Dumbest things you've seen a newbie diver do

[Brewone0to]

About the dumbest thing I've ever seen is the ongoing certification of divers taught to depend on a computer to save thier @#@# when "IT" hits the fan.
It's just an accident waiting to happen.

Oh, and snorkles taken on dives.
Especially when worn with long hose, or on an overhead dive.
Snorkles are for snorkling.
Regulators are for diving.
(a stowed snorkle is ok by me)

 

[MBD0607]

Taking his buddy out diving who was not a certifed Diver, and telling him that there was nothing to worry about, because he was just certfied, and knew what to do.
Then not seeing him shoot to the surface from 40', where the AGE hit, because he was still down looking for his Pal.
The pal was DOA on the shore.

 

[Ghanguss]

This would be me and my OW buddy deciding to do a shore dive at an unknown spot (approx dive number 8).

Surface swam out till we couldnt see the bottom (~300ft) decended and proceeded to swim until we were low on air, surfaced 1200ft+ offshore somewhat suprised at our distance from shore, then surface swam all the way back. We were cacking ourselves all the way back (It seemed funny at the time )

 

[idocsteve]

Snorkles are for snorkling.
Regulators are for diving.
(a stowed snorkle is ok by me)

Snorkles are not just for snorkeling. You contradict yourself by saying snorkels ARE for diving as long as they're stowed.

A snorkel is a piece of safety gear, and can be used when you find yourself with a long surface swim, or you're waiting on the surface and you'd rather be in a prone position, or when you're pulling yourself along a tagline towards the anchor line in a current and you don't want to use up valuable gas in your tank.

To name a few.

 

[Snarfal]

Snorkles are not just for snorkeling. You contradict yourself by saying snorkels ARE for diving as long as they're stowed.

A snorkel is a piece of safety gear, and can be used when you find yourself with a long surface swim, or you're waiting on the surface and you'd rather be in a prone position, or when you're pulling yourself along a tagline towards the anchor line in a current and you don't want to use up valuable gas in your tank.

To name a few.

Glad it wasn't just me that thought that...

 

[Belmont]

The year: 1968 I was 17, a friend invites me to try this new dive gear someone loaned him.
Off we go to a marina where his father keeps his fishing boat.
I put the gear on, he tells me to put the reg in my mouth and breathe, he sets the bands on the spear gun and off I go, solo. :shocked2:

I stayed down about 15 minutes and I evaluate the depth from memory to about 30 feet. I tried to spear a small bass, missed and came up because I could not think of anything more to do.

So went my first dive, no training, by myself with a friend who was a no better than me at diving = 0 knowledge. The only positive thing was that I was a good swimmer and very comfortable in the water.

 

[TSandM]

After we finishing the dive & removing the gear. we watched this diver come out of the surf, with his mask on top of his head. As soon as he broke the the surf, a wave rolled him. He came up with...no mask, The poor guy looked high & low to no avail.
The lesson learned is that when coming out of any size surf, tuck your mask around your neck...

Not a new diver, but I learned this one the other day! I was exiting in bigger surf than I would have chosen to do, and got hit with a wave. I stayed on my feet, and kept my death grip on my fins, but when the wave left . . . it took my mask, which had been quite nicely still on my face, with it. I didn't even feel it go. I'm in the "mask around the neck" camp from now on.

 

[samuel150]

Suppose I should post the dumb thing I did.

Was diving in a quarry using a rented drysuit. First two dives my suit had flooded up to knee height. Dont know if it was one of the seals or a hole in the suit. But the instructor who I had for OW went and got a spare drysuit, which he had incase this women drysuit didnt quite fit right when she was doing a rescue course with him.

Anyway, went in for the third and final dive of the day. Me and my buddy were going to decend by the forward platforms but they were in use and quite full of other divers. So we moved out a bit further. As we decended, my suit began to squeeze so i tried to find the suit inflator. No matter how hard i tried i couldnt find it. Being that it was a womens drysuit, the inflator was more to the right side and I think the BCD chest strap was over it. As we got below 14 metres the viz got quite bad and being that the suit was squeezing on my crotch pretty bad I wasnt concentrating on my buoyancy. My buddy saw I was having a problem and came over. He came over and i was trying to tell him to put my hand on the inflator. He couldnt understand and he thought the inflator was stuck. So he took out the inflator hose, put it back on and pressed the button a few time. More times that I would like. Next thing I shot up to the surface. Freaked me out a bit.

Lesson learned. Make sure to check where each bit of the equipment is before getting into the water and no straps are covering them.
Just hope my drysuit doesnt leak again when I dive in 3 weeks time.

 

[MikeMarlow]

Let's see, how about standing too close to the edge of the cliff you are about to do a giant stride off of while putting on your fins. It was about 20 feet to the water, which was nice and clear that day, so we were able to stand there and watch the DM hunt around on the bottom for mask, fins, and anything else that went flying when he made an unexpected entry. That's probably the funniest thing I've seen.

Personally I've forgotten to switch from snorkel to reg a couple times. Another fun one was doing a ditch and don in a class and after putting the reg in my mouth, moved the wrong way and the mouthpiece slipped off the reg. I just couldn't figure out why my reg was flooding so completely until I saw my reg float past my face, while my DM (different from first example) laughed at me.

I also had a student that continuously forgot to put his mask on his face and would descend with it around his neck. Well, at least he didn't have a problem with no-mask breathing.

Mike

 

[idocsteve]

I was doing a wreck dive in the NorthEast and a young lady was doing her first dive in this area. She was nervous and it showed. I usually dive solo as do most, because the visibility is usually quite poor and it makes diving with a buddy problematic.

I offered to dive with her and she readily accepted. I explained that I would set my reel and she would follow me, always maintaining contact with the reel at all times.

We dropped down the anchor line, I deployed my reel, and we began the dive. The current was strong and the visibility was less than 10 feet in murk. A few minutes later I turned around and she was GONE. By the time I got to the surface they were doing a "rescue"- she had let go of the line for reasons unknown and was swept off the wreck by the brisk current and she made a free ascent and ended up away from the dive boat. The DM was swimming out to her with a life ring, and pulled her in.

She joined me once again on the second dive. I told her again to NOT let go of the line! We agreed that if she wanted to end the dive early she was to follow the reel line back to the anchor and ascend, I was more than happy to have her dive with me but I was not going to end my dive early. This is what she did...and when I got back to the boat...yup another rescue in progress. This busy dive boat uses two lines to the wreck...white is the "down" line and "yellow" is the upline. They're tied in to each other on the wreck and selecting the correct one is easier than making a left or a right turn at a fork in the road.

She forgot which one to use...and she started up the downline, and when she saw other divers coming down..she...let go. And she was swept off the line and made a free ascent and surfaced away from the boat.