She thinks she almost died..but she didn't!

[BertStevens]

For Fall break in late October, I took my wife and youngest daughter, Abigail to Destin, FL. Sadly the older 2 had classes and could not join us. Weather was great and I managed to dive 3 days. 2 days were with my daughter, who is Jr certified this year. She didn't dive the middle day, because it was planned deeper than her Jr. Certification allows.

On the last dive of the last day, we were on the east end of the bridge rubble and the current picked up a little and viz dropped to where I couldn't see the boat from depth (this will become significant). We'd followed the anchor line down and our plan was to follow it back up. We began our dive into the current and then drifted back past the anchor. My daughter had been holding my hand the first day, earlier in the week, and first half of the first dive that day. She'd started to get a little more comfortable and let go to look around on her own, with me keeping a close eye on her.

When she hit 1000 psi, I started looking for the anchor. But i did not realize the current had taken us further than I thought. Since viz had dropped, I couldn't just look up and see the boat. I knew were were close, but when she reached 500 psi, I let her know it was time to head up...and that I couldn't find the anchor. Being the protective Dad I am, I had my 6' DAN SMB with finger spool, and sent it up. We did a slow ascent and 3 minutes at 15 feet. After we surfaced, I looked around and located the boat. It was too far away to swim, so I gave a big OK and we laid back and floated until they could come pick us up.

Now my 13 y.o. lets me know that she "almost died" while we waited on pickup. She thinks she was going to run out of air. After we got on board, we discussed what happened and why air lasts longer at 15 feet than at 60 feet. So she was never in any real danger of running out.

Negatives...

1. I think I turned too soon. I should have stayed into the current longer.
2. I also needed to keep a closer eye on the exit and get a bearing with the compass as we passed the anchor. I knew which direction it was, just not how far.

Positives...

1. I always have my SMB. And I have practiced with it. This was the first use in open water where I really needed it. All other uses were just practice. And the boat appreciated the 6 foot height. Im told it was easy to see!
2. Abigail never panicked. She was practically in my face during the ascent, but she was calm. We even joked a little on the safety stop. But I could tell she was nervous. It probably helped that I've been diving 20+ years and was relaxed. Even though I was upset with myself, I never let it show.
3. We kept a close eye on each other's air. Knowing when she hit 500 psi allowed me to decide when on a free ascent.
4. I also think it was a great learning experience for her. WE are responsible for our dive. Not a dive master, not the boat. US!

Now its a running joke. She will tell me at random times..."I almost died!" And my response is..."but you didn't!"

OK, I have my flame retardant britches on...Flame away!

 

[drrich2]

A self-perceived 'close call' can encourage someone to be more mindful of monitoring their gas supply, and of their dive-in-progress. It can also get them thinking about what could go wrong & how they could react, the kind of thinking encouraged in the Rescue Diver course. While catastrophizing a problem is not what you want her to do, taking it seriously & making it a teaching point may help her become a better diver faster.

You may be better off than had the dive gone smoothly.

Richard.

 

[Shaun Delport]

Seems like a great relationship with your daughter. I would recommend that diving at 60', working in current, young novice and limited viz, that you increase the low-on-air to around 735psi/50bar. You mentioned that you could see concern on her face, this causes her to use more air.
35' to 45' 500psi will be fine.

I agree with Rich, little perceived mishaps are the best teachers and always remembered.

 

[CuzzA]

The biggest negative I see has nothing really to do with the dive, but rather the boat... I do not like anchoring one bit. There's just very little advantage to anchoring and we never do it. In fact, the only advantage is giving divers a line to cling to on their ascent.

If a diver surfaces in distress or further down current it significantly delays reaching the diver, if not completely losing them. If you get swept several hundred yards from the anchor on your ascent and safety stop you could potentially not be spotted. Eventually the boat thinks you're overdue and what they do next is critical. Do they wait? Do they start looking? Send a diver down? Meanwhile, every second that passes you are cruising further away. After 30 minutes or and hour, how big does that search area get?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Diving with your daughter holding hands is BAD. Seriously, I mean that. If she is certified, then she would be able to control her buoyancy and swim and handle basic things on her own. Holding hands is a crutch, mental and physical that tends to stunt her development and also keep her insecure of her own abilities. She should not be doing any dives where she needs (or really wants) to hold hands.

