Have you ever lost a Fin?

[TMHeimer]

I went out for a shakedown dive with a buddy and gave him so much crap for forgetting his fins at home.

Only to discover that I had left mine on the couch (they blended in extremely well). Ate a bit of humble pie that day.....

Oh yeah I forgot..... Rich, you may know of Compo Beach near Westport (never again for me since their out of state fee went $20 to $30!). Anyway, I too left my fins on the top of the couch back at my rented trailer in NY. I actually geared up and was walking in THREE FEET of water before I realized I had no fins. What was I gunna do, walk on the bottom the whole time like they did on the moon??? Fortunately the life guard station had a spare pair they lent me. I was far from being a DM yet (it was 2008?), but you never know what I'm capable of even today.

Oh, not to get into another old favourite thread but I WAS an MSD at the time with over 50 dives.
Couldn't have been my fault-- I had the card, the patch AND the cap.
Oh, since I'm no longer an active DM I will also admit the 2 times I described in my last post of dropping a fin did take place well after becoming a DM. But, a newbie buddy I teamed with last Feb. in FL dropped his mask and I FOUND it.

Addendum: Now that I think of it, I'm gunna blame dropping those fins on being in two places where I had to also carry that dang dive flag.

 

[undrwater]

Lots of newbie shore divers (that was me) are already task loading making their way through the surf.

I was taught how not to lose my fins by a mentor.

 

[Pullnglide]

With less than 10 post ow training dives and my 1st ever boat dive I lost both . I had bought some spring straps for my fins earlier in the day. There was a very strong current so when I came off the boat they were immediately both swept off my feet never to be seen again. Needless to say the springs were too big. I also have a buddy that lost a fin 2k feet inside of Madison Springs. I imagine it was a long swim out, luckily Madison has flow!

 

[agilis]

I immediately thought of a $5 bet I lost.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sweet! Someone resurrected this thread after a 10-year hibernation.

I lost a fin a couple years ago on a dive with TSandM and Peter Guy. We were shore diving in Hood Canal, and while we were down the wind had picked up and conditions were getting kind've rough. We got back to shore, and TSandM got rolled in the surf as we were getting out of our fins. I was in such a hurry to "help" her that I got careless and tripped over a rock in waist-deep water, going down abruptly. In an effort to protect my camera I let go of my fins, so I could use that hand to hold my camera high enough to avoid it getting slammed into the rocks, losing both fins in the surf. After ditching the camera on shore, and helping TSandM get up (in that order, mind you), I went looking for my fins. Found one almost immediately. Searched long and hard for the other one, but to no avail. I gave up and started wading out of the water when, out of the corner of my eye I saw my fin riding a wave like a surfboard. I hurried over to grab it before the next wave took it back out again.

How could you lose a fin and then not be able to find it?

That's easy to do in Puget Sound on a nice hot summer day when the plankton's in full bloom. All you have to do is drop it in less than perfect conditions. If the water's moving at all, you might never find it, as vis will be a foot or less in the shallows. I have several fins at home that people lost in just such a manner, and were unable to find even though they were lost in maybe 2-3 feet of water. There were several more that I was able to successfully reunite with their rightful owners ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[scubadada]

My 1st 10 years of diving was mostly shore diving in Southern California. The conditions were not always easy. I clipped my fins to my BC on the way out, until I could put them on safely. I often reclipped them on the way in if it was safe and possible. It was not uncommon to end up on the sand or rocks before I had the chance to take them off

 

[Bob DBF]

I haven't permantly lost any fins SCUBA diving ...yet.

I lost one Abalone diving (free diving) and almost wound up a a dandy don post. The part that frys me was they were new, with a just few dives on them. I was timing a dive into a hole with heavy surge, as I did some hard kicks on the way out, one fin strap broke and the fin was sucked down into a hole and left me near the mouth of the hole trying to get small against the side to keep from following the fin, I think you can still see marks where I was trying to hold on, and swam the rest of the way out when the flow subsided.

After that I went back to jet fins, and avoid situations like that now that I get to be older. As for the other fin, I sent it back with a nastygram to the manufacturer and indicated where they could place the surviving fin. I haven't heard back yet and it's been years.


Bob

 

[Ojai Diver]

Feeling rather unhip I decided to upgrade my old Cressi sub fins to spring straps. Now, finally, I was cool, except for my stone age computer. Guess they weren't tight enough, though, as in trying to come back through the surf at Leo Carillo one day, I found myself bereft of one of them.

I had put my phone number on it, and got a call from a nice gentleman a few days later. He found my fin across the bay on Nichols Beach, two miles away!

Since then I put rubber strips on the inside of them, hoping that this will give them more tension.

Inconvenience aside, losing a fin can be dangerous.

 

[KeithG]

I lost 2 fins once. While I slept.

We were on a liveaboard that wanted to stuff all of the fins into a rack on the dive platform a few feet above the waterline. During the night some bad weather happened and the crew had to rescue the fins onto the main dive deck. Except mine were not there for the morning dive.

I was devastated. But the boat magnanimously offered me a free set of rental fins for the rest of the week and vaguely handwaved about some sort of compensation (never happened!). First and only time using full foots - that worked for the rest of the week. Lucky for me we had an identical set of elcheapo made in Taiwan POS fins at home (my dive buddys rejects).

20 years later I still use those hand-me-down crappy fins. Mostly waiting for some more bad weather...

 

[nolatom]

I lost one while not wearing them.

Ever done the "drilling trip" at the Flower Gardens or Stetson Bank? It's for putting in new u-bolts for the moorings at these sanctuaries. Part if the gig is drilling, the rest is filling the new u-bolt in with Portland cement. During the drilling, you stand, overweighted, on the bottom while operating the pneumatic drill. You are supposed to put your fins in a safe place where the current can't drift them away. Which I apparently didn't.

Funny that all us divers couldn't find a day-glo green fin, but we couldn't. So I was given an orphan fin by the boat.

Which I still use, they seem to kick about the same, and I'm easy to identify underwater, one green fin, one silver one...

;-)