In need of some positive reinforcement!

[Karlbiederman]

I am working on my AOW and was supposed to do my deep and night dives this evening. On the deep dive my instructor and I agreed to go to 60' or 15 minutes (shore dive) then turn back to shore. We got started ok and I was very focused on my guages and compass and towing a dive flag. Well I got to 30 feet and realised I had not checked on my buddy (instructor). So I looked around and there he was right behind me and a little above me. I went back to the dive. When I hit the 60 foot mark I turned and he was not there. I knew in my mind that I should surface but like a newbie (thats what I was there for was training) I started to swim back toward the beach on the same heading I went out. I thought I saw him at one point in front of me. Visabily was not that great mabey 10'. Well it turned out not to be him and I ended up surfacing in about 10' of water to find my Instructor already on the beach without his tank on. I knew I screwed up by not checking on him regularly and not surfacing when I couldnt locate him. He told me he had lost me at about 40 feet and I was moving to fast and to close to the bottom and had kicked up alot of silt.He decided not to do the night dive until I work on my Buddy Attention alittle more. He did however sign off on my deep dive.

I was hoping some of you could share some of your training experiences and give me alittle positive reinforcment.

Karl,

 

[H2Andy]

it's a very good lesson to learn early on

if i had quit diving everytime i made a mistake, i'd have quit
at least 1,000 times by now

now, go and sin no more

 

[ScubaSixString]

I am working on my AOW and was supposed to do my deep and night dives this evening. On the deep dive my instructor and I agreed to go to 60' or 15 minutes (shore dive) then turn back to shore. We got started ok and I was very focused on my guages and compass and towing a dive flag. Well I got to 30 feet and realised I had not checked on my buddy (instructor). So I looked around and there he was right behind me and a little above me. I went back to the dive. When I hit the 60 foot mark I turned and he was not there. I knew in my mind that I should surface but like a newbie (thats what I was there for was training) I started to swim back toward the beach on the same heading I went out. I thought I saw him at one point in front of me. Visabily was not that great mabey 10'. Well it turned out not to be him and I ended up surfacing in about 10' of water to find my Instructor already on the beach without his tank on. I knew I screwed up by not checking on him regularly and not surfacing when I couldnt locate him. He told me he had lost me at about 40 feet and I was moving to fast and to close to the bottom and had kicked up alot of silt.He decided not to do anymore dives tonight until I work on my Buddy Attention alittle more.

I was hoping some of you could share some of your training experiences and give me alittle positive reinforcment.

Karl,

Not an instruction dive, but.... it happens to all of us. Picture this..... vis of maybe 4 feet. Dive team of 4 loosely formed (basically 2 buddy teams) my buddy and i lost the other two so were staying together and swimming in the heading they were last headed. I was the more experienced diver. My buddy (who had 1 dive before that one other than his cert dives (the checkout was in a spring with gin clear water (great dive and narc story but i'll leave it for another time as it involves some rather dangerous stuff and i don't want to get flamed again )was trailing me. I turn back to check on him and am met with a wall of yellowish brown water.....no buddy. So i swim back to where i thought he might be...nothing. our depth was 30 ft so i ascend and find his bubbles then follow them back to him. He had had a tank slip and just stopped...i was unaware of it and kept swimming. In a low vis situation (or ideally in most situations) buddies should swim side by side. In this case we should have done that....or i should have been behind and slightly above him.

You'll do fine. Don't get target fixated....i have that problem too. It might help to set up a sequence you follow all the time....when i was flying and doing visual nav it was chart clock ground guages. for diving maybe its SPG, depth, heading, buddy. Whatever sequence you use, use it consistantly and often. Everytime you start the the sequence finish it.

And have fun... the problems you have now, if you stick it out, will be some of your strongest areas soon.......I have a story about spinning in aircraft.....2 near crashes and I can spin like anything

 

[HowardE]

My buddy and I always carry noise makers. They have helped us locate each other, in times of poor viz. She knows that when I am shaking, either I found something cool, or I am looking for her.
Don't give up... It's difficult in low viz situations...

but it would also seem to me that if you were going in a straight line, that your buddy shouldn't have given up so soon. Shouldn't he have at least continued in the same heading after you took off, or he should have somehow tried to signal you that you were going too fast. He was behind you... A signaling device would have helped for sure.

How long had it been since you saw him that he was on the beach with his gear off, when you hit the surface?

 

[gecko2gecko]

It might help to set up a sequence you follow all the time.... for diving maybe its SPG, depth, heading, buddy. Whatever sequence you use, use it consistantly and often. Everytime you start the the sequence finish it.

Sounds like good advice to me. I will try it next time. A routine is helpful to me in growing accustomed to new things. We did our OW navigation in a lake here where the vis was AWFUL (perfect for nav) and I struggled with keeping track of everything.

 

[ScubaSixString]

Sounds like good advice to me. I will try it next time. A routine is helpful to me in growing accustomed to new things. We did our OW navigation in a lake here where the vis was AWFUL (perfect for nav) and I struggled with keeping track of everything.

It may take a while.....but soon you'll look at your spg and automatically check over your shoulder (if your instructor/buddy insists on trailing you)

You get the hang of it. Good luck....I'm gonna try to get AOW in before the end of the season.....travel schedules permitting

 

[Karlbiederman]

Thanks for the advice and support. I have been addicted to this sport since my first dive and now most of my time (and all of my money) seems to be going under the water.

 

[scubatim2004]

Hey don't worry about it learn from it. Lots of experience is what you and I need I am a new diver with 41 logged dives and still learn something new every dive

 

[awall54308]

I have learned that the more I dive, the more I learn! That's why I am going to keep diving. If I wasn't learning anything new, I would be getting bored. What fun is that?

 

[sliden]

A couple of things seem a little weird to me...

So the instructor swam behind and above you in low viz... not exactly the best position.

So the instructor felt you swam too fast and too close to the bottom yet he failed to communicate this to you underwater.

You were dragging a dive flag, why didn't he relocate you by surfacing, locating the dive flag and descending back to you?

Why did he leave you alone in the water... I would never had exited the water without my student.

Had you discussed missing diver procedures before the dive?

It seems to me that in this case the instructor has done far more errors than you. Doing a "deep" dive in low viz while using the compass and dragging a float is a lot of task loading for a new diver. Making sure you stay with your buddy is very easy... somehow the instructor failed to do so. He also left you and swam back to shore, removed his gear and assumed his student was ok on his own.

Good luck in the future.