When have you called a dive and why?

[tropicaledit]

I called a dive yesterday (Fri June 9th). I have about 20 dives to my credit and I was with a very experienced diver for a buddy. He recomended a new rig. I must say it was impressive, but the thing was (I wasn't familiar with it). There was just to many hoses and regulators. My mind wasnt calm. I was trying to hard to concentrate on what was where. Additionally the seas were a bit choppy and the depth was playing with me. All around bad vibe. I jumped in, never decended ... and waved the boat back. Being new to this I felt bad, but I felt too uncomfortable. After getting on the boat, I was concerned about my buddy but I was told not to worry from the Captain, that he was fine and did solo dives all the time. He has 30 years experience.

Now reading these threads I KNOW I did the right thing. So my plan now is to step back and go at a different pace, a slower pace. Doesn't matter how slow or shallow, just so I can stick around for while longer to jump in the pond on another day.

Still Learning, that was call #2 for me.

 

[Cacia]

Congratulations! best skill you will ever learn. How to call it "just because..." Next time you really need to, you won't even feel bad. Seriously, it takes some confidence, but it is so important.

 

[caymaniac]

I once called a dive when I was diving at East Chute off Cayman Brac. I was slowly descending during the dive and entering a sand chute that dropped off into LALA land when I noticed that my computer suddenly went blank.....that was it. I had no idea how long I was down, how deep I'd been other than the computer had read 110ft. just before it went blank. I aborted the dive, my dive buddy surfaced with me and we climbed back aboard the boat. I took off the until the next morning...about 24 hours and then resumed diving. I put new batteries in my computer, it then continued to work fine for the rest of the week. When I returned home I purchased another computer and now dive with a redundant.

 

[Packhorse]

Called a dive yesterday.
It was the 3rd dive of the day and was suposed to dive on a reef at 23m. We only had 25 min of NDL time left but thought it still be worth it as we dived the same site earlier in the day and it was great. As it turned out we missed the reef and ended up at 28m on a sandy bottom. spent a few minutes swiming towards where we thought the reef was then decided to call the dive. It doesnt happen very often but when I do call off a dive I know I have done the right thing.

 

[caymaniac]

I also called a dive when I was half way to the bottom at between 20 & 30 Ft. I had just jumped off the back of the boat and started my way down when I noticed that I was taking in too much water from my regulator. I paused and carefully tried to take another breath when I took in all salt water. My buddy had already passed me so I decided to ascend. On the way up I took one more small breath....all salt water. On the surface I spit out my reg. only to realize that the mouth piece was disconnected!

 

[mogwai]

Have only had to call a dive when a good way into it and accidentally broke the neckseal on my drysuit. Got pretty cold pretty quick and was time to get out of dodge. About the only time i have called it. Did a dive in the Red Sea and swam into a huge amount of stinging plankton. Really uncomfortable but decided to stick with it. Lips and ears were not happy but funny thing was my buddy was doing his first nitrox dive and spent the dive thinking 'this stuff makes your lips go all tingly'. Felt like needles to me but only slight irritation to him and he thought it was the nitrox LOL. Got through the dive and the plankton but hurt, closest i had ever come to saying the hell with this and bailing, just left too bad a taste in the mouth to get out the water at the time. Would bail in minutes if it happened again rather than persevere all the way through.

 

[del_mo]

My wife and I just called a dive this past week. The tropical storm in the Gulf was starting to kick things up and the surge through the coral heads made the dive far less than fun. Since we dive for fun, there was no longer any point being down below.

 

[IceIce]

- When our DM was dissapeared because of bad viz, and we found out that my buddy's camera was flooded.
- When we dived through the tunnel, diver behind me picked the wrong way out, and the rest of the divers behind her got lost, my buddy was right behind him. The two groups were able to hear each other, but couldn't determine which way the sounds came from. So we did some search, circling around the top of the tunnel for few minutes, and abort.
- When I was stung by sea urchin, and the blood came out in green color. I forgot that blood looks odd in the blue sea, so I was quite surprised. We called the dive.
- Our DM dissapeared again, it still happened in the same trip. So three divers, tried to navigate but decided to go up after a while.
- On the end of 8 diving day, we got bruises and cut on the ankles because of strong current. It was cold (25C, but that's considered cold for us!) and we experience nasty down current on the third dive, so we decided to abort the night dive in the same location. One diver continued and she got the best dive and best pictures. But I couldn't say I regret the decision to curl up in my warm bed. : )

I always have weird feeling before holiday, common or diving holiday more than few days. I had this feeling that something might go wrong etc usually more than a week before. But one week before, the feeling dissapeared. If I trust my feeling, I would never able to go on long holiday, so on my last trip, I ignored it but try to make sure everything was ok.

 

[rongoodman]

Very first OW dive, due to excruciating pain in the sinuses above my eyes. I am habitually stuffed up because of allergies but I only felt occasional pressure in the pool sessions. I finished the dives, being more careful about descending more slowly and equalizing more often, along with some Allegra.

 

[ArcticDiver]

Wonderful Thread

I remember the first dive I called. Night, liveaboard, diving in a threesome, suspicious about the current, boat is moored in restricted maneuvering space. The other two wanted to go. The DM told us "Just drop to the bottom fast. You'll be alright" I said: "Piece of cake to get in the water. But what happens if the current sweeps us past the boat while recovering?"

Dive entry was mid-ship. Recovery was at stern swim platform. So, under pressure from the other two I agreed to go IF our strongest swimmer could make it on the surface from the mid-ship entry to the mooring line. In he went, swimming as strong as he could he was swept past the stern swim platform. He was able to grab the line and came to the platform.

Both still wanted to dive and wanted me to go with them. I told them I was aborting and why and took off my gear. They finally saw the light and aborted also.

From that point on my philosophy has been: "I don't need a reason to abort a dive, either before entry or during the dive." I'll dive with nearly anyone except a person who argues with me about calling a dive. That is one of the few things that, to me, is truly unsafe.