Addict once bubbled...
So enlighten me. All of the air is out of my BC. The Low Pressure Inflator doen't work. I am sinking.
Ahh... good point. I said the deflator button was stuck, not that the LPI wasn't working.
Let me step back and tell you my story. It was dive #31, it was the deep dive in my AOW class. Dive was over, we were ascending. I dumped air out of my BC. I over did it, so I tried to add some. No luck. Hmm. Kept ascending [swimming] to the safety stop. There I continued to try and achieve neutral bouyancy. No luck. At this point I noticed that the air from my LPI was going right out the hole.
Stressed, I continued to tread water @ 15 fsw, with my hand on my weight belt, not wanting to dump it, but prepared to dump it if necessary.
We finished the stop, I ascended. I swam over to my instructor and pointed out the problem. He manually inflated my BC [I didn't want to take the reg out of my mouth...]. I said thanks, and started to sink.
I went back to him, and he inflated again. This time I remembered to actually stick my finger in the hole to keep the air from coming back out.
Answer: stick your finger over the hole.
Disclaimer: Internet training is just that...free training... it's worth what it costs.
There are
many ways to have delt with the situation, and my choice wasn't the best, but it was what I thought of at the time. It was bad enough at 15 fsw, but add in a load of narced and it could have been a lot worse. But my intent is just to use this story as a vehicle to allow you to look into yourself and wonder if you are truely prepared to be at those depths.
:box:
To get back into the depth side of things. The above is an example of little things that can be downright lethal. The deeper you are, the less clear you will be able to think, and the more a little thing can get out of hand. I learned [thankfully not the hard way] that 100 feet is 100 feet is 100 feet. It's not forgiving wherever you are.
The walls are going to wait for you. Stick to stuff in the <60 range until you get the experience and comfort to venture further... and at that time, get the training for it. When your down 100+ feet, you won't realize how impaired you truely are until you find yourself in trouble and need to instinctively react.
Think about all the different things that can happen, and think about how you would react to them... not how to handle them as you learned in class in controlled situations, but if you can honestly deal with those situations when intoxicated at depth. And if you feel you are ready... then add one more twist: Are you comfortable that your wife can deal with those situations, and you can help her if she can't?
