Deep Dives

[EdC]

Lastly, if at any time at max planned depth you start exerting yourself into CO2 retention & hyperventilation, feeling "air starved" or the anxiety & dread of the "dark narc" -->stop the physical activity causing the exertion, relax and try to recover the normal deep breathing inhale/exhale cycle to purge the Carbon Dioxide build-up, and then abort the dive or ascend up to the shallows with your buddy. . .

Funny to see this thread after getting back from a couple days of diving that included one dive where I experienced the exact feeling in Kevrumbo's quote above.

I just did a 90 foot dive in Gloucester this past weekend in a combination of conditions that were totally new to me and a little bit of a surprise. I have been on dives that were in cold water, dives to 90 feet and dives with terrible visibility but not all three together. I had no apprehension before this particular dive, feeling excited and confident, fairly relaxed until I hit @70 feet. The combination of not being able to see farther than the length of one diver, the darkness that water like that brings and having my mask flooded when it hit the mooring line while getting pushed around in the current kind of added up. I cleared my mask, continued down the line and just after getting to the deck I had a few moments where I started rethinking my choices in life. No real reason, everything was fine and I was in a group of four divers that I was very comfortable with ( I think if I had been with an insta-buddy it may have been worse). Just an overwhelming feeling of what the hell am I getting into and why can't I get enough air! I had to consciously talk myself out of that state before it got out of hand and the rest of the dive was great.

Sorry to go on and on, but I have been thinking since that moment that I was silly to think that I would be comfortable in whatever comes along. I'm pretty new as well and up until this point everything has come to me very easily, buoyancy, air management, drysuit etc. and then boom something that gives you a wake up call. If I had had an incident in those first few minutes at the bottom of the line I am not sure how it would have gone.

 

[Russoft]

Sorry if its off-topic, but if you read a lot on this forum it looks like everyone uses a pony bottle.
Is it a American thing? I never see them in real.
Is it for when you are short on air? Or are they used like a deco bottle?

I've never personally seen someone dive with a pony bottle either in the US or otherwise. Of course, it probably depends on the crowd you dive with. Thus far, I'm usually diving at some vacation destination and the dive charter only rents AL80s. My local diving is just me and my buddy, so I don't know what gear others use.

Funny to see this thread after getting back from a couple days of diving that included one dive where I experienced the exact feeling in Kevrumbo's quote above.

Just an overwhelming feeling of what the hell am I getting into and why can't I get enough air! I had to consciously talk myself out of that state before it got out of hand and the rest of the dive was great.

I wrote off advanced dives for a while after having a fairly unpleasant experience. It was a 100 ft dive against the current and I couldn't get enough air. I was anxious and developed a throbbing headache. Worst dive in my life. I switched to easier dives after that and focused on building more experience and getting more training.

 

[Marie13]

Sorry if its off-topic, but if you read a lot on this forum it looks like everyone uses a pony bottle.
Is it a American thing? I never see them in real.
Is it for when you are short on air? Or are they used like a deco bottle?

It's for emergency air. I guess it depends on your diving location. A friend who dives on tropical vacations had never heard of them, period. I see a fair number of people with them at our local quarry, probably training for dives elsewhere. Ponies seem to be fairly common on deeper Great Lakes wrecks, as far as I can tell, if you're not diving doubles.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sorry if its off-topic, but if you read a lot on this forum it looks like everyone uses a pony bottle.
Is it a American thing? I never see them in real.
Is it for when you are short on air? Or are they used like a deco bottle?

Pony bottles are not intended to be used for emergency purposes only. I think the popularity of pony bottles varies from place to place. I rarely see them in tropical places. On the other hand, our local divers use them quite commonly. The reasons can extend to a lack of decent buddies (or buddy skills), to diving in conditions that might make buddy separation more likely (high current or low visibility or both), to solo diving.

The OP mentioned possibly going solo ... in which case some form of redundant air is a sensible thing to do. A pony bottle in this case is a reasonable choice if you're diving a singles rig, but if using doubles (either side or back mount) it is not needed.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Tribal]

I Guess its because of the buddies then, i mostly do shore dives and lakes. I think most divers do know their buddies and trust them.
We are obligated to have 2 first stages but it can be on one tank.
No idea how the visibility is in most places but here its from like 5m at best till being glad that you can see your ellbow

 

[KenGordon]

Funny to see this thread after getting back from a couple days of diving that included one dive where I experienced the exact feeling in Kevrumbo's quote above.

