The worst thing you have ever heard or seen...

[ofg-1]

Worst thing I have seen? Wife, when she's really, really pissed off. After 36 years of marriage, that pissed off look still shrivels my boy parts.

 

[Wingy]

What is it about the Coolidge?
I met a diver who said he did a 'try out' dive on a rebreather on the wreck with no training or prior RB experience other than being told 'breathe slowly and don't flood the loop... and come up if the light goes red'

Jesus...I know which op would've offered that...they had a very very good Tec instructor from U.K. And I've seen they have had a job for a tec instructor going for the last 6 months. We had a few good chats about how the Coolidge likes to claim a soul every now and then due to exactly this and he mentioned his disgust in being pressured to do stuff like this....keep that customer no matter what or they'll walk up the road to XYZ who are also for sale and have been changing hands repeatedly since the NZ ladies death.

When we were going down to look at the prop I was asked if I wanted to try sidemount or doubles....and have a go in the pool after dinner and a few shells of Kava before the prop dive. I was also asked if I wanted to do a breather try out (to the prop??) while trying doubles (I'm in my fifties, 5'2, 45kg...yeah that works). Needless to say I didn't dive doubles - my local Ni Van guide did though - which is a helluva lot more than guides at other ops had. Just OC air single tank which was fine for me, but I knew if I'd needed more R had plenty to donate...that at least was agreed on.

I met the guide who was on the dive Leila died on. He's scared sh1tless about the wreck and we talked about the condition of the gear used by divers and guides at the op he formally worked at. There's a very enforced code of silence on Santo about that dive. The local guides are all nervous about the next fatality. Now Santo is a standard cruise ship stop for the "parents and kids" cruise demographic it's a "must do" - snorkellers to once in ten year divers.

I blame Kava...and maybe there's a link between the story the taxi driver told me at the airport - Vila and Santo run out of Pot when the cruise ships are in...kids are in the ship crèche parents are off their faces ... why not try a Rebreather on a night dive of the Coolidge! Sounds great - pass me a shell and lets burn a chain before the dive......

 

[EastEndDiver]

Worst thing I ever saw after 4 decades of diving is a thread that brings up the the faults of other divers for no conceivable reason other than to say "look at this diver …..how stupid"

Except for ofg-1 ...I know your pain

I think someone on SB said "Dive and let dive"

 

[tr3a]

not life threatening though

Could be to the viewing party

 

[Trace Malinowski]

The most egregious violation of responsible diving practices I've seen was when a NAUI group from Cape Ann, MA was visiting us in the Florida Keys. We went out with Lady Cyana Divers to Hammerhead Reef. I was buddied with a PADI instructor from Utah. He and I descended to 30 or 40 feet under the boat. As we were pausing to check gas and adjust gear, steel 72 scuba tanks began raining down around us. Each tank landed on the coral like a WW II dud bomb. Unlike duds, these cylinders were destructive. The NAUI divers swam down wearing horsecollar BCD's and donned the tanks by kneeling on the bottom. I saw my buddy staring in disbelief with his hands on his head in a display of shock and awe.

 

[Snoweman]

Not much worse than a grossly overweight man with a hairy back wearing a banana hammock...

A friend of mine showed me his computer after he finished his AOW dives. Because it was 'acting weird.'
That would be because his last dive (keep in mind this was a training dive...) put him well into deco. Which, of course, they didn't do.
Happily, he didn't show any sign of being bent, but the potential, especially on a training dive, was concerning.

NOTE: I DO NOT PROMOTE DIVING OFF OF SOMEONE ELSE'S COMPUTER.

Had to put that in all caps in preparation for some folks. You didn't mention what make the computer was. I can see the instructor not being too concerned if he is diving a less conservative computer and the student is diving a Zoop. I don't advocate it, but I can understand it.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

One time years ago I took a group of people out on my boat that attended one of my campouts up on the North Coast of California.
There was one guy that showed up who was a friend of another guy that I already knew who had been to prior campouts, so I trusted that this new guy was OK and in the care/buddy team of the guy I knew.
So anyway, I took a group of five divers out. I anchored out on an offshore reef in about 50’ of water. I decided to stay on the boat and let the group dive. I inew the site and gave them a wuick briefing on the bottom typography. The new guy was supposed to be buddied with the other guy I knew but somehow they got separated as soon as they began descending. The new guy was way overweighted, all brand new gear, right out of open water, and this was his first ever dive in the ocean (I found all this out afterward). As soon as he dumped air he sank like an anvil. He landed on the bottom so hard and hit his chin on a rock that it blew the reg out of his mouth and dislodged his mask. Apparently he panicked with no reg and no mask and made a frantic crawl for the surface. I was topside enjoying some calm when all of a sudden this guy flies to the surface coughing and sputtering. I thrashed to get my fins on a so I could jump in and get him to the boat, but he recovered enough to swim over and I got him back into the boat. Miraculously, there was no apparent evidence of embolism or any other damage so at least that was good, he was just shook up.
I noticed blood on his chin and noticed he had a few urchin spines hanging out of his skin, so I helped him pick them out. A few minutes later his “buddy” comes up and wondered what happened to him?
Wow! CF to the max!
I didn’t know anything about this guy or his skill level prior to this event, I learned all this after the incident.

After everyone got out and we got back to shore. The new guy gathered all his things from the campsite and split, never said a word.

From that point on the rules on who got to dive off by boat radically changed!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

 

[EireDiver606]

"If you get scared, just hit the red button on your BC and you'll go right to the surface"

Don’t give the newer divers any ideas (including me ).

 

[Scuba-74]

Holy crap, excuse my French.