Dive Boat (and my) Mistake...

[FLTRI]

First off, I've been diving for 15 years, and have right at 100 dives. I'm PADI Advanced Open Water Certified and do most of my diving in Hawaii. My wife and I have been coming to the Islands for about 10 years, and we actually got married off the south shore of Kauai on a dive boat three years ago.

So, here's what happened yesterday.

I charter a two tank boat dive yesterday with an operator I picked at random. They had a nice website, and were close to the hotel. They picked me up at the hotel, and made a few other stops to get three other divers. Once we get to the dock, turns out the battery is dead on the boat. The Captain messes with a battery charger for half and hour, and still can't get it started. I noticed the cabin lights were on, and very dim, and suggested that the battery may charge faster if he turned them off. He shuts them down (they had apparently been left on overnight, draining the battery), and after another half hour, the diesel finally turns over, and we head out.

No big deal, things happen.

Next, we really don't have a dive briefing. One dive master asks if I'm okay at 105' and says we're diving on a airplane, and don't touch the eels. Then, both dive masters suit up and jump in. They swim around the boat for a bit locating the mooring line and tie off the boat. Again, no big deal, figured they'd come back aboard to brief and explain the site more. But, they just motion for the four of us to jump in. We do, and start down.

Again, no big deal, good vis and a neat wreck. They did, however fail to mention there was a pretty good current on the way down, and getting there was a workout.

Again, no big deal.

Next site is at 35-45'and they did brief us a bit more on it than they did on the first dive. They also switched out everyone's gear. We go in, and on decent, I check my air, 1300# We were shallow, so I stayed with the group for about 5 minutes. I finally get one of the divemasters attention, and signal I'm low on air, need to surface, and ask which direction the boat is. She doesn't get what I'm asking and hands me her octopus. I decline as I'm still at 900# and 35 feet but let her know I need to do a controlled accent, and find the boat.

We go up together, and the boat is at least 1/4 mile away. Neither of us have a safety sausage, but I have a whistle. Took a about 10 minutes to get the captains attention, but he finally see's us and picks us up.

She asks me what happened,and I tell her I had an empty tank. She assures me she switched it and I say I know, I watched you do it.

Now, I know The majority of fault lies on me. I didn't check the pressure prior to going in. It's my gear, and I'm responsible for it. Nothing bad came of it other than an aborted dive.

What troubles me is one of the divers was on his 5th dive, and is 67 years old. I kinda watched over him a bit on the first dive, and while he did well, I don't think he looked at his reg once. He more or less just did what the rest of us did, and surfaced with us. Had he gotten the empty bottle, it could have ended poorly.

My divemaster apologized half a dozen times, and I told her I wasn't upset. I also let her know it was between her and I, and I wasn't going to mention it to the other divemaster or captain.

I've never had this happen before, but even after 100 dives, I'll never go in without checking the "new" bottle again...

 

[Crush]

That is why I always re-check my gauges and look for fluctuations during a sharp inhalation on my reg twice - once when suiting up, and once when I am just about to step off the edge of the boat. Once so far I seem to have missed the first check, or did the check and turned off my tank. Luckily I did check #2 and sheepishly asked the deck hand if he wouldn't mind opening my tank for me.

Personally, at 30 feet I would have called the dive at 500-600 psi, assuming that you are comfortable with your gear and have previously run a tank dry with that gear to verify that there isn't an offset in your pressure gauge.

 

[j yaeger]

great story!
thanks for sharing it with us
happy ending,but underlying everthing is the lesson...
you are responsible for yourself!!!
the sport is as safe/dangerous as you make it
i think i would have voiced some of my concerns,but again,it's your choice!
"always know within 5oo# how much gas you have" ...
always check your gas before going in
always have fun!!!!!!
thanks again!
yaeg

 

[redacted]

Next site is at 35-45'and they did brief us a bit more on it than they did on the first dive. They also switched out everyone's gear. We go in, and on decent, I check my air, 1300# We were shallow, so I stayed with the group for about 5 minutes. I finally get one of the divemasters attention, and signal I'm low on air, need to surface, and ask which direction the boat is. She doesn't get what I'm asking and hands me her octopus. I decline as I'm still at 900# and 35 feet but let her know I need to do a controlled accent, and find the boat.

