Diving without problems - Is it possible?

[Jim Ernst]

satistics say (per d.a.n) every diver sometime in their diveing life time has had or will have a panic dive, what the outcome will be depends on how you handle the situation!!!! get all of the training you can AND BY ALL MEANS enjoy your training/diving!!!!!!!

 

[diverdown247]

75 dives and only had to deal w/ one leaking primary hose, not mine. Otherwise, issue free so far.

 

[nvlorange]

Some rules to always rememberive only to your level of training! Yes, take a Rescue course, it's a must in your training. Plan your dives and only dive your plans. If you don't like someone above water, don't go underwater with them. Always check your gear out the day before you dive, so you have what you need and you know the condition of it. Don't spear too big of fish! Buy only the best of equipment and keep it maintained yearly. There are many more rules I'm sure, but these have helped me through the years, so I haven't had major problems.

 

[SteveAD]

I'm new to diving and agree with the consensus. Dive your plan, dive within your limits. I develop trust based on "what" it is, meaning I have my own equipment and don't trust rental. Soon to buy my own tanks since there is a potential problem in that realm. So far no problems that I did not quickly recognize and never felt was an emergency. Descended with snorkel, only inches below surface and quickly switched. During Underwater photography portion of AOW specialty, saw a ray below, brought it to attention of DM, he said "go get it" so I went out of proper descent sequence.

Read, read and read some more. My soon to be wife (in 30 days) spent our entire Memorial day weekend working on buoyancy. Turns out the LDS for November trip had both of us underweighted. We both have two piece 3mm suits and they issued us weight as if we had 3mm one piece. They insisted _they_ were right, but now we know _exactly_ how much weight we need with an Al 80 at 500 psi.

The only way to get weighting right is by doing a weight check. Any time someone tells you what you need it is only a guess, sometimes a pretty good one, but still a guess. If you don't already know what you need, because of a new suit, different environment, whatever, then go ahead and take someones guess, and use it as a starting point for your weight check.

 

[sfcrawford]

I read a lot on this board, but very rarely post. However, I’ve been diving 25 years and I though I might be able to offer some insight on this topic. First I would say yes, it is very possible to have a dive without problems, in fact, this should become (not necessarily start out, but become over time) the norm for any diver.

It has been said - and it is very true - that equipment failure is unlikely to kill you. Problems are just problems; the thing that differentiates a “major” problem from “minor” problem is between your ears not whatever is strapped to your body. The whole idea of training, practice, etc. is to move perceived “problems” into your comfort zone. This applies to everything from trim/buoyancy issues, to a stuck inflator valve, ruptured BC, or bad freeflow. There is no reason in recreational, open water, diving that any equipment problem should kill you, you always have options no matter how bad things may seem.

You are the only one that really knows what your comfort zone is, and what things scare you. Be honest with yourself and don’t dive beyond what you are comfortable with doing, and practice dealing with things that you are truly uncomfortable with in a controlled environment. As you become comfortable, stretch the envelope a little and practice some more.

A recent real world example using myself: I recently finished a trimix class and our checkout dives were 200’ and 220’. We did this in Lake Jocassee SC. Now to be perfectly honest, the deep portions of those dives are no different from any other dive (just dark, cold, and big numbers on your gauges). I had enough Helium to float a balloon, so narcosis was not a factor. The bottom part of the dive went really well. My mental issues were at the 20’ and 10’ stops. Here is what happened and what I did:
When I moved to trimix, I changed gear configuration slightly: I added an inflation bottle for my drysuit, and an AL80 full-size scuba tank for 50% nitrox slung under my left arm. I also had an AL40 oxygen stage slung next to it. I have a bunch of logged decompression dives (100+) using an AL40 stage and know exactly how that configuration acts, but I only had about 10 dives, including my checkout dives, with the two new tanks added to my rig and an AL80 gets kind of buoyant on the bottom end as it becomes empty. It was also 47 degrees, so I was wearing my heavy underwear under my drysuit which traps a lot of air. We did all of our stops free-floating, with no bag or ascent line. This is normally how I do all of my stops in “practice” type deco dives. (this moves this skill further into my comfort zone and might save my life one day). I got a little light in the feet, and felt like I was going to be upside down at the surface at any second. Any drysuit diver out there knows exactly how this feels and it sucks. I started kicking a little to maintain position and my 20’ stop was not looking real smooth at this point. (You are supposed to be perfectly horizontal and still during your high PPO2 stops) Now to add to this, I had the mental stress of knowing that if I got too far below 20’ on oxygen OR if I worked too hard trying to stay at 20’, I might tox (which usually results in drowning and therefore is not good) and if I got too far above twenty feet for too long, I might get bent. This might possibly not be as bad an outcome as drowning, but would still be highly undesirable. Oh yes, and I had my instructor watching me the whole time, so I was trying to look like I wasn’t having a problem. Even though this is a long description, this actually all happened in the space of a couple of minutes. The important thing in this whole discourse is that I while I was anxious, I didn’t panic. I analyzed the situation and determined the following facts:
1. Panic Kills (this should always be the number one thing to think of when working through a problem).
2. What I was doing wasn’t working (which my instructor did note BTW)
3. I had a lift bag and reel, but I wasn’t stable enough to safely deploy it.
4. I was going to have to be at 20’ for a while, not like a 3 minute stop therefore I absolutely had to figure something out.
5. I had no equipment failure, and was still breathing.

