Dropped Weight, first time ever...
Posted 04-11-2009 at 10:45 AM by Tully Mars
Tags diving, dropped weights, scuba
Yesterday for the first time, other than in a course, I dropped my weights. During an afternoon dive my BC decided it no longer wanted to hold any air at about 55 ft. I started the dive off a boat in Akumal. One DM, a nice couple from the mid west, a local lady who was on her 20th dive and couple from Spain who got cert'ed year ago and hadn't dove since. In the boat I noticed the Spanish couple were having trouble putting on their masks and fins and just in general looked confused. The water was choppy, I say 8-10 ft. Once we all hit the water and started our decent I noticed the local lady was having issues, couldn't seem to descend. So at 25ft I went back up and helped her down. Once she got to about 30-35 ft she was fine. At around 55 ft I noticed I was having problems with bouncy. I'd put a little air in my BC and in within a couple seconds I find myself sinking again. I rolled on my back, put some air in the BC and immediately saw bubbles headed to the surface. A little trouble shooting and I realized it was leaking air at the inflator tube connection over my left shoulder. I messed with it a little and realized it's a lost cause. I gave up and spent the rest of the dive vertical and swimming up. After mess with the BC I did a quick head count and noticed everyone’s spread out quite a ways and the DM is 60-70 yards in front of everyone. A few minutes later the local lady came and grabbed me and pointed to the Spanish couple. They were headed to the surface, quickly headed to the surface. I went up to check on them and with hands signs got they couldn't stay down. So I grabbed both of them and took them back down to 55ft, wasn't a problem I had 15lbs of lead and no air in the BC. Got them both vert. and let a little air out of their BC and everything seem fine... for about 5 mins then they put air back in their BCs and started ascending again. I spent the whole dive herding them and swimming up. At about 42 minutes they started up again and I just let them go as I saw the dive boat above. The local gal and I spent a couple more minutes at 45ft then went to 15ft for the safety stop. I spent the 3 mins at 15ft still swimming up and once it was time to surface I dumped the weight. Thought about dumping sooner but didn't want to find myself on the surface and unable to descend again.
So first time in nearly a 1000 dives over about 20 yrs. I dumped it yesterday. I'm running different options through my head this morning and wondering if I should have handled the situation differently. One thing’s for sure... my legs are tried as hell this today.
So first time in nearly a 1000 dives over about 20 yrs. I dumped it yesterday. I'm running different options through my head this morning and wondering if I should have handled the situation differently. One thing’s for sure... my legs are tried as hell this today.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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my heart is thumping faster now...
so glad you were there for others, and yourself.
yikes.Posted 04-11-2009 at 01:12 PM by ring
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I re-played this dive several times in my head. I always do when something goes wrong. Usually I find "diver error" somewhere. Planning, execution, judgment... somewhere. This time my BC just failed at depth. Seems to fall in the accident category but I guess I could have done a better inspection prior to using it. I did check it over but would have seen the gasket was going to blow sooner or later had I taken it off and done a visual. But the BC worked fine 4-6 weeks ago, so???
If I had to do the dive again I would have dropped into a sandy spot dumped all my weight and pick up 25% and put it in my front pockets, inflated my marker tube and used it for buoyancy (if I had to re-write this blog entry I'd not use the term bouncy again, LOL.) I think doing those two things would have made my dive a lot more comfortable.
Oh well, Monday morning quarterbacking is easy after the fact. It turned out all good and I learned what it's like to dive with no air in my BC. Someone recently told me "good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." I've always used the term "calm seas don't make an experienced sailor." Maybe in the future I'll check more closely?Posted 04-11-2009 at 02:31 PM by Tully Mars
Updated 04-11-2009 at 02:39 PM by Tully Mars -
glad you're alright, buddy...Posted 04-12-2009 at 03:54 AM by uncle phil
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I'm glad your okay. This certainly sounds like a learning experience.Posted 04-13-2009 at 06:34 PM by Baraka_Guru
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