your worst dive experience ever?

[CrawfishDiver]

This wasnt the worst for me but it was for my buddy. Diving in Cozumel my dive buddy looks at me and signals toward the boat. We were just starting the dive and after I Acknowledged he shot to the surface. As I approached from below he was swimming away from the boat removing his gear. I thought something was very wrong until I realized what the brown cloud was coming out of his wetsuit. I turned to go back to the boat and we had attracted the attention of all the other divers. I didnt say anything about it but the next dive someone put a bottle of Immodium AD in his BC pocket.

Sorry dude had tell this one

 

[RiverRat]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but...

1. Swing is swing. If you are neutral with a full tank you will be positive with it empty. It doesn't matter if that tank starts out -10 or +10. A 6 pound change in buoyancy is a 6 pound change in buoyancy.

2. You do NOT want to buffer a 6 pound deviation from neutral with your 12 pound capacity lungs! You DO control buoyancy with breathing, but it should be normal breathing. Nobody should be taking shallow half-breaths (6 pounds according to your numbers) to keep neutral. :shakehead

-Ben

12 pounds is probably a large male diver or just someone built like that. I'm sure for smaller divers/females it's much less. Maybe 4-6 pounds I don't know for sure.

All I know is I rarely add any air to my wing (BC) when diving warm. And I hold safety stops ok and I don't bounce on the reef.

Like I said what did they do BEFORE BCD's were invented??????
Whatever..
I think the truth of the matter is MOST divers don't REALLY know how to dive and are MOST LIKELY OVERWEIGHTED. To each is own.

 

[RiverRat]

i was, i am afraid to admit, pretty freaking scared all of a sudden. i mean, i didnt' have to think through the chain of events here: i had just a little air left, i couldn't move, and nobody was coming to look for me (did i mention i was solo?)

Man, that could have ended real bad. Glad to see you've learned from it and got some more advanced training under your belt. I thinks it's important that we never let our guard down, even on "easy" dives. Something can and always will go wrong.

 

[airsix]

12 pounds is probably a large male diver or just someone built like that. I'm sure for smaller divers/females it's much less. Maybe 4-6 pounds I don't know for sure.

So by your own example it's more of a problem for a smaller diver who has lower lung capacity. Can you see the problem of trying to managing a 6 pound buoyancy change with 6 pound capacity lungs? Lungs are great for controlling buoyancy when you are neutral, but not when you are 6 pounds + or -. Use the BC to get neutral and then fine-tune with breathing. 6 pounds is way beyond 'fine-tuning' range.

Like I said what did they do BEFORE BCD's were invented??????
Whatever..

It's a friendly discussion, but I'll take the "Whatever..." comment to mean "I'm right and I'm not going to listen to anything you have to say" so I'll finish this thought and be done with it. What did divers do before BCDs? They did a lot of finning to maintain depth. It wasn't the best way to dive. That's why we don't do it that way anymore.

I think the truth of the matter is MOST divers don't REALLY know how to dive and are MOST LIKELY OVERWEIGHTED.

You are right that most divers probably are overweighted. And overweighted divers over-use their BCD.

To each is own.

Indeed! I choose physics.

-Ben

 

[RiverRat]

It's a friendly discussion, but I'll take the "Whatever..." comment to mean "I'm right and I'm not going to listen to anything you have to say" so I'll finish this thought and be done with it. What did divers do before BCDs? They did a lot of finning to maintain depth. It wasn't the best way to dive. That's why we don't do it that way anymore.

You are right that most divers probably are overweighted. And overweighted divers over-use their BCD.

Indeed! I choose physics.

-Ben

I'd like to keep it friendly. And yes the "whatever" comment means I'm a little annoyed.
So let's agree to disagree at this point.

But I still know what I know, what works for me. I rarely use my wing diving warm.
No need to. And physics is at work for me too.

Now back to bad dive experiences, sorry for highjack....

 

[Darnold9999]

Andy I am curious if you considered removing your gear and turning around to free yourself. Just curious what went through your mind and if this was possible. Know you have to be careful with this one as depending on weighting you can end up glued to the top of the cave, but sometimes it is the only way out of an entanglement.

 

[Darnold9999]

Just to throw gas on the fire - yes the average young male person has a 12 pound lift set of lungs. This is the amount of air the "average" set of lungs holds from completely exhaling (not empty) to completely full. Females run about 25% less on average.

However, this is not particularly useful as very very few people have access to this full capacity, and fewer still are comfortable breathing across this full range. Try breathing in fully, then inhale again, now breath in and out a normal amount holding as much air as possible in your lungs - that is roughly 11 - 12 pounds lift. Same thing on the exhale - exhale out, exhale again now breath in and out the normal amount at the bottom of your lungs - 0 to 1 pounds lift. Pro musicians that play wind instruments can do this comfortably, some others who use their lungs alot would also fall into this category. Perhaps with training a diver could, but normal people would not, and why would you want to???

I dive to relax, I used to have access to almost this full volume - semi pro musician, but as I get older less so. However, when I dive I prefer to relax and breathe across the normal range of my lungs - not the top half litre or the bottom half litre - so I use my BC. to adjust boyancy so I am breathing normally.

At night when taking pictures - and I don't have a spare hand to get at my BC I dive across a much larger range as I go up and down, but even then at some point I get annoyed at breathing at a non normal point so I change that point using the BC.

Bottom line it is possible but uncomfortable for the average young, male, non smoker, to compensate for an entire tank of air during a dive with lungs only, but if you include the entire poulation for most people it would be impossible.

 

[Scuba-Jay]

what happened to my "worst dive ever thread"...i know i left it around here somewhere!!!! (=

 

[RiverRat]

I tried to get it back on track with my story, but this damn buoyancy thing won't die
I should have kept quite, my fault........

OK so any more bad dive stories????

 

[Scuba-Jay]

Awww ya' Dirty Rat...Cha' Stolle ma' thread!!!

(guess it's not as funny without the mafia accent i had in my head when i typed that....)