JGBrown
Contributor
A few days back after a dive I posted a thread in the diving medicine forum concerned about a bright red patch on my skin arm, fortunately it turned out to be sunburn, which was caused pre-dive due to my open top jeep, it was the only time I wasn't wearing a full suit but I didn't look back that far, which could have saved me a lot of bother.
Several things were wrong on the dive, other things worked out well, my buddy was as awesome as he always is and I learned a ton of stuff in a real hurry
The site:
Wall dive, about 20 minutes drive away, this was my first dive away from the playground and it was amazing and scary at the same time.
The wall dropped off at about 80 feet, I don't know how far away the bottom was.
Visibility was about 8" for the first 20', and very clear(maybe 20ft) below that.
It was very murky at the surface due to a thermocline and freshwater runoff etc.
Temp was around 42-44.
It was overcast at the dive site, but sunny at the diveshop(where I got my burn:11doh: )
My gear:
Normal:
Bare trilam drysuit with built in gators/ankle straps to minimize floaty feet
Whites fleece suit
poly pants/shirt
zeagle back inflating BCD with intergrated weights
Mares big yellow plastic fins(tm)
Halycron mask(only one in the entire store that didn't immediatly fail the suck onto face test, I have serious issues with binoculars as well but thats another story)
Scubapro(I think) 7mm kevlar/ti gloves 7mm hood
Strobe on upper left shoulder of BCD, strapped to inflator hose.
Pelican secondary light(32 lumen rear facing LED) in drysuit cargo pocket
28lbs of lead
7 a pocket in 2 intergrated pockets, remainder in 5 2.5lb bullets
New Gear:
Sherwood blizzard regs, huge improvement over the scubapro rentals, no nasty flavoured surprises, not prone to freeflowing etc.
SPG clipped to BCD on lower left facing upThe above was a change from the standard scubapro regs/floating console, no more fishing above my head to find pressure.
C8 UK xenon light
Wrist mounted Uwatec bottom timer
The light was way easier to use then my small pelican, and like the regs made my dive way easier.
Me: 6' 150lbs, and unfortunately little insulation, I get cold very easily.
I sink unless I swim not in a suit.
I do smoke 1-2 smokes a day, the smoke breaks are what get me through my shifts.
but I am in decent shape, I ride, climb, kayak, swim and hike all the time.
My buddy: similar build, similar habits(smokes more). He's really amazing and tolerant as well as a good mentor. He's PADI rescue certified, dives several times a week and has been diving for about a decade.
I learn tons every dive.
The main complications between us is he uses bar, I use PSI.
Both of us are diving AL80's
that were overfilled to 3400(not by choice, thats what the shop guage read when we picked them up)
Shore planning:
fairly basic plan based on the topography of the wall, turn point at 1/2+300PSI for me, It is certain I'll be low first.
The profile, shore entry, swim to buoy, gear check descend line maybe 15 feet, in physical contact, can't really see the other dive.
swim/feel along the bottom for the first dropoff, maybe 5-6 minutes on bottom.
get below the low visibility at around 20 feet.
swim along and down the wall to around 50 ft, explore, look at the amazing life on the wall, work with the lights, get used to my new setup and breathe off both regs, I'm amazed at how much easier everything is.
Check trim and find that I'm finally horizontal.
Continue down the wall and over a second lip, back and forth.
max depth was 89ft, Bottom time 29 minutes according to my bottom timer,(max no deco time on tables) his computer indicated less at the end of the dive.
It was not our intention to remain down this long, but with my suit malfunctions we ended up staying lower to attempt to solve them.
we start working our way along and up, at 80 ft I signal for turnaround point and we start to head back and continue slowly upwards along the wall.
at 75 ft I am too buoyant, I have to swim to the wall and drop down to regain control, at this point I fully empty my BCD.
we continue to ascend
again I am too buoyant, start to ascend too rapidly and find that I cannot vent my drysuit, the bloody valve isn't venting even when pushed.
Switch to head down position and kick down to slow ascent and try to descend.
My buddy then vents his BCD, I grab his hand and he helps me pull down, we reach a wide vertical crack and I use my foot and knee to secure myself in position, still can't get the valve to dump.
My buddy shows me how to dump the suit using the neck seal, I dump my suit air and get some decent squeeze going.
