Out Of Air

[Bob DBF]

Being a dinosaur, I started diving before the SPG, at least we had J-valves so when we ran out of air we would turn on the reserve and have 300-500# to get us out of Dodge. Dive planning was important so that, hopefully, you were ascending or out of the water when you needed the reserve, and that the reserve was still set properly or it was a real OOA. Running out of gas was not unexpected but, it was a PITA.

Since the wide availability of the SPG I have not had an unintentional OOA. Hell, I just check my SPG because I can.

Somehow the basic SCUBA training now does not get across to the student how important his gas supply is at 60'. Or it could be the difference of the intellectual understanding of OOA and sucking on an empty hose. In either event, I would like divers to understand that their primary duty underwater is monitoring their gas supply because you can't breathe water.

"Life support equipment" is a new catch phrase and is used to sell a lot of high end gear. All the best, most expensive, gear is false security unless the diver acts like it is life support equipment and understands it's operation, makes sure it is operating properly and uses it in a manner that will support his life in a hostile enviroment.



Bob
---------------------------------------
"the future is uncertain and the end is always near"
Jim Morrison

 

[wilderydude83]

Glad to hear you're OK, man. I'm sure your near miss will cure your lack of situational awareness in the future. As a newly trained diver it's hard to understand the gas laws when you've only done a few dives to 30'. The deeper you go the more aware you should be. An al 80 with 3500psi deserves a second check for sure. Be safe.

 

[CuNanoTube]

Well, I would follow all of the above advice, and I would very strongly recommend that you do a few dives with some experienced divers. When I first started I dove exclusively with a club (and my experienced father) and picked up many tips and tricks from the other divers that helped my get comfortable quickly. An experienced diver would have seen the AL80 reading 3500psi and taken a second look, you cannot really be blamed for not thinking that was wrong. However you should have know doing a second dive with faulty equipment was not a good plan, and you should in the future take responsibility for your buddy (just as they do for you) especially since she is your significant other.

In short, dive more, dive with experienced divers, and pay attention.

 

[lsorenson]

debajo agua,

Keep your chin up and learn from your mistakes... Some here have been somewhat harsh and deservedly so because of your lack of experience and lack of understanding. Experience will teach you how to avoid many of these mistakes you made but its MUCH wiser to learn in a safer environment and with a mentor as well. We all make mistakes whether its our 5th dive or our 500th dive so remember and learn... Foolish mistakes can kill as well as a silly mistake!

Keep diving but spend the time doing your homework e.g. pool work, reading, and diving in your mind or visualization if you will...! Your partner or in this case, your girlfriend depends on your experience to help her in an emergency and you will be depending on her as well... and lastly; a tank sitting in the sun or car in the heat of summer can give you a high reading on air or better yet, a false reading... The reason I say false reading is because once the tank cools in the water, the pressure will drop substantially and can catch you off guard if your not paying attention...!!!

Be well but best be safe, lee

 

[GeorgeC]

Tons of great advice above. Not that this matters in the grand scheme of things given the situation. But! What is the chances he had a lobster permit?

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Virtually all of my diving has been with a buddy who has about the same number of dives as I do (i.e. we were and are beginners together). And neither of us had the super-top-notch OW training that one would hope to have. We also don't dive in such a way/place so as to have access to dive mentors - although that would be fantastic.

What we have done to help ourselves is read a lot (mostly here on Scubaboard but also linked articles), run through various potential scenarios in our minds, and then to practice drills and skills for a certain portion of many of our dives. We also chose to dive in "easy" locations (shallow, warm-water, decent vis) as much as possible, and we were careful about adding distractions such as a camera.

Our way is not as good as having real-live mentors, but I believe it has made us better divers than if we had simply finished OW class and dived without the extra measures. I figured I would post in case some of these ideas might be useful to you.

(Mind you, we did go diving right after OW class; it's just that we did that simultaneously with the other things.)

Just curious: Were you on your own boat? Was your cousin the boat tender, hence not in the water diving?

Blue Sparkle

 

[blue sky]

Most of us as new divers do things that we shouldn't do and wouldn't do if we were experienced. On our first unsupervised open water dive, my dive buddy/wife did a shallow water dive at Content Key where the current was way too strong for a couple of novice divers. We literally had to crawl back to our boat hugging the bottom. Surfaced without incident, but then at the surface dive buddy lost her $500 plus prescription mask. So super diver me (still suffering from my bullet proof syndrome) to the rescue. On the last leg of the ladder search (knew them from the Navy) spotted and recovered the mask and once again crawled back to the boat and surfaced uneventfully.

In retrospect and as discussed on the boat afterwards, a $500 mask is not worth a life and solo diving to find it was not the smartest thing I have ever done.

You indicated you were chasing bugs and then noticed your air was low. To me one of the highest priorities for every diver is situational awareness. At least 80% of my dives my task loading is high because of spearfishing, chasing bugs or trying to pull stone crabs out of their holes. I know that it's easy to lose track of time while engaged in the hunt. So we have disciplined ourselves to frequently check the gauges. Situational awareness is absolutely necessary. Discipline yourself to periodically check your gas, depth, dive time and mentally evaluate where you stand in you dive plan. You're OK if you have used 50% gas and 50% dive plan, but you need to modify your dive plan if you have consumed 50% of your gas and are only 25% into the dive plan. IMO, communicating your remaining gas with your buddy and acknowledge your buddy's remaining air is a part of being a good buddy.

You dodged a potentially serious accident. Strive to learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them. Get some conservative dives under your belt and then get your AOW certification. It will make you a better and safer diver. Underwater navigation followed by search and recovery will really build navigation skills and confidence.

Dive safely

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I dive in that area frequently (and try to catch bugs too sometimes). Maybe I can enlighten you on some of the less obvious mistakes....

Drift diving with your GF behind you....and you look back and check periodically... bad idea, especailly for newbie. what happens if she stops for a bug and you keep drifting...? In 30 seconds you could easily be so far down current that you could not get back up current to her, especailly if you are pulling a float and you are presented with the option of ditching the float (if there is no good hook off) and trying to crawl back and search for her or you could just...... what is the other option???

What you two need to do is work on diving side by side, especailly when drift diving. If someone sees a bug or wants to stop and investigate, the easiest thing to do is scream, if you are 10 feet away, side by side the other diver will be alerted to the lobster/hole/ stopping point. That is how it should be done as a buddy pair in current when hunting bugs.

The OP also mentioned that he and his Gf were going to split up the task of watching the depth or time or air??? I actually forget what the actual comment was... That is utterly ridiculous, BOTH divers need to be aware of the depth, the time, the deco status and eachother's air. Would you drive a car and say I will work the gas pedal, you work the brakes and we will take turns steering??

 

[Splitlip]

Well..
Tell me where the "West Palm Marina" is, and I will help.

DD I smell a troll. I may be wrong.

 

[flots am]

This experience taught me and her both some valuable lessons. For some reason, I had complete trust in the rental equipment psi gauge and was sure that the tanks were over-filled. It was some time later, before it dawn on me, what had been the culprit of our problem. This incident could have killed someone who's prone to panic; fortunately, my girlfriend was calm and collective.

I hope sharing my mistakes, might help someone else not make the same mistakes.

It makes no difference if the tanks had 4000 or 1000 PSI when you got them. That's completely irrlevant.

The problem is that you didn't monitor your tank pressure. If you don't watch your SPG, you're going to run out of air. It's not rocket science.

Also, even if you or your GF did run out of air, your Open Water training covered the procedures you need to follow in order to safely end your dive.

Our first dive on our own and she ran out of air

As her buddy, this is as much your fault as hers.

we set off from a West Palm Marina to lobster just off the coast in 60' of water.

You might want to leave the additional activities for later, once you've learned to dive safely.

flots