[ratcliffe]

This serves as a reminder to anyone who changes their configuration around by ANY amount, no matter how small, to do it properly.

I was diving at Dosthill, and I had cut a chunk off my weight belt so that I didn't have a long dangling piece of belt getting in the way, but I hadn't gotten around to burning the end of the belt to seal it.
So I kitted up and jumped into Dosthill, and headed down to 17 metres. I was diving with a new buddy pairing, there were three of us, and the other two were a regular buddy pair. Anyway, we had just gone past the sunken tree in Dosthill, when I felt my weight belt slip. I reached down and grabbed it just as it left my body and I was becoming buoyant.
So there I am on the bottom of Dosthill holding my weightbelt in my hand. I stop and put the belt back around my waist, and then I realise that the bloody end of the webbing has frayed and there is bits of belt webbing all over the place. After struggling with it for a moment, one of the other divers comes back to see what I am doing, and I make my second mistake and give him an OK sign, meaning that "its ok I am handling this, but something is amiss" which he of course took to be "OK, lets get on with the dive" I am concentrating on getting the belt back through the buckle, when I realise he is finning away and not looking back.
For some reason I will always remember that feeling, and its a good thing to remember, so that I never do something so stupid again... he buggers off into the distance, and I am left fumbling with my shredded belt.
Eventually I realise that I am not going to get this thing threaded back through, so I am forced to ascend and surface holding the two ends of the belt in place, and thats quite hard, then on the surface I have to surface swim most of the way across Dosthill holding it there. As is always the way, I point blank refused to just let it drop away once on the surface...
Anyway, I get most of the way back and then the staff notice me, a lone diver on the surface, and start shouting across, asking if I am OK. I'm knackered from wrestling the belt and the surface swim, so I don't reply until I am near to the shore, which is another mistake, as they are about to start a search by the time I answer them. Eventually, at least 5 minutes after I started my ascent having lost contact, and deciding to abort, the other two divers surface, having eventually realised that I am not with them, and are signalled that I am at the waters edge, so they head back.
I got a deserved bollocking from the staff for not responding to them, and the buddy pair got a bollocking for not surfacing sooner/realising that I had gone missing.
All this was caused because I was too lazy to burn/seal the end of my weightbelt after cutting it. I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN !