thatdiveguy
Registered
This morning I decided to meet the local dive club to go shore diving with them. They are nice guys. We split into two groups and I went with the half going to the site that goes a deeper and requires a 200yard swim. Our plan was to stay around 55ft, max 65. I ended up getting paired with a newbie that had 8 dives and a brand new set of gear. He also wanted to film with his new gopro setup. By the time we got past the waves I can already tell he is going to be trouble from how he was handling himself.
I tried to convince him to go with the group that was going to stay shallow, but he wouldn't have any of that and the nearby divers wouldn't say anything. Sure enough, we get to the bottom and he starts having a horrible time with his buoyancy, chugging through his air, and wanting to film. He immediately starts going all over the place so I had trouble keeping track of him. After maybe 10 mins I catch back up to him and check his air, already at half a tank and he wasn't paying much attention. A diver next to me (other diver) is looking so I show him the newbie's comp and they start sharing air. I also noticed the newbie's tank fell out of the strap and is only held to his back by the strap around the neck of the tank. I decided fine, they want to be buddies and share, I'll check in on them if I see them but otherwise enjoy my dive.
Another 5 minutes pass and I notice the guy is using his own air again, down to 1,000 PSI, and not paying attention to his air still. I show the other diver who had come over, he checks his compass for the heading towards shore, grabs the newbie and they take off full speed without notice. One part of me wanted to just enjoy the rest of the dive, but I've already seen one diver die in the past and didn't want to see another. I also had plenty of air left (surfaced with 1200psi in an hp100) so figured I could share air if they were to run out on the way up. I raced after them and stopped the other diver and the newbie, pointed out that the newbie was down to 650psi and signaled we're going up right now.
Of course, now we're no where near the kelp forest so we're ascending from 49ft with about 10ft of vis in open water. The other diver grabbed the newbie and started ascending immediately. I tried to keep up, but my comp started yelling at me so I slowed down and did my safety stop. They skipped their safety stop and shot straight to the surface and didn't even wait for me to start swimming back.
I caught up and talked to them on the surface. The other diver said he had 700psi and the newbie said he had 350. I talked to them about not trying to race along the bottom and just following the kelp up next time. The fun didn't stop here though, next up we had to exit through about 3-4ft waves. Neither of them understood the concept of waiting out the set and just went for it.
The other diver ended up tumbling so I went in to try and help him up and give him his air again since he dropped his reg and wasn't able to gain footing. I've exited through taller waves before and can handle them fairly well, but I couldn't keep my footing for the next one while trying to help him and tumbled too. Luckily I saw it coming, prepared and did fine. The other diver ended up taking on water though.
At this point the other diver was panicking and coughing up water and we were sitting right where the waves were breaking. I decided to pull him back out past the waves and held him above the water so he could catch his breath. Thankfully the lifeguard came over to help out and we got him in. The newbie kept his reg in while tumbling and made it out ok. Having to worry about two divers in the surf would've really sucked.
I tried to impart some wisdom on them, hopefully they listened. Anything you guys notice that I should've done differently?
Other note, this is only my 30th dive, and half are from last year or before. Most of my more recent dives have been show up to the shore and go insta buddy. Having done this, I can see why solo diving is becoming more popular. Out of the few dozen divers I've met, I would say there are maybe 4 I would trust could help in a tough situation, one of which I met on here
. Most would be useless; some would be a hinderance.
I tried to convince him to go with the group that was going to stay shallow, but he wouldn't have any of that and the nearby divers wouldn't say anything. Sure enough, we get to the bottom and he starts having a horrible time with his buoyancy, chugging through his air, and wanting to film. He immediately starts going all over the place so I had trouble keeping track of him. After maybe 10 mins I catch back up to him and check his air, already at half a tank and he wasn't paying much attention. A diver next to me (other diver) is looking so I show him the newbie's comp and they start sharing air. I also noticed the newbie's tank fell out of the strap and is only held to his back by the strap around the neck of the tank. I decided fine, they want to be buddies and share, I'll check in on them if I see them but otherwise enjoy my dive.
Another 5 minutes pass and I notice the guy is using his own air again, down to 1,000 PSI, and not paying attention to his air still. I show the other diver who had come over, he checks his compass for the heading towards shore, grabs the newbie and they take off full speed without notice. One part of me wanted to just enjoy the rest of the dive, but I've already seen one diver die in the past and didn't want to see another. I also had plenty of air left (surfaced with 1200psi in an hp100) so figured I could share air if they were to run out on the way up. I raced after them and stopped the other diver and the newbie, pointed out that the newbie was down to 650psi and signaled we're going up right now.
Of course, now we're no where near the kelp forest so we're ascending from 49ft with about 10ft of vis in open water. The other diver grabbed the newbie and started ascending immediately. I tried to keep up, but my comp started yelling at me so I slowed down and did my safety stop. They skipped their safety stop and shot straight to the surface and didn't even wait for me to start swimming back.
I caught up and talked to them on the surface. The other diver said he had 700psi and the newbie said he had 350. I talked to them about not trying to race along the bottom and just following the kelp up next time. The fun didn't stop here though, next up we had to exit through about 3-4ft waves. Neither of them understood the concept of waiting out the set and just went for it.
The other diver ended up tumbling so I went in to try and help him up and give him his air again since he dropped his reg and wasn't able to gain footing. I've exited through taller waves before and can handle them fairly well, but I couldn't keep my footing for the next one while trying to help him and tumbled too. Luckily I saw it coming, prepared and did fine. The other diver ended up taking on water though.
At this point the other diver was panicking and coughing up water and we were sitting right where the waves were breaking. I decided to pull him back out past the waves and held him above the water so he could catch his breath. Thankfully the lifeguard came over to help out and we got him in. The newbie kept his reg in while tumbling and made it out ok. Having to worry about two divers in the surf would've really sucked.
I tried to impart some wisdom on them, hopefully they listened. Anything you guys notice that I should've done differently?
Other note, this is only my 30th dive, and half are from last year or before. Most of my more recent dives have been show up to the shore and go insta buddy. Having done this, I can see why solo diving is becoming more popular. Out of the few dozen divers I've met, I would say there are maybe 4 I would trust could help in a tough situation, one of which I met on here
. Most would be useless; some would be a hinderance.
