Diving Moments Of Grace...

[sabbath999]

My wife and I use that phrase a bit sarcastically, and apply it to when we do something so utterly clumsy and without style as to be funny even at the time when we do it...

Being a NOOB at diving, I have experienced many, many Moments Of Grace over the last 6 months, but I think perhaps my best so far was during my AOW Buoyancy dive in Kona last month.

My instructor was showing us positions that she wanted us to get into and hold... one of them was head down, feet up, completely vertical. I was over a bunch of hard coral, in a bit of surge, and I tipped up and went vertical with my fins towards the surface. I got vertical and everything was good... I was using the instructor (about 15 feet away) as my guide to see how level I was, and I was hanging there upside down for about 30 seconds rock solid. I glanced towards my fins (which were towards the surface) and I saw a large school of fish swimming near the surface... I saw the sunlight on the waves as they were going overhead, and I saw how my bubbles were...

*BONK*

Yep, my noggin knocked right onto a chunk of hard coral (not hard enough to hurt either one of us, thankfully).

In just that little bit of time I lost concentration on what I was supposed to be doing and it was all over for me... I was living in the house of embarrassment....

Both my wife and my instructor were trying not to choke on their regulators they were laughing so hard...

Ah well...

Care to share some of your "Moments Of Grace"?

 

[seaducer]

My wife and I use that phrase a bit sarcastically, and apply it to when we do something so utterly clumsy and without style as to be funny even at the time when we do it...
Care to share some of your "Moments Of Grace"?

Well, in real life diving, I don't have very many that are funny enough to share. A few trips or whatever here and there but nothing too interesting.

However...

I also dive at an aquarium. We do maintence, we play with the kids, we oogle at the turtles, sharks, and other cool stuff we get to see all the time, we enjoy warm water diving in Jersey all year round, we put on shows.

On time I was swimming around, acting a leeetle bit goofy for some kids who were watching a show. I pretended to not know I was diving and would swim into the glass trying to meet them. The little kids really laugh.

The trouble is you can't see the acrylic from the inside, you just have to know it is there. The trick works best if you hit your hand first, then right away your mask.

I had my hand slightly behind my mask one time, unfortunatley, and I was really hamming it up.

I knocked my maks askew, almost knocked myself clean out (like I was seeing stars), and even though I rarely ever bruise, I managed to give myself a bit of a shiner:depressed:

The kids almost wet themselves though, so I guess it looked really good...

 

[MaxBottomtime]

My regular dive site, Marineland always provides moments of grace. It is a rocky shoreline where even two feet surf can cause serious injury. I was climbing out on a rock once when a wave lifted me up and I made a half somersault in mid air, landing tank-first back on the rock. I remember thinking,"Don't hit your head!"
The day I met my fiancee she required assistance with her graceful exit.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

I've had too many to count! LOL
The most embarassing one was doing a beach dive as a very new diver, during the height of tourist season. I got VERY tired coming in and just as I was ready to step out of the water, a wave came from behind and knocke me over. I fell over on to my top heavy back. I was stuck in the water, on my back between the waves and shore. Every time a wave came I got sucked back into the water, and was not fast enough to get on my knees inbetween waves breaking. I have sinced called that "The Beached Whale Syndrome." I have also learned how to get out of the surf with much more grace!

 

[Guba]

I, too, have had more "moments of grace" than I can count, but this is an example...

A number of years ago, my friends and I were diving a popular lake site. I found a rope and found it was attached to a nice anchor. I decided to salvage it, so I wound the rope around the anchor and carried it with me. Yes, I was a noob, so I made the mistake of using my BC to buoy the weight of the anchor, but I remember thinking, "whatever you do, don't DROP that thing!" I would have been like a Polaris missile. However, after a while a couple of loops of rope slipped off and trailed behind me. I paused to gather the rope, but the end wouldn't come along. I decided it was caught on my tank, so I just gave it a firm tug. But it wasn't caught on my tank...it was tangled in my rear dump valve! There was a burbling of air and I--stilll clinging to the anchor--went crashing into the bottom where I raised a mushroom cloud of silt. My partners nearly coughed out their regs laughing.
(So, finally, I did the smart thing...pulled out a safety sausage, tied it to the rope and sent it to the surface. We collected the anchor later with the boat.)

 

[TSandM]

Oh, man, over three years and a bunch of dives, I've accumulated more than a few.

There was the day that I had volunteered as "experienced diver" to take a couple of novices on a tour of a local site. I had warned them, as we headed into the entry area, to be careful, as there were a number of submerged rocks and you couldn't see them in the murky water. Just as I finished and turned to walk forward, I slammed my shin into one of said rocks and went "Splat!" on my face. I shoved my backup reg in my mouth, turned over, stuck my head up and said, "There's ONE of them!"

