Unprepared for the environment.

[Tom_Ivan]

Found myself tangled up with zero visibility. Here's how...

I was diving with my brother and girlfriend in a local lake. The area we were in is about 5m (16 feet) deep and we found a place where the tree roots grow down through the water, forming small makeshift tunnels as they branch out and entwine with other trees. Its a fascinating place to dive so we were swimming through on of these tunnels when I felt my foot get snagged.
Thinking that it'd just be a root caught on my fins buckle I just gave my leg a bit of a shake to free it. This didn't help so I turned around to take a look. The shaking of my foot coupled with me turning around was enough to stir up a heap of silt. My vision effectively dropped to zero. I had to feel around (stirring up even more silt) and eventually was able to feel that a stick had poked trough a hole in my fin and that was what was holding me up. I freed the stick, swam out of the tunnel and back around to my buddies. They got a big fright when I popped up behind them. The silt meant they had no idea what my status was and they thought I was still in front of them. We then checked ourselves over, checked our air and continued the dive.

It wasn't until afterwards when we were taking about it, that we realized that it could have ended very badly.
My buddies had absolutely no way of knowing if I was OK. All they could do is hang back out of the silt cloud and see what happens.
For my part I was lucky that the tangle was minor. Had something caught around my tank/first stage I'd probably have ended up having to completely remove my rig and try to fix the issue without being able to see.

We've decided to make three changes as a result of this;

1. If we're diving and come across an unexpected environment, we will avoid it and return on another dive after having discussed it on the surface.
2. We're going to practice some skills such as mask removal, removing our gear and sorting out a tangle while blindfolded to simulate a zero visibility situation.
3. We're going to develop a method of communicating in zero visibility such as a series of taps on our tank to communicate simple messages such as "I'm stuck", "out of air", "Go back" etc.

Despite all that, its a very interesting dive site and I'm looking forward to going back.

 

[KevinNM]

Overhead diving is really dangerous without training. Please consider training.

 

[Lorenzoid]

It sounds like the tree roots might be considered the more benign type of overhead commonly referred to as a swim-through. But it occurs to me that a swim-through coupled with the potential for zero visibility changes everything.

 

[Bubblesong]

where is this located in New Zealand? It sounds like a fun place to visit, although, I will take those suggestions and take the overhead training first.

 

[Tom_Ivan]

Lake Rua near Christchurch.

Not a dive site I'd go out of my way to explore, but great for a bit of fun 5 minutes from home.

 

[Bob DBF]

It sounds like the tree roots might be considered the more benign type of overhead commonly referred to as a swim-through. But it occurs to me that a swim-through coupled with the potential for zero visibility changes everything.

My first thought as well. The OP is lucky that it is not a great fishing spot with the ensuing tangle of mono-filament. I dove a lake that had trees still standing and I didn't see the fishing line in the branches until I got caught.


Bob