Accident- Guam

[TSandM]

I don't know if it was just me and trying to do everything by the book, but when we got our gear on and everyone else had jumped off, and they told me to go ahead, I wanted to do the pre-dive checks with my buddy- BWRAF- BCD, weights, releases, air and final check; it didn't seem like anyone else had done it and they just watched me talk it out...I really felt like such a beginner...

No, no, NO!!!! NEVER feel guilty for wanting to do the right thing. NEVER!!!!!

When I learned to dive, the first thing I noticed after class was that nobody did buddy checks. Nobody, including the instructor who was my buddy for some of my AOW dives. (His excuse, later, when I asked him about this, was that he was doing a visual check of me, and he'd done his own check of himself. That's just plain hogwash.) I've traveled to a lot of places and dived off a lot of boats, and almost without exception, my husband and I are the ONLY people on the boat doing any kind of check . . . and we've gotten grief for doing it. Of course, if the dive is briefed as a "When I tell you to get on the swimdeck to jump, you have to be ready NOW" situation, you don't delay everybody by insisting on your BWRAF at the last moment. But you do it -- you just plan so that you're finished and ready when you're asked to be.

We only hear one side of the story in these reports, but my impression is that you, as an extremely novice diver, were trying to follow the rules and dive as you were taught. You ran into the reality of the diving world, which is that the majority of people do not follow the rules they were taught; many do not respect limits, and buddy diving is a nebulous concept which often falls far short in reality. These things are the reason I dive the way I do -- I belong to a group of divers who truly BELIEVE in procedures and protocols, and following them, and diving as a buddy TEAM. You can't guarantee that you will find such a diver on a random boat, but the one thing you CAN do is be proactive before the dive. Explain that you are new, and that you believe in following rules. Discuss your understanding of the dive: for example, on the second dive, keeping the max depth shallower than the dive before is something that should have been discussed in the dive plan. You will learn that there is little to support being obsessive about doing this, but if it is your preference about how to run the dive, you should have a chance to voice it and have the matter discussed, so that you can decide BEFORE you get in the water whether you want to dive with these buddies.

Check your own gear carefully before you dive it. I agree that this scenario sounds classic for a valve that was opened one-quarter turn, rather than opened fully and turned BACK one-quarter turn. This is why I don't do the quarter turn thing, and I also breathe my reg while watching my gauge before I get in the water. It's saved me a few very embarrassing moments, when I realized that, at some point in the sequence, I'd forgotten to turn on my gas! It's also a final confirmation, before you splash, that you really do have a full tank. (It's not unknown for tanks to get mixed up on boats, and for folks to start the dive with a partially empty one.)

And whatever you do, DON'T lose that attention to detail and concern for proper procedures. It's SO easy, when you see the diving world around you letting things slide, to follow suit. It isn't right and it isn't safe. You were taught your procedures for a REASON -- those reasons are real. Do not let go of them, and never, ever let someone make you feel bad or "like a beginner" for wanting to do things right.

[livetodiveguam]

I am very glad that this turned out all okay! The person who saved you was Wes Seleen who is a Course Director who works with MDA. He was on the boat and happened to come across you and your group.

[sdiver68]

I was on dive 30 something, AOW certed and with my own emergency second air supply before I went on a dive without a DM, Instructor, or trusted buddy whom I had dove with several times before. I just think there were too many unknown variables here for a 7th dive.

[ferris213]

I'm glad you had a good end result from this. It sounds like a scary thing to go through so early in your diving career. One thing that I would mentioned is signalling to your buddies under water. Try and avoid the temptation to 'explain' things with hand signals. I found it almost always confuses the message. Rather give very short, universally understood (hopefully) signals.

As an example, I was diving with someone and had a very confusing set of hand signals exchanged. When back on the boat they told me they were trying to communicate the fact that they were tired from finning into the current, and were feeling anxious from over breathing, so they wanted to hang around behind a rock while they caught their breath.

Rather than five or six hand signals in very quick succession that meant nothing to me, simply showing a big, clear 'STOP' would have got a better result.

Of course this only helps if your buddy is paying attention to you on the dive... It's risky buddying up with a family group. You will always be the lowest priority.