I just did a 90 foot dive in Gloucester this past weekend in a combination of conditions that were totally new to me and a little bit of a surprise. I have been on dives that were in cold water, dives to 90 feet and dives with terrible visibility but not all three together. I had no apprehension before this particular dive, feeling excited and confident, fairly relaxed until I hit @70 feet. The combination of not being able to see farther than the length of one diver, the darkness that water like that brings and having my mask flooded when it hit the mooring line while getting pushed around in the current kind of added up. I cleared my mask, continued down the line and just after getting to the deck I had a few moments where I started rethinking my choices in life. No real reason, everything was fine and I was in a group of four divers that I was very comfortable with ( I think if I had been with an insta-buddy it may have been worse). Just an overwhelming feeling of what the hell am I getting into and why can't I get enough air! I had to consciously talk myself out of that state before it got out of hand and the rest of the dive was great.

Sorry to go on and on, but I have been thinking since that moment that I was silly to think that I would be comfortable in whatever comes along. I'm pretty new as well and up until this point everything has come to me very easily, buoyancy, air management, drysuit etc. and then boom something that gives you a wake up call. If I had had an incident in those first few minutes at the bottom of the line I am not sure how it would have gone.

This is an excellent post.

 

[Blasto]

I Guess its because of the buddies then, i mostly do shore dives and lakes. I think most divers do know their buddies and trust them.

Buddy is backup #1. RAS (Pony) is backup #2.

It's very reasonable to expect one of your backups to fail, because backup failures are stealthy failures. As a rec diver, one would usually only test their RAS on the surface and barely test their buddy at all. It's common for rec divers to stay within vis range of their buddy with only intermittent visual contact, and occasionally exit it.

IOW, a buddy system I'd probably peg as about 75% reliable, maybe 90% with a trusted buddy. That's nowhere near enough to stake your life on. Any RAS larger than Spare Air is dependably at least 95%.

Of course there's backup #3 in rec diving - CESA - but its track record is spotty and there's plenty of dives that are still supposedly rec (any cavern/ice/wreck overhead in low vis) where it's not a realistic option to begin with.

Thanks all for the great advice. Seems getting more shallow dives would be the way to go.

More shallow dives, and more plain buddy dives overall. Like depth progression, there's autonomy progression in diving. Training dives -> DM-guided -> buddy -> solo [ -> team ].

And your depth and conditions limits for each successive level (except for team) will be lower, until you gain more experience in such conditions. At 15 dives, I'd probably be comfortable doing a training dive to 100 ft, DM-guided to 60 ft, buddy dive with rock bottom no deeper than 60 ft or vis (whichever is less) within 1200 ft of the shore, and solo to however deep the pool is. YMMV.

 

[Russoft]

Like depth progression, there's autonomy progression in diving. Training dives -> DM-guided -> buddy -> solo [ -> team ].

And your depth and conditions limits for each successive level (except for team) will be lower, until you gain more experience in such conditions. At 15 dives, I'd probably be comfortable doing a training dive to 100 ft, DM-guided to 60 ft, buddy dive with rock bottom no deeper than 60 ft or vis (whichever is less) within 1200 ft of the shore, and solo to however deep the pool is. YMMV.

Yes! Getting away from the DM-guided dives was, for me, a very important growing step as a diver! Without leaning on a guide, suddenly you're forced to familiarize yourself with the dive site, plan your turning point gas, navigate from and to your entry point, and set your own limits regarding depth and water conditions.

 

[BDSC]

It's very reasonable to expect one of your backups to fail, because backup failures are stealthy failures

In 26 years of diving with over 1000 dives I've never had a failure of any kind. I've been on a lot of trips with a lot of people and have never known them to have a failure as well. Just curious as to why you think it's reasonable to think a failure is going to occur or am I reading what you wrote wrong?

 

[Blasto]

I'm yet to hit 1k and I've had freeflowing seconds, stuck SPGs, a valve connection leak, a broken computer strap, a glitched DPV, two problem lights, some other problems I can't recall right away... and at least a hundred "buddy failures". I guess luck wasn't your dump stat?

But you could be reading my post a bit wrong too. All equipment fails, it's a question of when. But using your buddy as sole backup is further less reliable - "buddy failures", situations where your buddy is too far away or too distracted to realistically rely on as backup, occur far more often than hardware problems, at least as long as you go vacation diving with instabuddies.