new diver - first dive problems
- Thread starter Matt Spear
- Start date
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Just to emphasize.
1. Going solo without experience and a pony bottle- no, no, no
2. 100 feet on first dive- no, no, no
3. Bringing a anything else to distract you on first dive, especially a weapon- no, no, no
4. Improper buoyancy control
5. Going back down after a rapid ascent and without enough air resulting in another rapid accent.
My advice
1. Monitor yourself for signs of DCS
2. Two choices, quit now while your still alive and not paralyzed or try again find a experienced buddy to go with you, leave all your distractions at home limit your depth to 30 or so feet and work on buoyancy control and air management and ascent rates till you have them down.
Sounds harsh but the alternative is we read about you in the accidents and incidents section being paralyzed or dead and nobody wants that.
1. Going solo without experience and a pony bottle- no, no, no
2. 100 feet on first dive- no, no, no
3. Bringing a anything else to distract you on first dive, especially a weapon- no, no, no
4. Improper buoyancy control
5. Going back down after a rapid ascent and without enough air resulting in another rapid accent.
My advice
1. Monitor yourself for signs of DCS
2. Two choices, quit now while your still alive and not paralyzed or try again find a experienced buddy to go with you, leave all your distractions at home limit your depth to 30 or so feet and work on buoyancy control and air management and ascent rates till you have them down.
Sounds harsh but the alternative is we read about you in the accidents and incidents section being paralyzed or dead and nobody wants that.
A ScubaBoard Staff Message...
@Matt Spear , please let us know that you've gotten the message. It was harsh, but truly well intentioned. We love our fellow divers, especially the new ones.
Zef: the regulator IP is IE 150 above ambient. so when you go to 100 ft you have 50 psi water presure on it so the equivilant surface IP wold be 200 psi. 200 in the secondary against eh 50 sea pressure is the 150 IP the reg is set to provide. when he gets a tank pressure of say 180 psi at 100 ft it is going to breath hard because teh 180 is countering 50psi sea pressure and you are getting 130 for a usable IP. drop it to 50 psi in the tank and you now have nothing to breath. you have to reduce the ambient pressure by going shallow to allow the 50 tank psi of overide the decreasing sea pressure on the first stage. You then get flow through the first stage to breath again..
(Small edit by Mod)...I am shocked at our man here doing this stuff. Glad he survived but yea.... Rethink yr diving and planning yr air mate, from my inexperienced position that was a close call. Do remember in any emergency situation, Others may have to risk themselves for yr benefit - and like you, they have families too. K
johndiver999
Contributor
Spearfishing with a speargun enhances the opportunity for getting a shaft stuck in a rock, of getting tangled in the shooting line and wrapped up with the bottom, in greatly enhances the chances of exciting encounters with sharks and the exertion and distraction of stalking, landing and subduing a fish can cause a huge cascade of problems. A decent fish can swim around you, wrap a line around your neck (2-3 times), knock your mask off and slap your regulator out of your mouth - all in a few seconds. Seriously. You need to be reasonably confident you can handle this while deep and solo before you take the gun out. Starting out with a pole spear (rather than a gun) can greatly reduce the opportunities to get in trouble.
So first rule should be: no spearfishing unless you are pretty good at scuba diving - hint: your aren't "good" if you got certified yesterday - on the other hand - if you were really bad at it - you would be dead by now.
I would say 20 or 40 dives before spearfishing, minimum.
Also solo diving right out of a scuba class is pretty aggressive, but I think spearfishing (in 100 ft) is a bigger potential problem compared to solo diving. People who don't spearfish, will probably think 180 degrees from that..
So I would suggest a bunch of shallower, solo dives while not carrying a speargun is definitely called for.
Going down to 100 feet with 600 lbs to free an anchor, while solo is quite aggressive. In my opinion, you should be carrying a pony bottle when solo diving at that depth. If you had rested before the descent and made a very efficient descent and then had sufficient lift capacity in the BC to allow yourself to hold the anchor and float up- that would be doable for a very skilled and aggressive diver, assuming near zero margin for error and a pressure gauge that was exactly correct.
So going back down for a small anchor was not necessarily crazy, but it was an impudent decision and nearly caused your death. Learn from it.
