Hi, just to relate an incident and the lessons learned. Forgive my poor english; I'm not an english speaking person.
I'm a new diver, just only 41 dives under my belt since being certified in October 2007. Countless dives in the practice pool.
Last March I did a dive trip to a sea wreck off the coast of Argentina. The wreck is an artificial wreck. A small 25 mts long fishing cutter lying at 19 mts depth in a sandy bottom.
The wreck is at something like 5 km off the coast.
The day was nice, sunny, some 25°C temperature, water temp drop to 16°C at the bottom. Sea level was like a mirror with no waves nor current. Visibility was around 15 mts.
There were 9 divers in the dive boat. We were 3 divers in my dive group, my dive buddy with some 15 dives, a new diver with only 10 dives and this would be his second dive at sea (the 1st one was the day before only to 8 mts depth), all previous dives were in a quarry during Check-out, and me.
The new diver had all rented gear (except basic). My dive buddy only rented tank and I rented only BCD, reg setup and tank.
We went down, took some UW photos, went over the wreck, saw the fishes living in the ship. I was controlling my air, my dive buddy's air and the new diver's air. I've seen that his air was running out rapidly, which was expected to be.
All of a sudden, my dive buddy disappeared. I had to decide if I go to search for him or stand by the new diver.
I signaled him to remain at the same spot (some 18 mts depth) while I tried to find my dive buddy. I've found him and went back 2 minutes afterwards to meet the new diver. When I reached him, he was entering panic as he was having trouble with the reg as he was very low with his air. He could not see me and hurried to reach another diver that was there (with his dive buddy) to ask for his octopus. They started to go up, sharing tank.
I've could see the new diver's spg and it showed that he had only 35 atms left.
I've surfaced with my dive buddy after safety stop.
We all surfaced safelly.
Several reflections after all this.
1) The new diver accepted to do a dive deeper to what his level of experience would allow.
2) The operator accepted him to dive deeper to what his level of experience would allow.
3) I accepted both previous things. I should have called the dive as non my dive buddy, nor the new diver were experienced enough to do that deep dive. As I was the diver with a greater experience I should have had a closer look to the new diver to start ascend before going so far with the air.
4) Rented gear not proper for the dive. When the new diver could not breath, the spg showed 35 atm. Several things could have happened :
4.1) The spg was showing more pressure of what really was in the tank, I mean the tank had less air.
4.2) The 1st stage reg should have been a non-balanced model, not proper for a deep dive. I do not know the brand and model.
4.3) The operator has regs not proper for the dives they are making.
4.4) The combination of the previous points.
Fortunatelly nothing wrong happened. This was the first time that i'm involved in a dive incident.
The operator is a well stablished dive operator and the only one in that town. They sunk the fishing vessel as a dive wreck several year ago and they are in the market since a long time.
There has been no log of accidents, but I'm pretty sure that this type of incidents happen regularly.
I'm a new diver, just only 41 dives under my belt since being certified in October 2007. Countless dives in the practice pool.
Last March I did a dive trip to a sea wreck off the coast of Argentina. The wreck is an artificial wreck. A small 25 mts long fishing cutter lying at 19 mts depth in a sandy bottom.
The wreck is at something like 5 km off the coast.
The day was nice, sunny, some 25°C temperature, water temp drop to 16°C at the bottom. Sea level was like a mirror with no waves nor current. Visibility was around 15 mts.
There were 9 divers in the dive boat. We were 3 divers in my dive group, my dive buddy with some 15 dives, a new diver with only 10 dives and this would be his second dive at sea (the 1st one was the day before only to 8 mts depth), all previous dives were in a quarry during Check-out, and me.
The new diver had all rented gear (except basic). My dive buddy only rented tank and I rented only BCD, reg setup and tank.
We went down, took some UW photos, went over the wreck, saw the fishes living in the ship. I was controlling my air, my dive buddy's air and the new diver's air. I've seen that his air was running out rapidly, which was expected to be.
All of a sudden, my dive buddy disappeared. I had to decide if I go to search for him or stand by the new diver.
I signaled him to remain at the same spot (some 18 mts depth) while I tried to find my dive buddy. I've found him and went back 2 minutes afterwards to meet the new diver. When I reached him, he was entering panic as he was having trouble with the reg as he was very low with his air. He could not see me and hurried to reach another diver that was there (with his dive buddy) to ask for his octopus. They started to go up, sharing tank.
I've could see the new diver's spg and it showed that he had only 35 atms left.
I've surfaced with my dive buddy after safety stop.
We all surfaced safelly.
Several reflections after all this.
1) The new diver accepted to do a dive deeper to what his level of experience would allow.
2) The operator accepted him to dive deeper to what his level of experience would allow.
3) I accepted both previous things. I should have called the dive as non my dive buddy, nor the new diver were experienced enough to do that deep dive. As I was the diver with a greater experience I should have had a closer look to the new diver to start ascend before going so far with the air.
4) Rented gear not proper for the dive. When the new diver could not breath, the spg showed 35 atm. Several things could have happened :
4.1) The spg was showing more pressure of what really was in the tank, I mean the tank had less air.
4.2) The 1st stage reg should have been a non-balanced model, not proper for a deep dive. I do not know the brand and model.
4.3) The operator has regs not proper for the dives they are making.
4.4) The combination of the previous points.
Fortunatelly nothing wrong happened. This was the first time that i'm involved in a dive incident.
The operator is a well stablished dive operator and the only one in that town. They sunk the fishing vessel as a dive wreck several year ago and they are in the market since a long time.
There has been no log of accidents, but I'm pretty sure that this type of incidents happen regularly.