I went out on a local dive boat today and got paired with an instabuddy with a similar dive count but who had only dived in Thailand. On our second dive, just after we started our ascent from 60 feet, she signaled "out of air" and grabbed my octo. She struggled with it for a second, long enough for me to take out my primary with the intention of handing it to her but not long enough to hand it over before she got it squared away. I didn't notice any signs of panic; she signaled clearly and, while she ascended a little fast for my taste (my Leonardo beeped at me a few times, but not the whole way up), we made it to the surface fine and she was able to inflate her BCD from her cylinder once we were there. I asked her about it; she said she suddenly felt like she wasn't getting any air, but she didn't look at her gauge at the time; on the surface, she checked and it said she still had 1,000 psi left. (I surfaced with 600; I'd had about 1200 when we started our ascent. We skipped the safety stop.)
She did a third dive (I thought we should sit it out, but we agreed instead to stay shallow; we stayed above 25 feet and within touch distance of each other) and had no issues. What could have caused this? And should I have insisted we skip that last dive until we figured it out? If I'd been the one with the problem, I definitely would have called it a day, but I feel like it's a little murkier telling someone else what to do, especially since she handled it well and I wasn't afraid for my own safety.
She did a third dive (I thought we should sit it out, but we agreed instead to stay shallow; we stayed above 25 feet and within touch distance of each other) and had no issues. What could have caused this? And should I have insisted we skip that last dive until we figured it out? If I'd been the one with the problem, I definitely would have called it a day, but I feel like it's a little murkier telling someone else what to do, especially since she handled it well and I wasn't afraid for my own safety.
