The following is an incident that happened around 4 months ago. I have learnt a lot from SB since then (reading of other divers incidents). I know I will cop a lot of negative comments from this, and rightly so, reading it back to myself I cant believe how many stupid decisions I made. I really very embarrassed about the whole thing. However I thought Id share it here for discussion & of course, criticism.
I live in Melbourne Australia. Temperate waters for those of you who may not know.
My wife had just completed her OW cert in Thailand after many years of wanting to dive but being unable to pass a medical (A heart condition, which is now under control). So I was very excited to finally be able to take her out diving. lm a pretty new to SCUBA, (I did my OW in 2011 but had only done 20ish dives at the time of this incident).
I decided to take her to a shallow pier dive I had done a number of times, max depth 7 meters. I chose the site because it was such an easy dive that I was familiar with & we could easily do a weight check & skills near a low platform attached to the pier. On the way out to the dive we were running really late, I was a bit stressed because I felt we had limited time as we would have to get back to pick up our kids who were staying with their grandparents. I was hoping to get 2 or even 3 dives in for the day. So I decided to change the location to a place I was less familiar with (Id been there once before), and on top of that it was a pier at a marina with a fair few boats around & not really any easy way to do a weight check (nowhere to put the extra lead if we had too much). None of this really seemed like a big deal at the time but it was making me stressed before the dive had even started
I just made a guess with her weights and mine (I was also testing out a new BCD that I got on eBay, I came with a 1 year warranty & looked almost new, so I thought it would be in pretty good condition).
We got in the water, did a weight check, luckily neither of us seemed to be over weighted. As soon as we started the dive my mask started fogging up, which had me very distracted and not very attentive to my wife. We did most of the dive with me very preoccupied with my mask; I kept swimming too fast & had to keep stopping to wait for my wife to catch up. On the way back to our entry point we went past a group of divers who were kicking up heaps of sand, combined with the foggy mask I really couldn't see a thing (my stress levels really starting to get high now). At some point in the dive I had given my shoulder dump a couple of pulls to dump air, and now I was starting to feel pretty negative, I added some air to the bcd but it didn't help, I tried a few more times but still I was very negative. I signalled to my wife to ascend, once on the surface I realised that the shoulder dump valve had ripped right out and my bcd had taken on a fair bit of water. I was an effort to stay above the surface and I was also worried about boat traffic so I decided (probably my dumbest decision Of many bad decisions so far) it would be easier & safer if we went back down and continued swim back in. As soon as we got back down (around 4 meters) I realised it wasn't going to work, I was just way to negative. I pulled out a 2kg weight & tried to hand it to my wife, she had no idea what to do with it & gave it back. I then gave it back to her again, and thinking that I may make her too negative I grabbed her power inflator and gave it a small burst of air, She went straight to the surface, I wouldn't say fast, but I put her in an uncontrolled ascent, as she reached the surface (I followed) she hit her shoulder on the bottom of a moored boat. Understandably she was furious with me. We did a surface swim to our entry point. With the extra 2kg now lost at the bottom I was able to stay above the water without too much effort.
Looking back we are very lucky things didnt turn out much worse. The worst thing about this incident was that my wife has lost a lot of confidence in her abilities. She will only now go diving with a DM or instructor. I completely understand this; its just very unfortunate since the whole thing was my fault. Ive also lost a lot of confidence, which is probably a good thing.
Lessons learnt:
I overloaded myself, I just gave myself too many things to think about & deal with, the stress built up & I was no longer making rational decisions. If you are unsure for any reason dont do the dive. Dont go beyond your comfort level.
Always check your gear (including dump valves) before each dive.
I have since become comfortable defogging my mask underwater by bleeding some water in and swishing it around. I also now use a mask defog. And regularly practice mask flooding & removal drills.
Never touch another divers gear unless they ask you to.
I should have let my wife help me swim in on the surface using the air in her BCD, or if that wasn't enough dump the weight & then do the same. I could have also inflated my SMB if I were worried about boats in the area.
