Question about ascent incident

[TheRedHead]

I completely agree with Matthew's reasoning.

 

[Hanzl]

Me and my wife are new to the sport as well and when we were finishing our final OWD we were going to an underwater platform and I was letting out what little air I had in my BC to sit on the platform and hit both buttons and you should have seen the look on my wife and the instructor as I left for the surface!!! They were like where's he going? I got back down there and if people could laugh at me underwater, they did when I demonstrated what I did. Lesson learned!!

 

[Digger54]

all of a sudden there were a bazillion bubbles around me, as if the earth had opened up beneath me and was burping out gas!
LeeAnne

I've only got a few dives under my belt so far so I can't speak from vast experience, but on my first open water dive I had one of those "bazillion bubbles around me moments" My first thought was "what the heck is leaking now?" because I had just had to replace an SPG hose that leaked when I set up my equipment (RENTAL GEAR !!) and my distrust level of the equipment was running high.

Boy did I feel foolish, yet relieved, when I realized that in open water you can have other divers well beneath you (unlike in the training pool) and those were their bubbles coming up from so far below the divers were almost out of sight.

 

[Leejnd]

Okay, I take back what I said about this board earlier...sure there are a few folks who might be a bit harsh in some threads, but this particular thread has been wonderful for me! Really, what an amazing group of people divers are. You all seem so passionate about not only this cool sport, but about helping other divers learn it and love it as much as you do.

Leeann, You've done a great job at post dive analysis and educating yourself on the nuances. That is what seperates great divers from average divers (not necessarily the number of dives).

Thank you so much! I do tend to dive in (pun intended) to whatever I do with both feet. When I started running a few years ago, it only took a year before I ran my first marathon...now I've done several. Now I've found something else that I love, and I intend to pursue it with equal passion.

You might consider furthering your dive education. Bouyancy is one of the areas covered in more detail in the Advanced Open Water class or even the Bouyance Specialty course.

Funny you should mention that -- yesterday I got a call from the instructor of our OW class, and he said that he's pulling together an AOW class from among some of his recent OW students, that is going to go much more in-depth (pun intended) than the standard PADI AOW class. He's on the LA County dive search & rescue team, and he's been teaching PADI for 25 years and feels that they've dumbed it down way too much. For the AOW class he's pulling together, it's going to include 12 total dives -- six skills & drills dives, each followed by a fun dive to to put the new skills into use. We're going to sign up for it.

Me and my wife are new to the sport as well and when we were finishing our final OWD we were going to an underwater platform and I was letting out what little air I had in my BC to sit on the platform and hit both buttons and you should have seen the look on my wife and the instructor as I left for the surface!!! They were like where's he going? I got back down there and if people could laugh at me underwater, they did when I demonstrated what I did. Lesson learned!!

Well see, now I feel much better that someone ELSE has admitted to doing this! I'm still claiming it was the dang gloves...yeah yeah that's it, the gloves! :blinking:

Boy did I feel foolish, yet relieved, when I realized that in open water you can have other divers well beneath you (unlike in the training pool) and those were their bubbles coming up from so far below the divers were almost out of sight.

Yeah yeah that's it, it was a diver beneath me! LOL! No, I've had to painfully admit that I simply made a boneheaded move and pressed both buttons simultaneously. But this is a good reminder -- we had 35 people on that dive boat, and we did keep enountering others, so it's good to keep that in mind.

LeeAnne

 

[ChrisEdwards]

Starting my OW class tomorrow so excuse me if this seems like a dumb question:

Assuming you haven't by accident infalted you BC like an air bag, if you start to ascend too quickly, is it not possible to change body position, where you head is pointing at the bottom and kick hard to descend a little, until you figure out how to stop the over quick ascend?

Thanks

 

[TheRedHead]

Assuming you haven't by accident infalted you BC like an air bag, if you start to ascend too quickly, is it not possible to change body position, where you head is pointing at the bottom and kick hard to descend a little, until you figure out how to stop the over quick ascend?

It depends on if you go polaris or just cork. Those are two important diving terms you need to know that won't be mentioned in your open water class.

 

[ChrisEdwards]

It depends on if you go polaris or just cork. Those are two important diving terms you need to know that won't be mentioned in your open water class.

Polaris, I assume is super fast, cork being just a ascent that you didn't control.

Can either really happen if you are in the horizontal position, assuming youy BC is not super inflated and you were weighted correctly?

 

[Leejnd]

Assuming you haven't by accident infalted you BC like an air bag, if you start to ascend too quickly, is it not possible to change body position, where you head is pointing at the bottom and kick hard to descend a little, until you figure out how to stop the over quick ascend?

Well, in my case I DID inflate my BCD like an air bag. I did remember what I'd learned in training about spreading your body out to create as much drag as possible...but in this case I was only at 25', and struggling to maintain that to begin with so I may have been even a little less than that, and apparently I totally ballooned my BCD so I FLEW up before I even had a chance to move my body into ANY position. I was just getting my arms and legs spread out when I bobbed to the surface...too late!

Okay, so I get "corked" (the mental imagery pretty much explains it). But what is "polaris"?

 

[TheRedHead]

Polaris is type of missle and you take off like one. Yes you can stop an ascent by finning down or even by breathing as long as you don't get caught by expanding air in your BC combined with a thick wetsuit (or drysuit) which has become suddenly very buoyant and you start taking big gulps of air, in which case it just snowballs.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Lee, ome of the things you have to realize on here regarding analysis and constructive criticism is that your receptiveness and willingness to learn goes a long way in keeping the "bashing" down. That you are willing to consider the different possible reasons for your experience and your openmindedness shows that you are a diver who is willing to learn by training, experience, advice, and most importantly in some of these cases criticism. There are some who cannot or will not embrace these things. At one time or another all of us pull what I call bonehead stunts. What we learn from them is dependent on our attitudes. If I immediately close my mind when you suggest that whatever happened was somehow due to my action or inaction I'm incapable of learning anything until you get my attention. Sometimes all it takes is a few moments reflection. Other times you gotta say hey stupid you do that again you're gonna kill yourself or somebody else. Once you have my attention I'm more likely to listen. Unfortunately at times on here no matter what you do you never get their attention. As a result nothing gets learned and we can only hope no one gets hurt. Other times all it takes is open discussion and open minds. This thread has both. VERY NICE!