Buoyant ascents

[Dhboner]

I know it doesn't answer the OP's question but this should simply never happen. If you monitor your air and follow your dive plan you will not have an out of air situation. If you have some kind of catastrophic equipment failure and lose all your gas, you go to your redundant air supply...if you don't have one then you signal your buddy and begin a normal, safe ascent while air sharing. I do not accept the excuse that I might be with an incompetent "instabuddy". I would never put myself in a position of trusting someone I have never met to help me through a potentially lethal dive incident. If for whatever reason I am on a boat and I am not with my normal team members then I explain to the DM that I am not comfortable being "buddy'd up" with someone I don't know and that I will stay close to the DM at all times.

 

[NAM001]

Iralub

When it comes to this topic and similar ones i am often in a different camp than others. You are an OW for me that means 60 ft and less. That is because you were taught survival from depths up to 60'. CESA is one of them. OW's are new divers with limited experience. so the solutions are limited to drop weight or cesa if you cant drive up. Follow on training should teach you how not to get into those situations that would require and emergency surface from 100 ft' From 60 ft it does not take much depth change to make your suit expand or the air in the bcd to give more lift. This is said compared to from 100'. YOu use your OW to master the very basics. like breathing comfortable in the water. experience a few problems like your tank falling out of your bcd, or your mask being kicked off you face by a buddy, currents ect. even perhaps an ooa or so . Then when you can handle that with out panic yo proceed to deeper water and learn more skills or refine old ones more to insure you never have problems at deep water. The deeper water the less forgiving mistakes are. Loose a buddy at 30' and not at 80 ft at a wreck site. Many of the skills you start to gain after OW include those mentioned like ballanced rig. Yea right ballanced rig on tourist rental gear, probably not. You, by that time, should have much more awareness of your surroundings like tank pressure , buddy location and condition environmental conditions that you did not have before right out of OW. You should be able to fix potential problems before they control you. Not to mention much more refined buoyancy skills. Clearly recovering from a failed bcd at 40 ft is not the same as at 100' because of differences in suit buoyancy.

 

[Storker]

Is there a downside to ditching weights on the surface?

It'll cost you some money. OTOH, the potential downside to not ditching on the surface is a bit worse:

There are a lot of examples of folks who surface for some reason, have a problem, and are found dead on the bottom with their weights intact.

As far as I understand, there has been more divers not ditching on the surface when they should, than ditching when they shouldn't.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I know it doesn't answer the OP's question but this should simply never happen. If you monitor your air and follow your dive plan you will not have an out of air situation. If you have some kind of catastrophic equipment failure and lose all your gas, you go to your redundant air supply...if you don't have one then you signal your buddy and begin a normal, safe ascent while air sharing. I do not accept the excuse that I might be with an incompetent "instabuddy". I would never put myself in a position of trusting someone I have never met to help me through a potentially lethal dive incident. If for whatever reason I am on a boat and I am not with my normal team members then I explain to the DM that I am not comfortable being "buddy'd up" with someone I don't know and that I will stay close to the DM at all times.

I agree.

And yet separations between buddies do sometimes occur, even between highly trained, skilled and committed buddy teams. CESA is just another tool that lives at the very bottom of your tool kit, hopefully never, ever pulled out.

Discussing the "how-to's" and "what-if's" in the Basic section is important I believe.

Over the history of scuba, CESA's have been performed from surprising depths. I think it is important to remember this, especially if you are ever caught in that situation, to help push panic back into its box. You CAN swim yourself to the surface from any recreational depth, with just a little luck.

My deepest CESA (training) was from 60'. In a "controlled" setting it was a non-issue.

Best wishes.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I know it doesn't answer the OP's question but this should simply never happen. If you monitor your air and follow your dive plan you will not have an out of air situation. If you have some kind of catastrophic equipment failure and lose all your gas, you go to your redundant air supply...if you don't have one then you signal your buddy and begin a normal, safe ascent while air sharing. I do not accept the excuse that I might be with an incompetent "instabuddy". I would never put myself in a position of trusting someone I have never met to help me through a potentially lethal dive incident. If for whatever reason I am on a boat and I am not with my normal team members then I explain to the DM that I am not comfortable being "buddy'd up" with someone I don't know and that I will stay close to the DM at all times.

LOL.. all Divemasters are perfect and as long as you stay close to one, you will always have a reliable source of air to reach the surface..

These kinds of "dependent" attitudes along with people who ask IF a bc can be orally inflated underwater...

 

[Dhboner]

LOL.. all Divemasters are perfect and as long as you stay close to one, you will always have a reliable source of air to reach the surface..

These kinds of "dependent" attitudes along with people who ask IF a bc can be orally inflated underwater...

I have only been in that situation once, on a trip to Curacao where I was only able to book one dive. Since I was without my regular team, the DM seemed the least likely to get me killed on the boat. I don't have a"dependent attitude"...I have been diving since 1971, have been trained by some of the best instructors in the sport and have logged ALOT of dives in the cold, dark water of the Great Lakes. My point was simply, in a situation where your choice is an "insta-buddy" or the DM, I will choose the DM. He likely knows the area, has had to deal with emergencies before and might be less inclined to rip ,my regulator from my mouth if HE were to have an OOA.

 

[Patoux01]

So I guess you might want to update your profile? Or we don't have the same idea of a lot of dives...

 

[Iralub]

I have only been in that situation once, on a trip to Curacao where I was only able to book one dive. Since I was without my regular team, the DM seemed the least likely to get me killed on the boat. I don't have a"dependent attitude"...I have been diving since 1971, have been trained by some of the best instructors in the sport and have logged ALOT of dives in the cold, dark water of the Great Lakes. My point was simply, in a situation where your choice is an "insta-buddy" or the DM, I will choose the DM. He likely knows the area, has had to deal with emergencies before and might be less inclined to rip ,my regulator from my mouth if HE were to have an OOA.

Unfortunately I'm in that situation for every dive. I've had some excellent instabuddies who may have been less likely to kill me than the average DM, but also some "same ocean" buddies and a few who were inexperienced divers (even more so than me) and their capacity to assist would be in doubt. It is one of the reasons that I tend to stay close to the DM (the other is a general lack of confidence, but that had been improving). So learning all these things had been really useful

 

[george_austin]

While I agree that gas management and awareness during the dive are key to safe practice of the sport, the question posed by the OP is still relevant. OOA can happen and not due to neglecting monitoring your SPG. Last year I was on a dive with my son when I saw him switching to his pony at about 60ft. When I got closer I was able to read his SPG on his hip D-ring and it showed 1100 psi left. I assumed he was practicing but when I got on board it turned out that all his low pressure ports shut off, primary, secondary, BC inflator and drysuit inflator. HP port was working though. Later, during one of the dive shows I ran into a technician from the reg manufacturer and as we discussed this he told me that based on this case they had to change the servicing kits as some teks will confuse and perform incorrect service. Anyhow, OOA can happen and buddy is not always the option for variety of reasons (think insta buddy as one of examples). It is good to discuss the question since if one finds himself/herself in this situation at least some idea on the proper reaction already exists and that's the best value of this board


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This is why, in my opinion, everyone who engages in this sport should be completely competent in servicing their own equipment. I've been an active diver since 1972 and I WOULD NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES HAND OFF MY REGULATOR FOR SERVICE TO SOME STRANGER. Inconceivable.

 

[Dhboner]

So I guess you might want to update your profile? Or we don't have the same idea of a lot of dives...

I haven't updated my profile in years and since there weren't 350 different PADI certifications in 1971 I didn't start logging dives until recently.