your worst dive experience ever?

[drbill]

Not dive without a BCD? What do folks think we did before they became commonplace?

I've already mentioned here or elsewhere on SB my experience with an "OOA" situation at 70 ft due to my tank valve debris tube clogging.

One other more recent incident comes to mind. I was doing my second dive on Farnsworth Bank off Catalina. Went into about 25 min of obligatory deco. Had plenty of gas... until I stopped before ascending to film a torpedo ray. Got to my last stop with about 800 psi in my tank, so I switched to my pony to complete the deco (first time I've ever used the pony to complete a dive). Was I surprised when my reg breathed a 50/50% mix of air and water. My buddy was there with a 40 cu ft stage if I needed it, but I got control of my breathing a completed the deco obligation using my pony. Suffice it to say the reg was serviced the next day.

 

[dogtownmax]

oh, another bad dive:

night dive in cozumel. a good dive buddy, J and i are on a dive boat with another dive buddy pair, and older couple. the dm lays out the dive plan, which starts with getting off the boat, grouping together at the surface, when everyone is ready the thumbs down is given and we decend to the sandy bottom at about 30' where we regroup, and then follow the dm around the sand and coral.

essentially a nice, simple night dive. viz is the usual 100'+ water temp is in the eighties, a full moon is beaming thru the water. you can see the bottom from the surface.

all goes according to plan, until the decent. the thumbs down is given, and my buddy and i decend. at the bottom we look for the others and they are at the surface. the dm signals us with her light "are we ok". we signal back "ok". we wait. the other team makes a couple of aborted attempts to decend. we can clearly see the three of them on the surface. more signals. we are still ok. FINALLY the dm joins us on the bottom. the other buddy team never decended, they are on the boat.

its a really nice night for a dive. we do the dive while the dm tried to get us to hurry up and finish. we dont want to. there are tons of creatures around. lots of bioluminecence. we have lots of air. its warm. we eventually give in to the dm's impatience. after all, the dive wasnt called, but we dont knwo why the other team aborted and the dm is trying to wrap it up. aight. we surface with over 900psi or so after a half hour, both elated at a nice dive, and a little miffed at having to cut it short (hey, i would have come up with 500 psi after my safety stop and still had at least another ten minutes plus of bottom time).

turns out the other team had just gotten to cozumel, and had chosen a night dive as their refresher, and got scared. getting scared is fine, but to do a night dive as your refresher after not diving for a while seems... in bad faith. the dm claimes she didnt know. how is that possible. whatever. the dm still shouldnt have hurried us. the other team was fine on the boat they were fine, if bored.

 

[O.M.O.H.]

Agree on number 1 - you must start a little heavy.

Disagree on number 2 - you can use your 12 pound lungs to compensate.

I always get in a debate over this all the time. Talk to some of the "old timers" here on Scubaboard. You know, the guys that were diving BEFORE BCD's were invented.

Funny i should bring this up. But my mom is a marine biologist with a couple thousand dives below her belt mainly in Russia in Baltic Sea. Anyway, she started diving in 1965 and at the time they had no freaking BC's... or aluminum tanks.. or computers, or even pressure gauges. Everyone used this weird looking rig that reminds me of a frame they use to mount backpacks for mountain climbers. Everyone dove steel doubles and so all they used for bouyancy underwater were their lungs.
Some very imaginative divers, thoug, for surface bouyancy would steal and use airline life wests that airlines keep under the seats on the plane.
Their regulators were made in such way that the whole double hose assembly would start to vibrate every time you inhale when the tank would become somewhat empty... At the time even the J-valve wasn't invented or at least weren't available in Russia. They never knew how much air is there for sure, so every dive had to be very carefully planned and executed.
P.S. What happend to the time when sex was safe and diving was dangerous?

 

[JenTeach]

Worst experience...

My husband and I were in Cozumel on our second dive trip. We had been enjoying the week and were on our second night dive. I was beginning to get a little chilly and I had been fighting a foggy mask.

My husband was just a little below and in front of me. All of a sudden, I was shooting to the surface and began using my flashlight to signal trouble. I went from 35 feet to 0 feet in less than 10 seconds. At the surface, I had no idea what had happened and was trying like crazy to get back down. Very shortly, the dive master was at my side trying to figure out what happened. He felt around on my BC and discovered that one of my weight pockets was MISSING!! He got additional weight off the boat and then he and my husband held me down for my safety stop.

I had some tingles in my fingers later that night, called DAN and they sent me to the local DAN doctor. Everything checked out okay, so I'm still not sure if the symptoms were real or in my head...I was a little freaked out from the whole thing.

And the next morning...the boat forgot to pick us up at the resort. I think someone was looking over me.

Had my pocket fallen out earlier in the dive, during the day, or with a few more dives under my belt, I'm not sure if I would have had the same result. Lessons learned: keep a close eye on your weight pockets and carry DAN Insurance. (We had purchased ours just before leaving on this trip.)

Jennifer

 

[kimber841]

This is more of a pre-dive worst experience, but here goes.

A buddy and I planned a dive in a fairly deep river 55-60' in search for a civil war musket (several have been found there). On arrival we dropped anchor and we proceeded to don our gear when I heard a splash toward the shore. As I looked up I saw what appeared to be the rest (maybe 7-8') of a burmese python slither into the med. vis. water. I had heard all the stories about pet snake owners letting there snakes loose because they grew too big, but never saw it first hand.

Alligators never really bothered us/me because we new the probability of a attack is very minimal. Besides several of us have had alligators swim right past us (underwater), they act as if your not even there. Anyway, Needless to say, we did not dive there that day.