OWN your Dive

[gt2003]

I'm sharing this for newer divers or those who may not have been diving in a while. Now, before bashing me, realize I take full responsibility for this and own it 100%. It was a HUGE learning experience. Here is the link to the original thread. Cozumel incident but lesson learned. It was recommended that I post it here for a learning moment:

My wife and I had a "bad" experience in Cozumel last year (2017, last week of October, first few days of November). We had a personal DM recommended to us by a friend and hired that person for the day. Long story short, I ran short on air (not unusual) but at 1000PSI I frequently communicated with him my air status; 700, 500, 200.... He felt it necessary to not heed that and I was simply too stupid to take control of the dive at that point (hindsight). I was sharing air with the DM at the safety stop and all was good. He then drops a weight, points at the surface then descends for the weight literally pulling the regulator out of my mouth. Now, I will admit I was quite surprised. I then followed him down, took another breath from his octo and once again he pointed to the surface. I swam up as fast as I could, breathing out as I went. I took a breath off my wifes 2nd stage and ascended. I had showed the DM my air status from 1000 PSI down to 200. He knew I had no air. So, own your own dive. If it gets scary or doesn't follow the dive plan, ABORT THE DIVE. I/we learned more from this dive than probably any other thing. DON'T BE ME! From this point forward my wife and I will begin our safety stop at 700 PSI, deploy a SMB and ascend on our own if needed. Have a plan with your buddy before you get in the water. Hope this benefits someone. Thanks

 

[Snoweman]

Why did you follow him down from the safety stop?? Why not go to the surface??

 

[WetSEAL]

The DM was more interested in retrieving his weight than with your safety. If that were me, I would have probably had some very harsh words for him afterwards, and if he was part of any kind of organization, definitely filed a complaint

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Why didn't the OP simply follow his Open Water training? This wasn't a lesson that should have been learned during this dive, it should have been learned before he got his C card.

 

[IncreaseMyT]

I have to bail early a lot, I’m used to it. I don’t wait when I get to 800 I’m gone. At 80 feet or more I usually bounce at 950.

I understand you had your wife with you though so I can see not wanting to leave her down there. No biggie to breathe off the DM but when I did it we did it when I had 1,000 in the tank. Then I used my air to come up.

 

[Doc]

...No biggie to breathe off the DM but when I did it we did it when I had 1,000 in the tank. Then I used my air to come up.

@gt2003 We must assume you had something in your tank. At a safety stop depth, 50PSI will suffice for sake of argument, I'm sure you had a bit more. You had lots of air. (Not by Cayman Naxi DM standards, but enough to survive the threat of Davey Jones)

You had the remarkable mental and physical control to execute all those gymnastics: orient for sharing, that sudden departure, chase down w/o regulator, a free ascent up to your buddy, then contact & share air again, making a controlled ascent.

Whew. Like IncreaseMyT says, use your own air next time.

Practice enough at very shallow depths, do it in a pool, whatever. Suck your tank down to zero, drain it completely. Think about what the guage is doing, notice the increasing drag on the regulator. Hear the whistling noise coming from the tank. Learn what the reality is. "Empty" tanks really have a lot of air in them.

You will more often see certain DM behaviors such as this in specific parts of the world that vacation divers show up with less than perfect gas management skills. Notable locations familiar to North Americans would be Mexico and Galapagos where a DM is often seen with a guest sharing air. He likely knew in advance what was going to happen, he decided his moves way before anything happened. He misread your ability to communicate or to free ascend when he thought he could cut you loose.

Now... You were dealing with a DM that I think did a fairly good job of keeping you alive when you were down to a specific tank pressure that for whatever reason caused you mortal alarm. But a DM "dropping" a weight? YGTBFKM. That's kinda' whacky, unless it was a weight he removed earlier from a overweighted and similarly distraught client. Doesn't indicate good skills, especially misreading and then abandoning an understandably fearful client.

I appreciate your "owning it", that's the way we learn. And...You've a good plan for next time, the SMB and all that. Just- first learn how to deploy it flawlessly from your 15fsw safety stop. Do the pool suck-it-dry experiment. And, whatever you do, let your DM know in advance if you're going to deviate from his plan.

Work on your air consumption rate, you're the one who ran low first. Get your wife a 62cf tank, or get yourself a 100cf, this way she won't hate you. No, first try a good instructor and get your air consumption squared away.

That is owning it.

 

[oly5050user]

Going on a divemaster alternate air is an emergency. It is not meant to be used as a way to extend a dive time. Low on air means dive over. Lucky no one got seriously hurt this time. Next time may not be as lucky. If there was a fatality I cannot see how this would be defended as this is a emergency skill to be used to go UP, not extend a dive time.

 

[Bob DBF]

Why didn't the OP simply follow his Open Water training? This wasn't a lesson that should have been learned during this dive, it should have been learned before he got his C card.

You assume it was covered in his OW training, and/or not overshadowed by the concept of follow the instructor/DM, he will keep you safe.


Bob

 

[scubadada]

Hi @gt2003

You were chastised quite enough in the original thread. Your summary post here could be valuable to less experienced divers who missed the original thread in Near Misses and Lessons Learned. It is a very simple, very important lesson.

Good diving, Craig

 

[uncfnp]

What makes this a little different from the usual “follow the leader trust me dive” is that, as I recall, the op knew his deficiencies and hired this DM specifically to make his dives safer.