Should have known better

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Kharon

Contributor
Messages
4,301
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Location
Upstate NY
# of dives
200 - 499
The scene: Grand Cayman, diving with two others from my scuba club. We agreed to dive as buddies and did the pre-dive discussion, etc. When I hit 1500 psi I let them know, got an OK and we switched directions. Since I wasn't leading, I followed along expecting that we were heading back.

I kept checking my air and depth and it didn't seem that we were getting any shallower nor heading for shore. Still I gave them the benifit of the doubt. My mistake. When I got to 800 psi and we were still at 45 feet I finally broke off and headed for shore. I was still at 25 feet when I hit 500 psi so I switched to my pony and did an open water column safety stop and then a surface swim to the exit.

My mistake? - not following my personal first rule of diving: [FONT=&quot]You are always diving solo[/FONT][FONT=&quot] no matter how many divers are in the water, or how many buddies you have, or how much experience they have or what you discussed during the dive plan.

They didn't let me down, I let me down. I should have broken off long before I did and headed for a slow steady exit - the same way I would have if I was solo diving (which is my normal MO). [/FONT]There wasn't any danger but I hate open water ascents, hate open water safety stops, and hate having to switch to my pony. Still my traning & experience & equipment made a potentially dangerous situation into one that was merely irritating.
 
I think the "pre-dive discussion" may not have been as comprehensive as it should have been. All team members should have been very clear on the turn pressure. This is not your failure alone but a failure of the team to stick to the dive plan.
 
I think the "pre-dive discussion" may not have been as comprehensive as it should have been. All team members should have been very clear on the turn pressure. This is not your failure alone but a failure of the team to stick to the dive plan.
..........

"team members"........lol, you want to guess where my team member(single term) is on this video??..........hint: & it's not one of the 2 divers you see come into the video that's 'close to me'.......I was @ 75 FSW.....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/80825593@N08/15118329701/in/set-72157646482490137


EDIT:..IMO Kharon, you did just fine.........& love your idea of the best buddy you can ever find down there.........
 
In my opinion you didn't do fine, you were as poor a dive buddy as they were as you simply left them instead of signalling them to end the dive and ascend as a group when you ran low on air. You were solo diving and obviously will continue to do so if you are never going to have pre-dive discussions with your buddy about the dive plan, how the dive will end, lost buddy procedures, etc...


I think the "pre-dive discussion" may not have been as comprehensive as it should have been. All team members should have been very clear on the turn pressure. This is not your failure alone but a failure of the team to stick to the dive plan.

This is spot on.
 
..........

"team members"........lol, you want to guess where my team member(single term) is on this video??..........hint: & it's not one of the 2 divers you see come into the video that's 'close to me'.......I was @ 75 FSW.....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/80825593@N08/15118329701/in/set-72157646482490137


EDIT:..IMO Kharon, you did just fine.........& love your idea of the best buddy you can ever find down there.........

If the OP simply wants a pat on the back for a job well done he posted in the wrong forum. This forum provides a space to discuss incidents and learn something from them. The description of this dive suggests a complete failure to "plan the dive and dive the plan" which is a basic tenet of safe diving. At the end of the day we are all "solo" divers and should have redundancies that recognize that fact, but there is still so excuse to enter the water as a three man team and not exit the water as a three man team (and I am sure the OP fully understands that now).
 
Why did you switch to your pony when you still had 10 minutes or so worth of gas in you primary tank?

Didn't trust her gauge's accuracy? Or hopefully it's taking a conservative approach in switching gas sources at leisure and fully in control of the decision and still having the original source to fall back on if the pony fails, rather than wait until being forced to do so and having options eliminated if there is an equipment issue with the pony?
 
Knowing the dive areas, you could have signaled to end dive and headed due east . You would have done a safety stop on the swim in and would not have exposed yourself to boat to the head. At least deploy a smb, there are a few old time fisherman that boat between buoys and shore. There is no law against it . 500 psi is plenty to get in, even from the wall edge. I would also add,drag a dive flag if deep water ascents to surface are planned, it lets the boaters know you are there. We aren't the only one using thethe water. The flag at shore isn't good enough. Cheers
 
I would say there are several errors here, and your solution was a least worst one.

First off, just because you aren't leading, doesn't mean that you don't continue to have responsibility for navigation. It is every team member's job to pay attention to the route and verify that you're headed where you want to be. Your failure to recognize that the group wasn't heading in was the first step toward ending you up low on gas.

Once you DID recognize that you weren't where you wanted to be, you left. Did it occur to you that the others might have been mistaken, and would have ended up in worse shape than you were? How much of an effort did you make to communicate with the leader that you weren't getting shallower, and that was a problem?

Did you guys discuss, before you got in the water, how you intended to end the dive? Was a swim upslope the plan? If there was no plan, you can't be annoyed with the group for not executing the exit of your choice, if they didn't know what it was.

In addition, I'd say that somebody who isn't comfortable with direct ascents needs to do more of them. And I say that as someone who rather loathes them and tends to avoid them -- so I have to discipline myself to go do them from time to time, so as not to lose facility.

I'd say, instead of "I'm always diving solo", the lessons ought to be that the dive plan needs to be understood by all divers, and when there appears to be a deviation from the plan, that needs to be clarified. It can be difficult to do that with hand signals, which is why I always carry wetnotes, even if I don't have much other safety gear with me.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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