rcasey
Guest
Well I learned something from my dive this past weekend (actually alot of things) and thought I would share with you.
Diving a quarry with a buddy. Wearing a 3/5/3 farmer john with 3mil hood. We were going to do a deep water dive and try to reach 100'.
Talked with the owner at the site and asked alot of questions regarding the temps and where to go etc...
We suit up, check off everything, discussed dive plan which was pretty simple.
Jumped in the water, 82 degrees felt great, swam out a little and then descented.
Water is about 15' visabillity and my buddy and I go down. We thought we would touch down at about 50-60' and then head down to the deep area. We didn't, we descented, hit a thermacline which I guess brought the temp into the mid to high 60's. We look at each other and I gave the "got the chills" sign. I didn't have the chills, just making conversation that it was cold. The thermacline was very defined. It was like going through a pane of glass.
Water started getting colder...much colder and I guess we went through another thermacline. The temp was 55 degrees! We made this descent very fast, and my body did not have much time to adjust. I started to have trouble breathing. I guess it was from the cold shock. My breathing got worse and I thought my reg was having trouble in the temps. Looked at my buddy and gave the "my reg is so-so" sign. He came a little closer and noted where his octo was. Now I am having a really hard time breathing. Didn't know this until later, but we were at 91'.
I was considering pulling weights and run to the top or exchange my reg with my buddies. Then I thought, this is a high end reg that should be able to go much lower than this and its only got 8 dives on it and had it serviced 2 weeks ago.
(Amazing what goes throught your mind at times like this)
I soon realized that it was me and not the equipment. I accended about 15-20 feet and got my breathing back. I was fine now and my buddy was with me the whole time.
2nd mistake:
We cruised around in that area (70') and I felt great. The temp was cold but not like the initial shock and the 2nd shock. I signalled to my buddy 1-0-0, meaning let's get that 100' in. We headed that way, very slowly. No problem at all. Breathing was great, the temp didn't bother me much. Reached 102'. Looked at my computer and figured we needed to head up.
We both hit a ceiling stop at around 60' I think and had to wait on that. Mine was shorter than his so I started to accend a little. Watching the computer, I soon realized that I was getting really low on air and I would have to perform a safety stop still. We accended together, computer kept slowing us down and we finally made it to the safety stop. 3 minutes seemed like an eternity. Especially when you are watching your psi dropping. I was in the 500 psi range at the stop. As I went through the stop, I noticed I was having to pull the air out of the bottle. Not sure if this was me or the bottle, but I could sware it was hard getting air. This increased my intake and when I hit the surface I was at 200 psi.
I felt like punching myself, and when my buddy came up we got out of our gear, grabbed our computers and ran the dive again in simulation to find our mistakes:
1) Way too fast to the bottom
2) Allow body to adjust to temp change
3) After a panic situation, don't push the envelope
4) watch air better
5) when low consider sharing with buddy. He ended up with 1000 psi.
6) learn more about the site through safer dives and save the 100' for another day.
7)My buddy which is advnaced and has had training in deep dives, said that I shoul have exhaled as long/much as possible. My lungs were full of CO2 and I was not releasing it. Therefore only able to take small breaths.
I am still new to the SCUBA, this was my 16th dive and I learned alot through it.
I would like to hear anyone's comments, please leave some.
Ryan
Diving a quarry with a buddy. Wearing a 3/5/3 farmer john with 3mil hood. We were going to do a deep water dive and try to reach 100'.
Talked with the owner at the site and asked alot of questions regarding the temps and where to go etc...
We suit up, check off everything, discussed dive plan which was pretty simple.
Jumped in the water, 82 degrees felt great, swam out a little and then descented.
Water is about 15' visabillity and my buddy and I go down. We thought we would touch down at about 50-60' and then head down to the deep area. We didn't, we descented, hit a thermacline which I guess brought the temp into the mid to high 60's. We look at each other and I gave the "got the chills" sign. I didn't have the chills, just making conversation that it was cold. The thermacline was very defined. It was like going through a pane of glass.
Water started getting colder...much colder and I guess we went through another thermacline. The temp was 55 degrees! We made this descent very fast, and my body did not have much time to adjust. I started to have trouble breathing. I guess it was from the cold shock. My breathing got worse and I thought my reg was having trouble in the temps. Looked at my buddy and gave the "my reg is so-so" sign. He came a little closer and noted where his octo was. Now I am having a really hard time breathing. Didn't know this until later, but we were at 91'.
I was considering pulling weights and run to the top or exchange my reg with my buddies. Then I thought, this is a high end reg that should be able to go much lower than this and its only got 8 dives on it and had it serviced 2 weeks ago.
(Amazing what goes throught your mind at times like this)
I soon realized that it was me and not the equipment. I accended about 15-20 feet and got my breathing back. I was fine now and my buddy was with me the whole time.
2nd mistake:
We cruised around in that area (70') and I felt great. The temp was cold but not like the initial shock and the 2nd shock. I signalled to my buddy 1-0-0, meaning let's get that 100' in. We headed that way, very slowly. No problem at all. Breathing was great, the temp didn't bother me much. Reached 102'. Looked at my computer and figured we needed to head up.
We both hit a ceiling stop at around 60' I think and had to wait on that. Mine was shorter than his so I started to accend a little. Watching the computer, I soon realized that I was getting really low on air and I would have to perform a safety stop still. We accended together, computer kept slowing us down and we finally made it to the safety stop. 3 minutes seemed like an eternity. Especially when you are watching your psi dropping. I was in the 500 psi range at the stop. As I went through the stop, I noticed I was having to pull the air out of the bottle. Not sure if this was me or the bottle, but I could sware it was hard getting air. This increased my intake and when I hit the surface I was at 200 psi.
I felt like punching myself, and when my buddy came up we got out of our gear, grabbed our computers and ran the dive again in simulation to find our mistakes:
1) Way too fast to the bottom
2) Allow body to adjust to temp change
3) After a panic situation, don't push the envelope
4) watch air better
5) when low consider sharing with buddy. He ended up with 1000 psi.
6) learn more about the site through safer dives and save the 100' for another day.
7)My buddy which is advnaced and has had training in deep dives, said that I shoul have exhaled as long/much as possible. My lungs were full of CO2 and I was not releasing it. Therefore only able to take small breaths.
I am still new to the SCUBA, this was my 16th dive and I learned alot through it.
I would like to hear anyone's comments, please leave some.
Ryan