Still overly positive, at the next lip I grab hold and shove rocks into my cargo pocket, not as heavy as lead they at least slow my ascent.
at 50ft same issue as at 75, way too buoyant, again my buddy gets me to the wall, and this time I fully dump/partially flood my drysuit through the neck seal.
now we are off the wall and going up, my buddy still holding on and slowing my ascent, I'm now head up venting my neck seal and BCD as the last bits of air expand in them to slow down, holding my fins out to provide some drag.
His computer is not happy with us, as we ascend in under a minute, and break surface about 30ft from the buoy.
No safety stop, close to no deco time, rapid ascent.
We swim slowly out, walk to the cars and get the gear stowed, then debrief, normally at this time I start to get a headache starting due to CO2 retention but no headache or nausea.
He explores his computers log, and it is not happy with our ascent at all.
I learn more stuff, and we head off because I have a 12 hour shift starting 30 minutes later but am confused because I feel great physically, not tired, no nausea no headache like normal.
about an hour after the dive ends, I'm feeling a bit tired, and have a bit of a headache, plus a red patch spreading from my elbow to my wrist appears.
I post a thread on diving medicine and get told that it could be skin bends.
I assume it is either a skin bend or squeeze, because the dive site is overcast and I'm in full suit so I don't see how I could get a sunburn, since I haven't had one in a long time I didn't really remember how they felt, but see them often enough working with kids, so I describe it that way on here.
3 days later, I'm fine and have had a good wakeup call.
I get DAN insurance.
and figure out what beer to buy my buddy, as part of our debriefing he mentioned that he was considering letting go at 50', and that he normally would have, which would have resulted in a lot faster ascent for me.
That is SOP for my hiking group too, help yourself first then if you can your buddy, and I expected him to have let go, but was glad he didn't.
I call my LDS, and ask for them to mention me to any other just out of OW students who want to putter around in the pool/shallows, I really like diving with him but also want to just spend time puttering about, practicing switching regs, losing/recovering gear and buoyancy/body position.
So overall I got a nice scare, had a great 1/2 a dive and a learning 2nd 1/2.
and certainly will be quite a bit more cautious in future.
I'm sure posting this is asking for a flaming about my choices, and I won't deny that I deserve em, but as my sig says, I get experience right after I need it, and learned a great deal in a short time period.
Figured I'd post this as a reminder as well for other newbies like me, I was kinda waffling on the insurance, and on spending more time in pools but I'm certainly going to do that now.
Something about only purpose in life and warnings to others and all that
Several things were wrong on the dive, other things worked out well, my buddy was as awesome as he always is and I learned a ton of stuff in a real hurry
The site:
Wall dive, about 20 minutes drive away, this was my first dive away from the playground and it was amazing and scary at the same time.
The wall dropped off at about 80 feet, I don't know how far away the bottom was.
Visibility was about 8" for the first 20', and very clear(maybe 20ft) below that.
It was very murky at the surface due to a thermocline and freshwater runoff etc.
Temp was around 42-44.
It was overcast at the dive site, but sunny at the diveshop(where I got my burn:11doh: )
My gear:
Normal:
Bare trilam drysuit with built in gators/ankle straps to minimize floaty feet
Whites fleece suit
poly pants/shirt
zeagle back inflating BCD with intergrated weights
Mares big yellow plastic fins(tm)
Halycron mask(only one in the entire store that didn't immediatly fail the suck onto face test, I have serious issues with binoculars as well but thats another story)
Scubapro(I think) 7mm kevlar/ti gloves 7mm hood
Strobe on upper left shoulder of BCD, strapped to inflator hose.
Pelican secondary light(32 lumen rear facing LED) in drysuit cargo pocket
28lbs of lead
7 a pocket in 2 intergrated pockets, remainder in 5 2.5lb bullets
New Gear:
Sherwood blizzard regs, huge improvement over the scubapro rentals, no nasty flavoured surprises, not prone to freeflowing etc.
SPG clipped to BCD on lower left facing upThe above was a change from the standard scubapro regs/floating console, no more fishing above my head to find pressure.
C8 UK xenon light
Wrist mounted Uwatec bottom timer
The light was way easier to use then my small pelican, and like the regs made my dive way easier.
Me: 6' 150lbs, and unfortunately little insulation, I get cold very easily.
I sink unless I swim not in a suit.
I do smoke 1-2 smokes a day, the smoke breaks are what get me through my shifts.
but I am in decent shape, I ride, climb, kayak, swim and hike all the time.