Before this I just thought of diving as something that you learnt and then did, like playing a card game, once you know the rules away you go. But now its something that I want to get really good at. I now practice most of my OW skills after every dive.
I live in Melbourne Australia. Temperate waters for those of you who may not know.
My wife had just completed her OW cert in Thailand after many years of wanting to dive but being unable to pass a medical (A heart condition, which is now under control). So I was very excited to finally be able to take her out diving. lm a pretty new to SCUBA, (I did my OW in 2011 but had only done 20ish dives at the time of this incident).
I decided to take her to a shallow pier dive I had done a number of times, max depth 7 meters. I chose the site because it was such an easy dive that I was familiar with & we could easily do a weight check & skills near a low platform attached to the pier. On the way out to the dive we were running really late, I was a bit stressed because I felt we had limited time as we would have to get back to pick up our kids who were staying with their grandparents. I was hoping to get 2 or even 3 dives in for the day. So I decided to change the location to a place I was less familiar with (Id been there once before), and on top of that it was a pier at a marina with a fair few boats around & not really any easy way to do a weight check (nowhere to put the extra lead if we had too much). None of this really seemed like a big deal at the time but it was making me stressed before the dive had even started
I just made a guess with her weights and mine (I was also testing out a new BCD that I got on eBay, I came with a 1 year warranty & looked almost new, so I thought it would be in pretty good condition).
We got in the water, did a weight check, luckily neither of us seemed to be over weighted. As soon as we started the dive my mask started fogging up, which had me very distracted and not very attentive to my wife. We did most of the dive with me very preoccupied with my mask; I kept swimming too fast & had to keep stopping to wait for my wife to catch up. On the way back to our entry point we went past a group of divers who were kicking up heaps of sand, combined with the foggy mask I really couldn't see a thing (my stress levels really starting to get high now). At some point in the dive I had given my shoulder dump a couple of pulls to dump air, and now I was starting to feel pretty negative, I added some air to the bcd but it didn't help, I tried a few more times but still I was very negative. I signalled to my wife to ascend, once on the surface I realised that the shoulder dump valve had ripped right out and my bcd had taken on a fair bit of water. I was an effort to stay above the surface and I was also worried about boat traffic so I decided (probably my dumbest decision Of many bad decisions so far) it would be easier & safer if we went back down and continued swim back in. As soon as we got back down (around 4 meters) I realised it wasn't going to work, I was just way to negative. I pulled out a 2kg weight & tried to hand it to my wife, she had no idea what to do with it & gave it back. I then gave it back to her again, and thinking that I may make her too negative I grabbed her power inflator and gave it a small burst of air, She went straight to the surface, I wouldn't say fast, but I put her in an uncontrolled ascent, as she reached the surface (I followed) she hit her shoulder on the bottom of a moored boat. Understandably she was furious with me. We did a surface swim to our entry point. With the extra 2kg now lost at the bottom I was able to stay above the water without too much effort.
Looking back we are very lucky things didnt turn out much worse. The worst thing about this incident was that my wife has lost a lot of confidence in her abilities. She will only now go diving with a DM or instructor. I completely understand this; its just very unfortunate since the whole thing was my fault. Ive also lost a lot of confidence, which is probably a good thing.
Lessons learnt:
I overloaded myself, I just gave myself too many things to think about & deal with, the stress built up & I was no longer making rational decisions. If you are unsure for any reason dont do the dive. Dont go beyond your comfort level.
Always check your gear (including dump valves) before each dive.
I have since become comfortable defogging my mask underwater by bleeding some water in and swishing it around. I also now use a mask defog. And regularly practice mask flooding & removal drills.
Never touch another divers gear unless they ask you to.
I should have let my wife help me swim in on the surface using the air in her BCD, or if that wasn't enough dump the weight & then do the same. I could have also inflated my SMB if I were worried about boats in the area.
Before this I just thought of diving as something that you learnt and then did, like playing a card game, once you know the rules away you go. But now its something that I want to get really good at. I now practice most of my OW skills after every dive.