I thought I would recount a dive yesterday that could have gone horribly wrong but ended up just fine. I was on a boat diving in Cozumel at Palancar Caves. All but one of the divers were reasonably experienced. We dropped in and while there was a lot of current, the vis wasn't bad. However, as we continued our descent and reached the sandy bottom it got pretty bad (by Cozumel standards).
We started making our way to the wall (where it might have improved as we dropped down past the sand). However, one of the divers (not the least experienced one) had a panic attack at 78 feet. The DM first tried to calm her, and then her buddy indicated that he wanted to surface with her while the rest of us continued the dive. He didn't have a safety sausage or spool, so the DM asked if I had mine with me (I did). The DM seemed to decide against that action, and began the ascent with the panicked diver stuck to him like a remora. I started up with him and signalled to the DM "do you want everyone else to go up with you?" and he indicated to me "yes". The remaining divers (including her buddy) seemed focussed on their gauges and and weren't really looking at either him or me and it appeared that they maybe thought he was going to descend and continue the dive once he had delivered the panicked diver to the surface and the boat. So I dropped back down, tapped them on the shoulders and signalled that they should begin to ascend also and up we went. Everything went pretty well from there. The boat was Johnny-on-the-spot, even though we were only about 10 minutes into the dive and not expected to surface for some time; the crew helped get the panicked diver back onto the boat lickety-split and were ever so kind and attentive. She was enormously apologetic. (She and another diver sat out the second dive at another site which has less current but still poorer vis than normal).
After the dives were over, and everyone else gone back to their hotels, I debriefed with the DM to see if I had misread any of his wishes (i.e. had he wanted me to send up my sausage? Or pass it over to the other buddy team?) No, he told me that he was just assessing all his options. He had been cool as a cucumber through all of this, so I wasn't sure. He said he decided he wasn't comfortable with the buddy team ascending on their own, even with his sausage and spool (though watching them dive the day previously or their demeanor on the boat you wouldn't have guessed there was going to be an issue) and that he decided to call the dive.
About the only thing I can think of is that he could have been clearer that the dive was over, but there was a lot going on (the least experienced diver looked to me that she was inches away from panicking also and I had been focussing on her comfort/security level) and I may have missed any such signals since I was at the back of the group by this time. In our debrief, I told him that I thought he made the right call and that I wasn't bothered in the least by the short dive since the conditions were crappy anyways and probably wouldn't have been much fun.
I am reminded of the saying: there are old divers and there are bold divers, but there are no old, bold divers. My lessons learned were "think of the other divers in the group, even if they aren't your buddies and be prepared for prevent things from going south when it looks like they might, even if it means calling a dive early on...there will always be another dive on another day."
We started making our way to the wall (where it might have improved as we dropped down past the sand). However, one of the divers (not the least experienced one) had a panic attack at 78 feet. The DM first tried to calm her, and then her buddy indicated that he wanted to surface with her while the rest of us continued the dive. He didn't have a safety sausage or spool, so the DM asked if I had mine with me (I did). The DM seemed to decide against that action, and began the ascent with the panicked diver stuck to him like a remora. I started up with him and signalled to the DM "do you want everyone else to go up with you?" and he indicated to me "yes". The remaining divers (including her buddy) seemed focussed on their gauges and and weren't really looking at either him or me and it appeared that they maybe thought he was going to descend and continue the dive once he had delivered the panicked diver to the surface and the boat. So I dropped back down, tapped them on the shoulders and signalled that they should begin to ascend also and up we went. Everything went pretty well from there. The boat was Johnny-on-the-spot, even though we were only about 10 minutes into the dive and not expected to surface for some time; the crew helped get the panicked diver back onto the boat lickety-split and were ever so kind and attentive. She was enormously apologetic. (She and another diver sat out the second dive at another site which has less current but still poorer vis than normal).
After the dives were over, and everyone else gone back to their hotels, I debriefed with the DM to see if I had misread any of his wishes (i.e. had he wanted me to send up my sausage? Or pass it over to the other buddy team?) No, he told me that he was just assessing all his options. He had been cool as a cucumber through all of this, so I wasn't sure. He said he decided he wasn't comfortable with the buddy team ascending on their own, even with his sausage and spool (though watching them dive the day previously or their demeanor on the boat you wouldn't have guessed there was going to be an issue) and that he decided to call the dive.
About the only thing I can think of is that he could have been clearer that the dive was over, but there was a lot going on (the least experienced diver looked to me that she was inches away from panicking also and I had been focussing on her comfort/security level) and I may have missed any such signals since I was at the back of the group by this time. In our debrief, I told him that I thought he made the right call and that I wasn't bothered in the least by the short dive since the conditions were crappy anyways and probably wouldn't have been much fun.
I am reminded of the saying: there are old divers and there are bold divers, but there are no old, bold divers. My lessons learned were "think of the other divers in the group, even if they aren't your buddies and be prepared for prevent things from going south when it looks like they might, even if it means calling a dive early on...there will always be another dive on another day."
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