The decision brings up a larger and more important issue and something they probably don't teach in a basic scuba class. When you are diving with expensive "stuff" like a speargun, light or even a camera, you need to kiss this sheeet good bye before you descend.
In other words, you should not be taking anything into the water that you are not perfectly willing to lose. That includes a POS anchor as well. A lot of accidents happen when trying to retrieve stuff, it becomes a matter of pride and determination - don't let these emotions endanger yourself.
Also, you need to set a hard limit for air supply margin for leaving the bottom. If you are solo, you don't have to worry about sharing air with some irresponsible buddy (so you can reserve less), but on the other hand you are spearfishing. Shooting a fish with 800 bs at 100 feet is far, far different from just starting to ascend. You gotta assume that any fish you shoot is going to "cost" you at least 3- 400 lbs or air to subdue- assuming all goes perfect, so you need to leave the bottom earlier (several hundred pounds earlier) when spearfishing- compared to normal solo diving. DO NOT be tempted to "shoot into" that reserve.
So first rule should be: no spearfishing unless you are pretty good at scuba diving - hint: your aren't "good" if you got certified yesterday - on the other hand - if you were really bad at it - you would be dead by now.
I would say 20 or 40 dives before spearfishing, minimum.
Also solo diving right out of a scuba class is pretty aggressive, but I think spearfishing (in 100 ft) is a bigger potential problem compared to solo diving. People who don't spearfish, will probably think 180 degrees from that..
So I would suggest a bunch of shallower, solo dives while not carrying a speargun is definitely called for.
Going down to 100 feet with 600 lbs to free an anchor, while solo is quite aggressive. In my opinion, you should be carrying a pony bottle when solo diving at that depth. If you had rested before the descent and made a very efficient descent and then had sufficient lift capacity in the BC to allow yourself to hold the anchor and float up- that would be doable for a very skilled and aggressive diver, assuming near zero margin for error and a pressure gauge that was exactly correct.
So going back down for a small anchor was not necessarily crazy, but it was an impudent decision and nearly caused your death. Learn from it.
The decision brings up a larger and more important issue and something they probably don't teach in a basic scuba class. When you are diving with expensive "stuff" like a speargun, light or even a camera, you need to kiss this sheeet good bye before you descend.
In other words, you should not be taking anything into the water that you are not perfectly willing to lose. That includes a POS anchor as well. A lot of accidents happen when trying to retrieve stuff, it becomes a matter of pride and determination - don't let these emotions endanger yourself.
Also, you need to set a hard limit for air supply margin for leaving the bottom. If you are solo, you don't have to worry about sharing air with some irresponsible buddy (so you can reserve less), but on the other hand you are spearfishing. Shooting a fish with 800 bs at 100 feet is far, far different from just starting to ascend. You gotta assume that any fish you shoot is going to "cost" you at least 3- 400 lbs or air to subdue- assuming all goes perfect, so you need to leave the bottom earlier (several hundred pounds earlier) when spearfishing- compared to normal solo diving. DO NOT be tempted to "shoot into" that reserve.
John, you’re a very articulate person and have some sound advice. Your suggestion to Matt that he continue to dive solo seems way out of kilter with everything else you wrote.
I think Matt should seek out a seasoned dive buddy to help him learn, through repeated dive planning, buddy team dives and post-dive debriefs, how to practically apply the standards he was taught in his BOW course.
johndiver999
Contributor
Well he sounds like a super aggressive person and paddling out solo in the ocean and then diving to 100 feet and trying to spear fish is a big deal. I doubt PADI teaches THAT course. LOL
Perhaps he is a clown and has very poor watermanship skills and will kill himself on the next dive. I suspect otherwise. He is probably young and nearly died of testosterone poisoning. Perhaps he has the intellect to step back from the situation and learn.
To be honest, he would learn much. much faster and safer if he could just tag along and WATCH somebody who has been doing the kinds of dives(solo) for the last 5 or 10 years (that he wants to do).
To be honest, solo diving, in itself, is not that big of a deal if you are not deep. Spearfishing in the ocean with big fish and sharks is way more of a concern than solo - if he has decent scuba skills.
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