations...bring it to you in exchange for a Pete's Wicked Ale (or two)...

I'll race you to it!
 
Who am I to stand in the way of a Canadian decree?:wink:

Brian, I wish you and Mike luck in your recovery efforts. For now, I'll tell you that the site was the wall off of Madrona Point just south of Parksville on the East coast of Vancouver Island. When Pez de Diablo and Big Bubbles get home from Porpoise Bay, they can give you actual GPS Coordinates - seriously. :D

I'll have a 6-pack of Pete's Wicked or Mirror Pond waiting here in Seattle. It'll be well worth it for me, that was my favorite boltsnap. Perfectly smooth action on both ends. :(
 
GearHead once bubbled...
I wanted to get some input on what you all think about a situation that came up last week.

<snip>

If the conditions were OK I probably would have taken a quick look for it (although my track-record in actually finding things that I drop is pretty bad :) ).

As I understand it the "no bounce diving to recover gear" thing comes out of the WKPP where bounce diving after accelerated deco has been linked to increased numbers of deco incidents precipitated by the bounce. I think if you're still within a safe margin of your NDL's that you can permit the third descent/ascent. In training it's not uncommon to make several bounces in a day. I don't know what the statistics say but I don't see anyone in my little circle of friends getting bent from it.

R..
 
Whilst free swimming after dolphins. Turns out the little b*st*ards like it when the swimmer dives. Who knew?

Anyway, this was after several days of repetitive dives and I had two dives that morning.

Immediate subclinical DCS. Dammit, grumble, back to the boat.

So I don't do that anymore.

Peter
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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