My buddy: similar build, similar habits(smokes more). He's really amazing and tolerant as well as a good mentor. He's PADI rescue certified, dives several times a week and has been diving for about a decade.
I learn tons every dive.
The main complications between us is he uses bar, I use PSI.
Both of us are diving AL80's
that were overfilled to 3400(not by choice, thats what the shop guage read when we picked them up)
Shore planning:
fairly basic plan based on the topography of the wall, turn point at 1/2+300PSI for me, It is certain I'll be low first.
The profile, shore entry, swim to buoy, gear check descend line maybe 15 feet, in physical contact, can't really see the other dive.
swim/feel along the bottom for the first dropoff, maybe 5-6 minutes on bottom.
get below the low visibility at around 20 feet.
swim along and down the wall to around 50 ft, explore, look at the amazing life on the wall, work with the lights, get used to my new setup and breathe off both regs, I'm amazed at how much easier everything is.
Check trim and find that I'm finally horizontal.
Continue down the wall and over a second lip, back and forth.
max depth was 89ft, Bottom time 29 minutes according to my bottom timer,(max no deco time on tables) his computer indicated less at the end of the dive.
It was not our intention to remain down this long, but with my suit malfunctions we ended up staying lower to attempt to solve them.
we start working our way along and up, at 80 ft I signal for turnaround point and we start to head back and continue slowly upwards along the wall.
at 75 ft I am too buoyant, I have to swim to the wall and drop down to regain control, at this point I fully empty my BCD.
we continue to ascend
again I am too buoyant, start to ascend too rapidly and find that I cannot vent my drysuit, the bloody valve isn't venting even when pushed.
Switch to head down position and kick down to slow ascent and try to descend.
My buddy then vents his BCD, I grab his hand and he helps me pull down, we reach a wide vertical crack and I use my foot and knee to secure myself in position, still can't get the valve to dump.
My buddy shows me how to dump the suit using the neck seal, I dump my suit air and get some decent squeeze going.
Still overly positive, at the next lip I grab hold and shove rocks into my cargo pocket, not as heavy as lead they at least slow my ascent.
at 50ft same issue as at 75, way too buoyant, again my buddy gets me to the wall, and this time I fully dump/partially flood my drysuit through the neck seal.
now we are off the wall and going up, my buddy still holding on and slowing my ascent, I'm now head up venting my neck seal and BCD as the last bits of air expand in them to slow down, holding my fins out to provide some drag.
His computer is not happy with us, as we ascend in under a minute, and break surface about 30ft from the buoy.
No safety stop, close to no deco time, rapid ascent.
We swim slowly out, walk to the cars and get the gear stowed, then debrief, normally at this time I start to get a headache starting due to CO2 retention but no headache or nausea.
He explores his computers log, and it is not happy with our ascent at all.
I learn more stuff, and we head off because I have a 12 hour shift starting 30 minutes later but am confused because I feel great physically, not tired, no nausea no headache like normal.
about an hour after the dive ends, I'm feeling a bit tired, and have a bit of a headache, plus a red patch spreading from my elbow to my wrist appears.
I post a thread on diving medicine and get told that it could be skin bends.
I assume it is either a skin bend or squeeze, because the dive site is overcast and I'm in full suit so I don't see how I could get a sunburn, since I haven't had one in a long time I didn't really remember how they felt, but see them often enough working with kids, so I describe it that way on here.
3 days later, I'm fine and have had a good wakeup call.
I get DAN insurance.
and figure out what beer to buy my buddy, as part of our debriefing he mentioned that he was considering letting go at 50', and that he normally would have, which would have resulted in a lot faster ascent for me.
That is SOP for my hiking group too, help yourself first then if you can your buddy, and I expected him to have let go, but was glad he didn't.
I call my LDS, and ask for them to mention me to any other just out of OW students who want to putter around in the pool/shallows, I really like diving with him but also want to just spend time puttering about, practicing switching regs, losing/recovering gear and buoyancy/body position.
So overall I got a nice scare, had a great 1/2 a dive and a learning 2nd 1/2.
and certainly will be quite a bit more cautious in future.
I'm sure posting this is asking for a flaming about my choices, and I won't deny that I deserve em, but as my sig says, I get experience right after I need it, and learned a great deal in a short time period.
Figured I'd post this as a reminder as well for other newbies like me, I was kinda waffling on the insurance, and on spending more time in pools but I'm certainly going to do that now.
Something about only purpose in life and warnings to others and all that
