your worst dive experience ever?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

i have to concur with Irene....flooded drysuit...it was my own stupid fault though.....(didn't do the zip all the way up....) another bad experience was before we even got diving site! took us 24 hours to drive a normally 12 hour trip....equipment van crashed into a car before even being loaded...car totalled, van only had a busted light....after getting approval, swapped around lights from the spare minibus....then our minibus broke down...long wait for the AAA.....tow to garage....garage couldn't fix....2 of our drivers get towed back to the university...only minibus left is the one now lacking a headlight, so lights swapped again, they finally drive back to pick the rest of the crew up....during all this, about 8 of us were stuck at this dude's house (who we were picking up!) but we didn't know him....so we're all stuck at this strangers house, with us playing cards at the local pub and walking down to the local supermarket to get some food...an interesting experience, but would never want to do it again!!!! the only nice thing was when we did finally get there, 24 hours after we left (so we arrived at 5am) the chalets were nice and warm, the fridge stocked, but....me and my roommate couldn't find our luggage, there was a stranger sleeping on our floor (well, it was the living room)....but we were too tired to care! but i have to say, our other room mates were wonderful and made up our beds and everything! :D other then that it was a wonderful week of diving :D
 
jim ernst:
Andy, how did you get out ???

Did help arrive??

I had to ask, as your story would be my worst nightmare and scare me more then any other possibility!!

Andy drowned. You didn't get that notice? Sorry, couldn't help myself.
 
I have to say my worst diving experience was in the Keys. My boyfriend and I went down there on a trip sponsored by our LDS. My b/f had been certified in the springs and had never been in the ocean before. I had a whopping 20 dives to my name so I wasn't exactly in any position to assist him. We took seasickness meds before leaving the dock, but the seas were rolling out there and my b/f is starting to feel sick.

I am trying to encourage him to get into the water quickly to avoid becoming more sick. Well we talked about the plan, I would go in first and hang onto the tag line and wait for him. I enter the water and realize there is a ripping current am holding onto the tag line waiting for him. I look down to check that everything is ok and he jumps into the water and floats (rather quickly) away from me. I go swim after him and we realize that he does not have enough weight on him. By this time the waves have made him sick and he starts to vomit through his reg. By this time we are a long ways from our boat and getting farther away every moment. I ask him if he is ok to swim and he says yes. I start swimming and then realize that he is not keeping up with me. He's still puking, I try to signal the boat and deploy me SMB but they either don't see it or they can't break their mooring to come and get us because of the other divers. So I start towing him and realize that we are not going to make it back to our boat and start swimming to a boat that is a little more down current from out boat. We make it to that other boat and they were great and assisted us on board. Meanwhile my poor b/f is still puking. The new boat finally gets in contact with our boat and they come over to get us. They wanted my b/f to jump back in the water and get back onto our boat. No way is that going to happen, he's still actively vomiting. Luckily this boat was going back to the same dock area as our boat. I know we caused the captain of the boat we were supposed to be on a MI. He made a really big deal out of it and said the Coast Guard was going to get upset. Whatever, you don't put someonw who is actively vomiting back in the water.

If that had been my first ocean dive I am not sure I would have gotten back in the water. He did and we ended the week with a spectacular dive on the Speigel. I will not dive that particular dive op again because of the way that situation was handled. Next time I will go for a smaller six pack dive op. Live and Learn!
 
Worst dive was also out of Cancun. About 18 years ago, hadn't been diving for a few years and hadn't been in warm water ever, but was on vacation and wanted to go tropical diving.

We were downtown Cancun - not out on the beach (a whole other story) so I arrange with a local to do a dive charter. Turns out to be a 14' skiff - me and the DM. No idea where he took me, swells were 6 - 8 feet or so and I am feeding the fish on the way out. I get seasick, but know how to deal with it and it always goes away once I get in the water and stop moving. Not this time, the dive site was shallow so the motion if anything got worse underwater. Learned on this dive that you can puke through your reg and survive. Not sure I wanted to at that point.

All this to see a bunch of sand and pretty much nothing else. A hurricane had been through a couple of months earlier to rearrange things and cover up anything alive. Absolutely nothing to see but sand and a few rocks scraped bare of any life.

Fortunately went to Cozumel the same trip and had a great dive a few days later or I might have given up diving completely after that experience.
 
laurelgsc:
Next time I will go for a smaller six pack dive op. Live and Learn!

In rough seas, smaller boats are worse for those who get sea sick.

Wise choice to head for the other boat.
 
Whoa! Back up the truck, Maynard...

I have a question for the board concerning a previous post. I was under the impression that the fellow in Laurelgsc's post must have been pretty new to ocean dives. I sympathize with both him and his partner about the seasickness. Happens to the best of us (well, at least SOME of us, anyway). However, I was a bit confused and concerned about the last part of the post. Is the Spiegel Grove considered an appropriate dive for a what I take to be a fairly inexperienced diver? I was under the impression that it was rated "experienced" at least.
Your thoughts, SB'ers?

By the way, Laurel, good job of handling a difficult situation on the surface of that first dive. You kept your head, evaluated the situation, and made an entirely appropriate call to head to the other boat. Way to keep your wits about you. Sounds like you did a great job for someone with "20 something" dives.
 
My worst dive was also one of my first dives. I got certified in February and in June of the same year went to St. Thomas to hang out with some friends that lived there. I hadn’t dived since I got certified so I wanted to take it slow and make sure I remembered everything. My friend took me on a couple easy peasy beach dives at Coki Beach one day so I could check my buoyancy and all that before he sent me out on some boat dives. Everything was great!

I did 2 days on the boat with no issues and so at the end of the second day some ladies from Texas talked me into doing a night dive with them that night. I was a little scared, but they assured me that it was fun and the best dives to do. The DM decided to take us to a small wreck in the channel called the General Rogers. There were 5 of us and we decided to all just stay together. We descended down the line, I was #4 of 5…the girl that was #5 couldn’t clear her ears and was just hanging on the line…I stayed with her for a while and then she motioned for me to go, and she was went back up. The current had picked up dramatically in just the few short minutes we were in the water and as I went on down the line I was having problems hanging on. I knew this wasn’t good. When we reached the wreck, it was much worse; we were hanging on to the wreck just to keep from being blown off. It was a small wreck and it didn’t take long for us to reach the bow line. DM gave us the signal to go up; the current was just too much. We all started up the line one by one and by this time my heart was already racing and I was quite flustered. I had made it almost to the surface when I was just yanked off the line…I still managed to do my Safety stop and surface, but when I did…I could barely see the boat! And it should have been right there. It was pitch black and I couldn’t see any of the other girls either. I went into total panic mode. Hyperventilating and crying…It was horrible. I knew I was still drifting which made me it that much worse. I started waving my light and screaming. I was convinced I was going to die! (I’m sooo dramatic)…I later found out that when the first girl went back up, she was swept out by the current and couldn’t swim back, so the boat had unhooked from the buoy and went to get her. After a few minutes the other girls started to come in to sight, and we were all drifting together. I calmed down and the boat finally spotted us and picked us up.

As we all sat down to take our gear off…no one said anything. I finally said “Was it supposed to go like that?” Everyone just started laughing…Needless to say, I learned quite a bit from that dive and I’ll never forget it. It did take me a while before I would be talked into another night dive though!
 
Irene:
Three words: Flooded dry suit.


Brr.

so..do you turn into a sea anchor? sounds terrible.

So, Jennifer what was the main lesson? (sounds scarey!)
 

Back
Top Bottom