We go up together, and the boat is at least 1/4 mile away. Neither of us have a safety sausage, but I have a whistle. Took a about 10 minutes to get the captains attention, but he finally see's us and picks us up.

She asks me what happened,and I tell her I had an empty tank. She assures me she switched it and I say I know, I watched you do it.

Sorry, but the way I see it, you are 100% at fault. And the DM gets anything over that. I don't trust anyone else with my gear. I always check.

 

[Shasta_man]

Here's what I do, in this order, for every dive whether on the beach or on the liveaboard skiff

Check:
- the tankstrap is tight first, (multiple times found this loose and had to help someone else underwater.)
- check that your second stage is on "tight",
- then turn your air on and look at your gauge, checking first what the pressure is,
- then giving a few blasts on the purge valve while watching the gauge for signs of bouncing indicating the air is off.
- Then check your weight pockets on your BC to make sure the weights are in, and pockets correctly closed (liveaboard guys don't always put them back right)
- then because of inflexibility, I put my fins on
- Then put the BC on.
- Then check the BC that your cumberbund is closed, all your buckles are snapped, and the BC is snug as it should be, and your air hoses are correctly routed.
- Then take a breath off your primary reg.

Always.

 

[Karibelle]

My divemaster apologized half a dozen times, and I told her I wasn't upset. I also let her know it was between her and I, and I wasn't going to mention it to the other divemaster or captain.

Thanks for posting and I'm glad it turned out okay.

I'm curious about your statement above, though. It's not like you'd be ratting out a friend when you're in grade school. This is a business, and it should be taken seriously. Not sure what it is that is the big secret, and IMO there shouldn't be one. It sounds like you weren't "upset" because you've taken a lot of the responsibility on yourself (and appropriately so, there are things you've learned from this). But that doesn't absolve the DM from the responsibility selecting appropriate dive sites for the divers in the group (and dive #5 to 105' is not appropriate) and giving a full and proper briefing, including boat procedures, signals, and so on. You got poor service, regardless of whatever mistakes you might have made, and failure to point that out only serves to ensure that that level of service continues.

Off the soapbox. Again. I'm glad you learned from this.

-kari

 

[idocsteve]

Your entire first post is unremarkable except that you 1) let someone else swap your tanks and 2) you didn't check your gas pressure prior to jumping in the water.

You learned a lesson, and you probably won't make that same mistake again so it was worth one aborted dive for it.

 

[Polar_diver]

No one but me is allowed to thouch my gear. I understand that at some places you get a ''scuba butler'' but I always decline this kind of service.

 

[idocsteve]

I've been to places such as in Cozumel where the dive boats do it for everyone. I don't have a problem with it but I'll always double check everything. And whenever they're grabbing my tank I'll be right there watching that they don't use my stage1 transmitter for my hoseless AI computer as a handle.

 

[fjpatrum]

My divemaster apologized half a dozen times, and I told her I wasn't upset. I also let her know it was between her and I, and I wasn't going to mention it to the other divemaster or captain.

I've never had this happen before, but even after 100 dives, I'll never go in without checking the "new" bottle again...

Okay, this is the issue I have. I understand you're trying to be a good customer and you're not trying to get the DM in trouble, but if it were me I'd have told all three of them together the exact same thing. No point in them not realizing they took out a low tank (maybe an issue with their fill station???) and no harm if you treat the situation the same way with all three of them.

Why leave it up to the DM to make sure next time when they can all be made aware so they can double check each other. As far as I'm concerned, the buddy system should be applied all the way from the shop and back to it on a dive boat operation like this. DM's should double check each other just as much as the divers should.

Maybe I'm being naive but there doesn't seem to be any harm in making the "whole operation" aware of the situation if you're not upset about it and don't feel like it was anything more than a simple mistake that can be avoided in the future.