...... is still better than a good day working! (all you professional divers 
)
So this past weekend I was going to South Carolina and for a landlocked Ohioan, any proximity to ocean means diving! After a serious miscommunication that made me think we were going to South Carolina near Florida when actually we were going to South Carolina near North Carolina, I found a dive op and went out for a day of diving.
The day started with the drive to the boat being about 20-25 minutes longer than the dive shop people told me it would be so my carefully planned 1/2 hour early arrival became showing up exactly when everyone was supposed to be on board.
Now, the people I was with are non-divers so I'm buddyless, I'm assured this won't be a problem as I'll be buddied with someone on the boat. Turns out there are exactly 2 people that aren't on the boat for a specific purpose, the remaining people are students doing OW cert dives, a wreck diver candidate, instructors, etc. So the 2 of us are buddied by default.
We reach the dive site and gear up. In the process I tear my hood, drat. We get in the water and the shock has me sucking air beyond belief (water temps about 63 degrees). My buddy swims to the descent line and I try and tell him to hang out for a second so I can catch my breath and not overbreath the reg so early in the whole experience, but he's gone down the line. I take a couple nice big breaths of air and follow him down. Jellyfish absolutely everywhere. I kinda like jellies and I'm very well protected, so I'm not too worried. We get down to the barge and start tooling around. I give my buddy the "you lead, I'll follow" hand signal, he gives me an OK and takes the lead. We get around to the other side and he trades the lead back to me. I give him the OK and swim off. About a minute later I do a buddy check and he's gone. The viz is maybe 15-20' and I can't see anyone anywhere. I look all over, head back to where I lost him look around for a few seconds and don't see anything, so I surface, signal the boat and swim over. As I'm up the ladder, my buddy surfaces and we get up on the boat.
Back on the boat we figure out what happened. Turns out his passing the lead back to me was a "do ya wanna go over this way?" hand signal. Then the buddy gets seasick, not going back in the water. I sigh and try and round up someone I can go back down with for another dive. In the meantime, I notice my snorkel has taken a hike. I find someone else who doesn't mind if I go down with her for a second dive and she's going to a part of the dive site I hadn't gone to the first time around.
After a lenghty surface interval, we get in the water. The shock isn't so bad this time and we begin our descent. I'm having some problems getting down, but I don't think too much of it. Get down to the bottom and I'm feeling a little light, but I'm staying down after all. We venture out a guide rope and we're doing rule of thirds, after not very long I look at my SPG and I'm down to 2000 psi. I show my new buddy shrug and we head back to barge. We get back and I'm at 1800 psi, weird. Now I'm feeling really light and I'm rolling to one side. I check around and one of my weight pockets has taken a hike. Time to abort the dive so I signal that we need to go up and that I want to go to the anchor line to do so for ascent control purposes. We have a line at 15' for a safety stop but I can't stay on it for anything I'm trying desperately to keep from corking the last 15' up. About this time is when buddy #2 figures out what I was trying to show her at depth about the weight pocket.
Well, now I'm back on the boat after 2 very short dives, I'm minus a hood thanks to the tear, a snorkel due to I don't even know what, and down one weight pocket. *sigh* The weight pocket was found, amazingly enough, by one of the other divers.
So here's what I now know: actually review those hand signals with a new buddy, BWRAF makes good sense, I probably lost the weight pocket on the first dive and didn't notice a rapider than normal ascent due to the buddy-loss thing, and I now know that even bad day diving is still better than a good day working. Confidence builder? Yes. Good day diving? No.
Just thought I'd share, thanks for hanging in there!
Rachel
)So this past weekend I was going to South Carolina and for a landlocked Ohioan, any proximity to ocean means diving! After a serious miscommunication that made me think we were going to South Carolina near Florida when actually we were going to South Carolina near North Carolina, I found a dive op and went out for a day of diving.
The day started with the drive to the boat being about 20-25 minutes longer than the dive shop people told me it would be so my carefully planned 1/2 hour early arrival became showing up exactly when everyone was supposed to be on board.
Now, the people I was with are non-divers so I'm buddyless, I'm assured this won't be a problem as I'll be buddied with someone on the boat. Turns out there are exactly 2 people that aren't on the boat for a specific purpose, the remaining people are students doing OW cert dives, a wreck diver candidate, instructors, etc. So the 2 of us are buddied by default.
We reach the dive site and gear up. In the process I tear my hood, drat. We get in the water and the shock has me sucking air beyond belief (water temps about 63 degrees). My buddy swims to the descent line and I try and tell him to hang out for a second so I can catch my breath and not overbreath the reg so early in the whole experience, but he's gone down the line. I take a couple nice big breaths of air and follow him down. Jellyfish absolutely everywhere. I kinda like jellies and I'm very well protected, so I'm not too worried. We get down to the barge and start tooling around. I give my buddy the "you lead, I'll follow" hand signal, he gives me an OK and takes the lead. We get around to the other side and he trades the lead back to me. I give him the OK and swim off. About a minute later I do a buddy check and he's gone. The viz is maybe 15-20' and I can't see anyone anywhere. I look all over, head back to where I lost him look around for a few seconds and don't see anything, so I surface, signal the boat and swim over. As I'm up the ladder, my buddy surfaces and we get up on the boat.
Back on the boat we figure out what happened. Turns out his passing the lead back to me was a "do ya wanna go over this way?" hand signal. Then the buddy gets seasick, not going back in the water. I sigh and try and round up someone I can go back down with for another dive. In the meantime, I notice my snorkel has taken a hike. I find someone else who doesn't mind if I go down with her for a second dive and she's going to a part of the dive site I hadn't gone to the first time around.
After a lenghty surface interval, we get in the water. The shock isn't so bad this time and we begin our descent. I'm having some problems getting down, but I don't think too much of it. Get down to the bottom and I'm feeling a little light, but I'm staying down after all. We venture out a guide rope and we're doing rule of thirds, after not very long I look at my SPG and I'm down to 2000 psi. I show my new buddy shrug and we head back to barge. We get back and I'm at 1800 psi, weird. Now I'm feeling really light and I'm rolling to one side. I check around and one of my weight pockets has taken a hike. Time to abort the dive so I signal that we need to go up and that I want to go to the anchor line to do so for ascent control purposes. We have a line at 15' for a safety stop but I can't stay on it for anything I'm trying desperately to keep from corking the last 15' up. About this time is when buddy #2 figures out what I was trying to show her at depth about the weight pocket.
Well, now I'm back on the boat after 2 very short dives, I'm minus a hood thanks to the tear, a snorkel due to I don't even know what, and down one weight pocket. *sigh* The weight pocket was found, amazingly enough, by one of the other divers.
So here's what I now know: actually review those hand signals with a new buddy, BWRAF makes good sense, I probably lost the weight pocket on the first dive and didn't notice a rapider than normal ascent due to the buddy-loss thing, and I now know that even bad day diving is still better than a good day working. Confidence builder? Yes. Good day diving? No.
Just thought I'd share, thanks for hanging in there!
Rachel
