JWDiver once bubbled...
I do have a question about the nature of the ascent: Were you assisting in the ascent when you FIRST started going up? It sounds like you were unaware of any ascent at all until you were pretty shallow. The other part of the question is then was your buddy pulling you up?
I was unaware of the ascent. My buddy started the ascent up a reference line, but lost the line when he couldn't dump air because I was holding on to his inflator hose. He says he signalled to me that we were going up, but I don't remember seeing it. I was neutral to slightly negative on the ladder. He says he remembers hitting the next crossbar (10 ft up) and tried to dump air between that crossbar and the next. The profile from the instructor's computer shows a normal ascent to that point.
My first reaction on how to make the situation better was to drop your freeflowing reg as soon as you had your buddy's octo. The reg would either float upwards or swing around behind you. In a share-air ascent you and buddy would be face to face to maintain contact, and the reg would be out to the side of the circle you and your buddy formed. Thus the bubbles would not be an issue. Also, your buddy should be able to hold your BC strap and you can hold the octo with one hand, and keep your freeflowing reg away with the other (if needed). You can then let go of the octo to dump air as needed (or just rely on buddy to provide bouyancy if you can't let go of the octo more than a secon at a time).
By holding your buddy's octo AND keeping your reg, you became an entanglement for them. Since you couldn't see past your bubbles you didn't know the effect you had on your buddy. That is, you could be impeding an ascent, dragging them down or up, or knocking off their mask. Thus, the primary goal would have been to get you other air so you could get that freeflowing reg out of your sightline.
I wasn't holding on to my primary reg, I had dropped it. I think that my octo was also freeflowing and because it was in a holder on my right chest those bubbles became the major interference, not the primary. The major problem with my lack of hands was that I had 2 people trying to assist me and I didn't know who was holding me where so I was trying to make sure that I had one hand on the person who's octo was in my mouth.
Next, I am curios about bouyancy. If your answer to my question above is that your buddy was pulling you up (and you didn't know it) then that was a pretty dangerous move. Your buddy should know you need to dump air all the way up to maintain a controlled ascent.
If, however, you were assisting in your ascent then you should have remembered to dump air. Of course I realize the panic of the situation prevents clear thinking, but you should consider your panic caused the uncontrolled ascent for you AND your buddy. My other concern here is that maybe you and your buddy lost bouyancy control and both ascended without knowing it.
Also, I see no reason for your tank to have been shut off. Personally I would let the reg freeflow at arm's length until the tank was empty. During ascent you could always take a breath off of the reg (or your octo) and you'd have air for your BC at the surface. If the bubbles are out to the side, then they aren't causing a problem.
In reality, I wasn't panicking in a true sense. I knew that a bad thing had happened but wasn't doing anything to impede my rescue. I was trying to be calm and relaxed while the situation got straightened out, however because my buddy had started the ascent, I became buoyant due to expanding air. The instructor that was assisting was aware that he and I were going up, but he didn't know that I was on my buddy's air and holding on to him, so from his perspective everything seemed fine. He had dumped some of his own air, and was trying to get me to take his octo. By the time I grabbed that air he said he looked back and saw the reference line zipping by. My buddy was actually slowing down the ascent for all three of us because I had become buoyant. When I let go of the only anchor (who became not so much an anchor at approximately the same time) is when the ascent started to become uncontrolled. Had I known that we had started up AND that my buddy had a hold of me, I would have assisted in the ascent by dumping air to the best of my ability. My greatest fear was losing my air source and being unable to recover one in the confusion.
I realize I said the word "rescue" up there somewhere and that is what this became in a sense. I was trying to figure out how to help my own situation but because there was so much going on, I couldn't figure out who was trying to assist me and how they were doing that. I really didn't know that we had ascended until I saw the light coming and at that point I did try and reach for my dump but we were on the surface before I actually got to do anything about it.
If I had it to do over again, with a reference line not a 1/2 an arm's length away, I would just ascend on the freeflow, at least that way I would know what was happening and the freeflow might have quit after a little bit. Without a line.... I don't know.... still....
Rachel
