Dive Boat (and my) Mistake...

[Walter]

Folks have already mentioned seting up your own gear and checking your tanks, but there is one other thing I do that would have prevented this problem and one thing that concerns me that no one has mentioned.

I check both tanks while we're still at the dock. I don't assume there will be extra tanks on board (there usually aren't) and if my tank is low, it either prevents me from diving or shortens my dive. Before we leave the dock, I make sure I have two full tanks.

The other thing I was wondering is, FLTRI, where was your buddy when you surfaced with the DM and returned to the boat? Was he now diving solo? Did you not have a buddy? Did anyone have a buddy? Were you all diving solo in a group? Being in a group does not replace having a specific buddy.

 

[terrylowe]

Taking a thought to extremes here aren't you?

Yes, I guess I did... these posts came from this thread though.
"My life depends on it." (why this poster does not let anyone else set up his tanks)
"some lessons are more painful/deadly than others" (maybe I read in to this one...but in my low-caffeine state I interpreted it as "good thing your stupidity didn't kill you this time you idiot" )

The OP did not complain. He was relating his incident, recognizing his errors, and sharing to keep it form happening again to him and hopefully others.

And I REALLY appreciate his willingness to do this. He made me a better diver by being willing to share this. He already knows he messed up and is trying to keep me from repeating that mistake. From my skewed view of the diving world, most divers let others set up their tanks, so this is a great post for most divers. After reading this post, I will probably STILL let the dive op set my tank up if they do that, BUT I will be extra careful about checking the setup before I put it on.

The posters who stated truth about his faults in the dive are not stoning him. That is just honesty.

Didn't check to see where you were from before I replied to this post, but I am from "Hickville" in the redneck deep south. There are different kinds of honesty here.

• Blunt Honesty - "you did WHAT? You idiot...you were trained better than that!! God I am glad that I am too insert your favorite word here to ever let a mistake like that happen to me!"
• Polite Honesty - "dude, I hate that happened. Something similar happened to me once. Do you have a plan in place to keep from making the same mistake twice?" (BTW Sandi exhibits this one often and I know she doesn't live in the deep south)
• Elder Respect Honesty - "oh, oh. Can't believe that happened to you...bless your heart!" Add the "bless your heart" and it doesn't come across as an insult.
• Insulting Honesty - very close to Blunt Honesty. This happens when a person already feels really bad about their mistake and a dozen or more people pile on with scathing Blunt Honesty. This can deters others from admitting mistakes.
• Dishonest Honesty - the response to the cliche question..."Honey, does this dress make my butt look big?"

Now, I realize that we communicate differently when writing than when we speak in person to each other. I wonder if some of these replies to the OP would have been as "honest" if we were all in a big room face-to-face? Especially if the OP were 6'4" 240 lbs of muscle?

I know I got off on a tangent here.....will try to reel it back in.

 

[Bubbledup]

It can happen: Last year in Sipidan my wife, who has more than 1,000 dives, was with me at 60 feet when she noticed that her air was at 250 PSI (we had been in the water for maybe 10 minutes). We surfaced without incident.

She had been in a rush while suiting up on the boat and had failed to check her air. To my knowledge this is the first time since she began diving (20 yrs ago) that she didn't check her air before entering the water. I doubt that she will make the same mistake again.

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

After reading this post, I will probably STILL let the dive op set my tank up if they do that, BUT I will be extra careful about checking the setup before I put it on. That is a good plan. Always depend on you for your safety. I set up my own gear beacuse I have seen the speed and rough handling of gear by tourist boat dm's too often. I love my gear and don't want it roughly cared for. Plus, I just don't trust anyone more than me.


Didn't check to see where you were from before I replied to this post, but I am from "Hickville" in the redneck deep south. There are different kinds of honesty here.

• Blunt Honesty - "you did WHAT? You idiot...you were trained better than that!! God I am glad that I am too insert your favorite word here to ever let a mistake like that happen to me!"
• Polite Honesty - "dude, I hate that happened. Something similar happened to me once. Do you have a plan in place to keep from making the same mistake twice?" (BTW Sandi exhibits this one often and I know she doesn't live in the deep south)
• Elder Respect Honesty - "oh, oh. Can't believe that happened to you...bless your heart!" Add the "bless your heart" and it doesn't come across as an insult.
• Insulting Honesty - very close to Blunt Honesty. This happens when a person already feels really bad about their mistake and a dozen or more people pile on with scathing Blunt Honesty. This can deters others from admitting mistakes.
• Dishonest Honesty - the response to the cliche question..."Honey, does this dress make my butt look big?"

Now, I realize that we communicate differently when writing than when we speak in person to each other. I wonder if some of these replies to the OP would have been as "honest" if we were all in a big room face-to-face? Especially if the OP were 6'4" 240 lbs of muscle?

I know I got off on a tangent here.....will try to reel it back in.

Now That was funny.
I am from Savannah, Georgia. I know those rules.
Responses here go from Polite to Blunt. But they are honest.
And I Have said the same blunt statements to 6:4 and 240. I'm just not smart enough to hold my tongue.

 

[openmindOW]

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.

The DM should have had an Surface Marker Buoy.

 

[TSandM]

The hole "polite honesty" thing reminds me of the movie, "Something to Talk About"! (If you haven't seen it, it's a great depiction of Southern culture.) My Tennessee-bred mother definitely taught me the "polite honesty" approach

 

[wader]

Thanks to FTLRI for starting this post. I believe that it is not a matter of "IF" I will make a bad decision, but "WHEN". Even when doing the most common, routine procedures a person can forget to check a critical component. (Remember when you started driving. You had to check every mirror twice, adjusted the seat a thousand times, etc. How often do you do pre-drive checklists before going to the mall?) Doing a buddy check is a great way to help prevent this. I have never been someplace where somebody else sets up my gear. Whether I do it or a 'butler', it is still a human process. I just hope that if I make a mistake setting up my gear, my buddy catches it. If she doesn't, I hope not to panic and let my training save me...

On the topic of pre-dive orientations. If you do not feel the DMs are giving you enough information, ask them. Is there a current, what is expected vis, any specific dangers to the site, signals, animals to look for, etc. I have had poor briefings, but I am not afraid to ask questions.

 

[fjpatrum]

ZenDiver, I just came back to this thread but you responded in early Feb to my post about the DMs double checking each other that it would be a heavy task overload for them. I'm a new diver and I've only dived off a boat 1 day. It seemed to me that it was pretty routine for DMs to double check each other on certain things, but not on others. I see fills as a "pre-departure" task and as such it doesn't seem like a big deal for one team member to do fills, one to check fills prior to loading as a "double check". That's what I meant. But to clarify, why do you think DMs double checking each other would be a lot of task overloading for them?

The tasks of a DM as I understand them:

Prep tanks and rental gear at shop.
Load the gear on the boat.
Help customers as appropriate to board boat, stow gear, etc.
Pick dive site based upon conditions??? (Do DMs do this or captain or what?-- My boat dives were preplanned dive locations I paid for as a specific dive opportunity.)
Brief customers pre-dive.
Set up dive gear for customers not wanting to set up their own.
Lead dives/ create buddy partners.
Reset dive gear between dives.
Clean rental gear after dives.

I know DMs get the grunt work on a dive boat, but that list really doesn't seem like that much to me, especially since I am to believe not all dive ops have DMs perform all those tasks. Am I missing something, other than the "unknown" of having to deal with customers who have varying levels of skill and babysitting needs? IE do DMs do boat maintenance etc?