A had several options, so I took the easiest, least complicated, one (usually the best choice) I abandoned my horizontal position in the water column in favor of a vertical position long enough to vent my suit more thoroughly and then carefully returned to the horizontal position only after I felt everything was under control. Problem solved, I made it back alive; good dive.

I wound up changing my trim weighting very slightly and the next dive to 220’ went perfectly. Now I have my Trimix C card, but what I didn’t do was run right out waving it around and do a 200’ deep wreck dive (this is coming in September). What I did do instead is run down to my local quarry and do about 10 more dives with the new configuration until I was sure that the new configuration was “inside my comfort zone”. Repetitive practice is not all that fun, but it is necessary, as you gain “experience” many things – hopefully - will become deeply ingrained so you will not have to think too hard about your options should something bad occur. The guy that posted before me “Dawktah” spent his entire Memorial Day weekend working on buoyancy. I have never even heard of him before this thread, but I can already tell he will probably become a really good diver over time.

The real problem with most divers is that they are not able to, or don’t want to, dive often enough, (i.e. trip to Caribbean twice a year) or they think practice dives are not important and want to make every dive count as a “fun” dive. Like any other sport, practice is what makes the “real” thing go smoothly.

My two cents,
Sammy

 

[miketsp]

..snip..
The real problem with most divers is that they are not able to, or don’t want to, dive often enough, (i.e. trip to Caribbean twice a year) or they think practice dives are not important and want to make every dive count as a “fun” dive. Like any other sport, practice is what makes the “real” thing go smoothly.
..snip..

This is of course a very good point.
The maximum period I accept without diving is 2 months. If we (my wife & I) pass 7 weeks without a dive we'll dive anything just to keep in practice.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

A had several options, so I took the easiest, least complicated, one (usually the best choice) I abandoned my horizontal position in the water column in favor of a vertical position long enough to vent my suit more thoroughly and then carefully returned to the horizontal position only after I felt everything was under control. Problem solved, I made it back alive; good dive.Sammy

Wow that was quick thinking!

 

[SteveAD]

good post sammy

 

[sfcrawford]

Thank you for the comment Steve, the main reason I don’t post very often (actually only twice) is that it seems like if anyone posts a message with actual content it tends to irritate somebody out there and I really don’t enjoy that aspect of message boards in general.

I spent twenty-some-odd years of my diving career watching parrotfish eat coral and poop sand – and there is nothing wrong with that. I am doing stuff now that I never though I would be doing even 5 years ago. My point was that even once I decided to do it, I worked into it slowly, it didn’t come all at once, and it certainly didn’t come easily.

I kind of exaggerated the risks in my story to make a point. While we were free-floating, we were actually near a rock wall and I could have probably grabbed hold of something at any point, but that wouldn’t be a luxury I had in the ocean so I automatically moved that that to the very bottom of my list of stuff to try first. My solution was straight out of drysuit 101 diving, but it’s not an elegant-looking maneuver to do with 5 tanks on.
My real problem was that even with all of my experience I knew that my instructor was watching me with his set of wet-notes out ready to write and I really didn’t want an ***-chewing when I came up therefore I hesitated slightly even though I knew what needed to be done. (I have an excellent technical instructor that has trained 100’s of students, but he doesn’t want you to wind up dead, and therefore expects a lot out of you). Had I been alone, I would have been vertical in a couple of seconds and no one would have known.

I suspect that the “instructor induced pressure” factor also plays a role in open water classes as well from two aspects:
Some students or new divers expect the instructor, or DM, or their buddy to magically protect them from themselves. There are also divers like me that are apprehensive about making mistakes that someone else notices.

I would encourage all students, once fully certified, to practice with their buddy without a more senior diver present (in a controlled environment of course). This will allow them to figure out things on their own without being nervous about someone being critical of them.

But all diving is really the same, recreational or technical. You have to establish a certain set of goals, get proper training, and use proper techniques and equipment appropriate for your particular environment. However, none of this negates the need for practice or more importantly thought. In my opinion, it is good that our sport is expanding and that more people than ever are involved in it. I am also acutely aware that my small corner of the diving sport would not be financially possible were it not for masses of recreational divers out there as well as local dive shops, charter boats, etc.

Unfortunately there are some vocal, so-called technical divers that do necessarily share this view, but the odd part is that I haven’t met many in person. Most of the ones I meet in person (that actually dive) remember where they came from, and how they got where they are. This leads me to believe that there must be a bunch of “expert internet divers” which don’t reflect reality; hence my opening paragraph.

Sammy