Fully equipped in doubles and long hose, I went down for a night training dive with my buddy. The purpose was to practice reel work. We swam out to where we were going to start, and when I pulled the reel up off my hip, I saw a bunch of loops of loose line hanging off it. They weren't there when I put it on, so I figured they had to be near the end. I handed the end of the line to my buddy and signed that I was going to pull some off and clear the problem. But I pulled and I pulled, and got no closer to the loops, so I decided to abort. I looked over, and found my buddy had lost control of the loose line, and it was in a heap in the water. We couldn't sort it out, so I wrapped the mess around the reel the best I could and we thumbed the dive. I clipped the reel off to my chest, so the mess of tangled yellow spaghetti hung down my body to my knees, and got some very odd looks from the several other teams of divers headed down to the water. I felt ridiculous; "Yeah, man, we're TECH divers!"

My one experience diving Monastery beach resulted in an exit just like the one in the photos above, except I only had ONE person helping me out. (The other was taking PICTURES!)

Those are just a few. Kicking out of my dry suit boots and going feet first to the surface; swimming ten minutes to the drop point and THEN discovering I had forgotten my weight belt; showing up for the first day of my Cave 1 class without my regulators . . . Oh, if I could accumulate it all, I'd be profoundly graceful

 

[Charlie99]

One of my "moments of grace" was truly a problem of being too graceful.

I'm gracefully walking back to the exit gate on a big Newton 42 and realize at the last moment that I'm walking rather than waddling. Oops. My fins are still in the gear bag.

 

[AZjohn]

I guess us new rookies have those "Moments of glory" fresh in our minds (lol).

Mine was on my 2nd dive of my OW certification. We were diving off a boat which had maybe 20 divers on it (5 of us were doing our OW cert and the rest were experienced).

The first dive went great and we went back onboard for our SI. I got caught up on all the action onboard and listening to all the other divers talking and stuff. Next thing I know my instructor came up to my buddy and I and explained the 5 students will meet on the surface at the bow of the ship and then go down together and demonstrate this and that skill.

Next thing I know everyone is jumping off the back of the boat, two at a time. My adrenaline and excitement was getting higher and higher and I'm thinking this is freaking great! So I pull up my wetsuit and strap on my BC and tank and I'm ready to go.

I stand in line at the back of the boat and next thing I know it's my turn to jump in (I'm feeling a great rush at this point). As I'm standing at the edge of the platform ready to jump in one of the deck hands whispers in my ear "Are you going to be wearing fins on this dive"? I look down at my feet and just see two lonely black boots staring me in the face

With my head down I shuffle around some divers behind me waiting to jump in and go looking for my fins (have no idea where they are). I finally find them and strap them on and then FLOP-FLOP-FLOP I walk back over to the edge and get myself all pumped up to take the leap into the ocean.

As I confirm I have on my fins now and regulator in my mouth, I'm ready to make my stride. Then the same guys whispers in my ear "do you want to wear a mask this dive"? I look at him right in the face and say "are you freaking kidding me"? I feel so embarrassed and stupid at this point, so I look at him again and say "is there anything else I am spacing out"? His response was "why don't you ask your buddy"? I look around and tell him I would but he is already in the water waiting for me. He just shook his head slowly up and down and said "hummmm.....OK then"

That was probably the most relevant lesson I learned that afternoon. It hit me like a brick that after all this classroom and pool dives both my buddy and I got so excited and in a rush we never checked each other out for that second dive.

That's a moment of glory I will likely never repeat in my life (lol).
Thanks,
John

 

[MaxBottomtime]

My favorite Moment of Grace on a boat came while diving with my buddy Ross. He's pretty intense, so I tend to feel rushed sometimes. He was already at the anchor line waiting for me when I made a backroll, forgetting my camera onboard. I climbed back on the boat, clipped off my camera and made a second backroll...without my fins.
Another MOG occured when I forgot to connect my drysuit inflator. At about twenty feet I pushed the valve and a rush of cold water hit my chest. I felt pretty dumb, but not as dumb as the time I did it again a few months later.

 

[seaducer]

On a boat once, pretty stiff current so we were to get in the water on the captains word and get down fast on a negative entry. I am first in line, my buddy somewhere behind me, we are giving it to each other pretty good. I am right at the punch line of what in my head is a pretty funny remark and the captain yells "Now now now!"
So off I go. Maybe at 10 feet or so I realize my reg is somewhere other than in my mouth.

First boat dive, and the first dive of AOW, I am stepping through the tuna door onto the swim platform, sweating bullets both from the heat and from the nerves, tripped and fell over board.