Secondly, yeah you screwed up and got lost. I've done that many times, sounds like you had a decent Plan B.

 

[Freewillow]

Agree with Cuzza

 

[Skeptic14]

I'm local to the FL panhandle and familiar with those sites (bridge rubble stacks).

First, Cuzza you mentioned not liking the idea of anchoring, I guess I'm curious what is the preferred method then? These aren't drift dives, I suppose you could try and treat any dive as a drift but there really isn't that much current and the site isn't nearly big enough to "drift along" and be picked up down current. Also, there are other boats using these same spots to fish as well so the boat helps mark that there are divers on that spot so boats fishing move to other spots.

OP, couple questions. Did the boat brief on what to do in case you couldn't find the anchor line for ascent? The dive op I typically use always includes that as part of the brief typically if you can't find the anchor line make a slow controlled ascent but remember it's not a mandatory stop, it's a safety stop for 3 mins and use your judgement on how far you are going to drift during said stop.

Also, east stack is fairly small, were you over sand/already drifted way off the stack when you started to ascend, or had you drifted to a different rubble stack?

The visibility can be pretty bad sometimes in the panhandle, sounds like you handled the situation pretty good, depending on sea conditions and other boat traffic I may have cut the safety stop shorter so as not to have drifted as far.

 

[CuzzA]

First, Cuzza you mentioned not liking the idea of anchoring, I guess I'm curious what is the preferred method then? These aren't drift dives, I suppose you could try and treat any dive as a drift but there really isn't that much current and the site isn't nearly big enough to "drift along" and be picked up down current. Also, there are other boats using these same spots to fish as well so the boat helps mark that there are divers on that spot so boats fishing move to other spots.

Preferred method is drop a jug, mark the GPS or point out to crew the GPS mark we are diving, keep the boat live and follow bubbles.

Keeping the boat live and running has big advantages compared to anchoring.

A) You don't risk a failure to restart. If you've owned a boat long enough you know that once you turn it off there's a chance it won't restart.

B) It does not matter whether there is current or poor navigation from a diver, the boat is with the diver, which leads me to my next points.

C) Keeping the boat with the divers gives them protection from other boaters. It allows the captain to block other boats who ignore diver down flags or divers who venture too far off the site.

D) If a diver surfaces in distress it allows for a quick recovery of the diver. Anchoring requires either pulling the hook or hopefully the boat owner has had some forethought to rig his anchor system for a quick disconnect with a buoy.

E) Anchors foul and damage the reef. Aside from the damage they do, if a boat isn't rigged for a quick disconnect system, is the crew on the ready to cut the line if they need to go rescue a diver quickly?

F) It provides an opportunity for loss of situational awareness. It's not uncommon and there are incidents in this forum where the boat drifted, the crew didn't realize the anchor was no longer holding and divers were seperated from the vessel. Sometimes lost for hours or never to be found.

G) Having the ability to pick up divers allows the diver to not have to work hard to get back to the boat. After an hour of diving the last thing I want to do is a long surface swim and wear myself out.

Again, there's only one advantage to anchoring. It provides a line for divers to cling to on an ascent. I suppose one could argue that it lets the crew and captain relax, but I would call that being lazy and when crews get lazy, they get distracted, when they get distracted, Murphy has the uncanny ability to show up at the worst time.

Now, I'm not familiar with this dive site and the op didn't mention depths, but nevertheless, anchoring the boat is almost always poor practice in my opinion.

 

[Skeptic14]

Also, the anchor line is for more than just ascent in this area. It's sometimes necessary for descent as well, without it you'd never find the wreck/reef. It's not uncommon for the dive op to send the DM down first to make sure we are on the site before anyone else gets in.

Average vis in the panhandle is 20-25', some of these sites aren't big, if you don't get within 15-20 ft you wont find it and you'll spend your time swimming over sand.

I went out Thursday because the forecast was all se current/wind which is the best for our area, we were treated to AMAZING vis for this area... 40-50'. First dive was whitehill reef (natural reef), even with the great vis you couldn't see the reef until you were at 45' of depth. If you descended without an anchor line I don't think you'd find it.

 

[Skeptic14]

These boats are sometimes dropping 16 divers, what is the boat supposed to do if 1-2 divers are drifting/lost from the rest? Who does it stay with?