Rangiroa Trip Report - Canyons Dive

[minamin13]

We had the good fortune of diving in Rangiroa this past month, which was amazing and exceeded my (somewhat low) expectations. My trip report gives details about “the Canyons dive” in particular, which was one of the most thrilling dives of my life. Hopefully, you can read about, and learn from our mistakes, and enjoy this dive with a bit more know how than we had. Writing this makes me want to go back to Rangiroa and do it all over again, albeit a little bit differently.

Diving in Rangiroa - A Trip Report

I am curious if anyone else has done this dive in particular? I would really like to know what your experience was. Any advice that you have?

 

[Altamira]

We had the good fortune of diving in Rangiroa this past month, which was amazing and exceeded my (somewhat low) expectations. My trip report gives details about “the Canyons dive” in particular, which was one of the most thrilling dives of my life. Hopefully, you can read about, and learn from our mistakes, and enjoy this dive with a bit more know how than we had. Writing this makes me want to go back to Rangiroa and do it all over again, albeit a little bit differently.

Diving in Rangiroa - A Trip Report

I am curious if anyone else has done this dive in particular? I would really like to know what your experience was. Any advice that you have?

After reading your trip report, I went back to your paragraph titled "Thrilling Dive" quoted below:
Thrilling Dive
“Are you guys comfortable with decompression diving?” our divemaster, Antoine asked us after introducing himself. “Deco diving” was precisely what I worried the most about diving in Rangiroa, not diving with sharks. After not having scuba dived in a year, the idea of diving in high current, being encumbered with an underwater camera, AND being at depth was a little daunting. (Decompression diving, for the uninitiated, is any scuba diving performed past the time limits prescribed by one’s dive computer, or dive tables. It requires additional skill and dive planning because it demands that divers stay at depth to off-gas before surfacing.)"

From what I could discern from that paragraph, and the detailed description of what followed, you had neither the skills or did suitable dive planning for that type of dive. In addition, in my opinion, you exhibited very poor judgment and overconfidence in doing the dive as described, especially failing to adequately discuss your concerns with divemaster about a likely deco dive. Perhaps you and your husband are highly experienced in deco diving, but I doubt it based on your apparent lack of preparation and planning for the dive conditions. You did a trust me dive on a dive you probably should not have done, and were lucky not to have gotten seriously injured or worse. You seem to gloss over and minimize your major errors in judgment, instead concentrating on describing how much fun you had. I don't think you have a clue as to the danger you and your husband were in on that dive. I wish I could have been more complimentary on your blog. Maybe others will see it differently.

 

[Kharon]

After reading your trip report, I went back to your paragraph titled "Thrilling Dive" quoted below:
Thrilling Dive
“Are you guys comfortable with decompression diving?” our divemaster, Antoine asked us after introducing himself. “Deco diving” was precisely what I worried the most about diving in Rangiroa, not diving with sharks. After not having scuba dived in a year, the idea of diving in high current, being encumbered with an underwater camera, AND being at depth was a little daunting. (Decompression diving, for the uninitiated, is any scuba diving performed past the time limits prescribed by one’s dive computer, or dive tables. It requires additional skill and dive planning because it demands that divers stay at depth to off-gas before surfacing.)"

From what I could discern from that paragraph, and the detailed description of what followed, you had neither the skills or did suitable dive planning for that type of dive. In addition, in my opinion, you exhibited very poor judgment and overconfidence in doing the dive as described, especially failing to adequately discuss your concerns with divemaster about a likely deco dive. Perhaps you and your husband are highly experienced in deco diving, but I doubt it based on your apparent lack of preparation and planning for the dive conditions. You did a trust me dive on a dive you probably should not have done, and were lucky not to have gotten seriously injured or worse. You seem to gloss over and minimize your major errors in judgment, instead concentrating on describing how much fun you had. I don't think you have a clue as to the danger you and your husband were in on that dive. I wish I could have been more complimentary on your blog. Maybe others will see it differently.

+1

 

[tridacna]

+2

 

[Dogbowl]

+ 3

This bothered me immensely:

Later on, while driving the van back to our hotel, Antoine apologized for taking us on such a “technical” dive. He hoped we weren’t too traumatized. “Are you kidding me?” I replied, “That was one of the funnest dives, ever! I will remember that dive for the rest of my life!”

...

After requesting to do the Canyons dive again, however, we were denied.

Making a mistake is OK, but wanting to repeat it is unforgivable.

 

[tursiops]

+4
The dive was a major accident trying to happen. You lucked out.

 

[outofofficebrb]

Wow, that was an incredibly stressful dive. I'm just going to come out and say...I thought HORY SHEET. I read through it all and was shaking my head going "wow...just wow". There were so many problems with that dive that I'm really glad and amazed that everyone came out of it okay. Unfortunately, I don't think the DM had any business even asking you to do that and I don't think either of you should have agreed to that dive. It was poor planning on everyone's part and everyone was unprepared. Gas planning is needed, extra stage bottles set up under the boat, maybe even 100% O2 for decompression is needed. None of you had the training to do it or even had any business thinking about it. The boat sounded like they didn't even know that was the plan. The foreshadowing event was that there could be potential issues was when you blew through 500 PSI in the current after having gone down to 120 feet where I'm sure a chunk of your air was consumed. At the point you had 2 minutes of NDL left, that should have been a hint that maybe you should abandon the plans you originally made with your DM. On top of that, when you are all hanging onto the coral to make it through the dive given the air consumption and current, that should have been the point where all of you signaled to each other to call this dive off because conditions didn't make it safe, especially with the downcurrents you mention.

I am really curious who you dived with. I'm honestly really surprised they were willing to take someone to 120 feet AND do a deco dive after not having dived for a year. Or to go on a deco dive without the necessary training and preparations, regardless of whether you dived yesterday. I would want to avoid this operator. Gloves are not the solution for the current issues. I'm sorry that it looks like everyone is being really brutal to a post that you were so excited about sharing but there were some significant issues at hand with this dive and failure to acknowledge them in your advice and moral section is a huge, huge red flag.

 

[WetPup]

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Two major items stick out to me. One, if you and your husband are going to dive together on vacation dives you should have your computers set identically. There was no reason for your husband's computer to require thirty minutes of deco if you had none. Was he diving nitrox but setting his computer to air?
Second, there is no way you could buddy breathe with your husband with fifteen miuntes of deco left and 300 psi in your tank. It is not physically possible. You even said you surfaced with air remaining. Two divers in your situation would have sucked the tank dry in two minutes.

 

[tursiops]

Frankly, the whole report sounds like a fantasy.