OOA at 60 feet

[pnwbred]

Gotta check that dive computer, gauge whatever you have all the time imho. This is what I learned.

I know better to check air more freq but got caught up in everything. Check on your life support gadgets!

Thanks all!

 

[raftingtigger]

This is based on a HP100 starting a 2600 and run to dry using eyeball est on your posted profiles. Me thinks you were stressed on this dive. Even if the tank was filled to 3400 starting pressure you would have had the same result 7 minutes later. Slow down, get experience in easy conditions, advance your skills step-by-careful-step. It looks like you have understood this experinece's lesson.

 

[barth]

Regarding skipping the safety stop, to quote my Diving Doctor/Coroner friend... "We can fix bent. We can't fix dead".

In an ideal world, a safety stop would be nice, but it sounds like you guys were in a "marginally comfortable" situation, so IMHO, the right solution was the one you chose... get up and be happy.

It was not the right solution.

Make sure you have enough gas to do a a safetystop when your buddy is ooa. (If he did that he wouldn't be ooa. ) Do the ascent and stops just as planned. That is the right solution for me.

He goes from a depth of 45 feet to the surface in 0.5 minute. That means an ascent rate of 90 feet/minute. The max ascent rate should be around 30 feet/minute. Going to the surface with 90 feet/minute is just wrong.

 

[sea_otter]

Can I add one more point?

• It is always okay to call a dive, even if the boat ride was expensive, and even if it is over something as trivial as an annoying flooding mask.

I am glad that you are both okay. Thank you for sharing a candid account of what sounds like a very scary experience.

 

[Dan]

What does air time 1:18 mean?

 

[sea_otter]

What does air time 1:18 mean?

The pane on the right changes as you click at different points on the X-axis. It looks like the screenshot has the start of the dive (00:00) highlighted, so the 1h 18 min figure is basically meaningless. Guessing it is based around 12 ft depth (when the computer decided it was underwater and started recording?).

 

[beester]

It was not the right solution.

Make sure you have enough gas to do a a safetystop when your buddy is ooa. (If he did that he wouldn't be ooa. ) Do the ascent and stops just as planned. That is the right solution for me.

He goes from a depth of 45 feet to the surface in 0.5 minute. That means an ascent rate of 90 feet/minute. The max ascent rate should be around 30 feet/minute. Going to the surface with 90 feet/minute is just wrong.

No the wrong solution is trying to stay down to do a safety stop and dying on the way up. Dead people don't learn anything.

Don't try to slamdunk GUE procedures into the OP. Of course good gas planning, situational awareness (watching your gas consumption and that of your buddy) is needed. He already understands that and mentioned that in his OP.

But nitpicking on little details isn't. He has 15 dives under his belt.

To pnwbred. A couple of additional pointers I want to make. I won't go into the gasplanning and awareness because you already know that you need to regularly check your pressure gauge.

- You are always responsible for your own safety first. Meaning that you need to point out to your buddies whenever you are uncomfortable with a current situation or feeling a bit stressed. Being on your first liveaboard could be such a situation, doing your first 80-100ft dive could be such a situation (don't know if this is the case... just making a point). You are responsible to make others aware... also underwater. Maybe you were a bit stressed and this impacted your SAC (air consumption) as well.

- You correctly identified that the flooding mask might have been part of the issue. You need to be aware that small stuff like this can escalade into bigger things. You should try to ID and approach small stuff underwater with a "fix now" mentality. Meaning stop and try to fix it before continuing the dive. If it's not fixable underwater (your mask kept flooding) it might be the right approach to communicate this to your buddy, maybe he can help (maybe it's just the hood that is under the mask)... if it's not fixable you can decide to make the dive more conservative (go shallower) or even abort the dive.

Thanks for posting man... it takes balls to do that.

 

[doctormike]

No the wrong solution is trying to stay down to do a safety stop and dying on the way up. Dead people don't learn anything.

Don't try to slamdunk GUE procedures into the OP. Of course good gas planning, situational awareness (watching your gas consumption and that of your buddy) is needed. He already understands that and mentioned that in his OP.

But nitpicking on little details isn't. He has 15 dives under his belt.

I don't think it's nitpicking, and I don't think it's GUE either. If one person is OOG and is able to share gas with another diver, why wouldn't they do a safety stop? I'm assuming that the donating diver has enough gas (which they should).

Why imply that there is a choice between skipping a safety stop and death?

 

[Steve_C]

We do not really know how fast OP was sucking air and how calm he was. The dive buddy had to assess how much in control OP was, how fast OP was sucking air, etc. I can easily see situations where I might decide it best to get the OOA person safely up on the boat without the option safety stop.

I think there may be another factor here. OP spent some time at 60+ ft. My sense is that OP is not used to diving at that depth. It is possible that OP had a mild narc going on also. Much of my diving is at 60-90 ft and I know that as I pass 60 I feel slightly different and make a point to check my air and NDL more often. But my dives are usually NDL limited not Air.

 

[doctormike]

We do not really know how fast OP was sucking air and how calm he was. The dive buddy had to assess how much in control OP was, how fast OP was sucking air, etc. I can easily see situations where I might decide it best to get the OOA person safely up on the boat without the option safety stop.

That's absolutely true. I was just saying that in general terms, just because you are sharing air doesn't mean that you can't do a safety stop. But of course if there is any question, the surface is the place to be...