My wake up call

[Scuttler]

I’ve been thinking of writing this for a while but every time I started it I found an excuse to not write it. I don’t know if it’s due to embarrassment or just because I’d rather forget the event and put it down to experience.

It happened in 2005 when I was diving singles. I had a 15l with a 3l pony attached to it. I was in a second hand membrane suit that was cut for a person 5” taller and a lot heavier than me. I also had a Aladdin Air Integrated Computer. I was overweighted because I’d never taken the pony into account when doing my weight check and hadn’t bothered checking my weight in a year.

The previous day I had done two dives.

My first was on the Aeolian Sky (32m Total time 56 minutes including 12 minutes of Deco although I accelerated it using 40% on the ascent).

The second was on the Firth Fisher. Here I started playing Russian roulette with deco. The 15l had 30% in as did my buddy. My computer was running on air so we used my buddy for the deco obligation. (37m Total dive time 49 minutes). The Aladdin threw a paddy and signalled 18 minutes missed deco and then shutdown into SoS mode.

I was fairly blasé about the whole thing. That night I went off to the pub and got absolutely plastered. I got back to the B&B sometime around 0200 and then rolled out of bed again at 0600 ready for the day’s diving.

I don’t suffer hangovers in the conventional sense (i.e. I never feel sick or get headaches).

We headed out to the Betsy Anna for the first dive of the day.

I rarely feel ‘pressured’ when getting kitted up because my attitude has always been I’ll dive when I’m ready and won’t be rushed. I do however tend to start kitting up before others so that I can take my time but still be the first or one of the first in.

So when we arrived on the site I was almost ready. We had some twinset divers to drop in first as their runtime was likely to exceed ours. This was fine by me because I used the time to relax.

It soon was our turn to jump in. We headed over to the shot and then dropped down. The current was quite strong and I had to pull myself down the shotline. Arriving at the bottom was like arriving in Picaddilly circus at rush hour. There were divers everywhere. My buddy and I headed of to the boilers. Suddenly I kicked and my leg met no resistance. Somehow my fin had come off. I looked round and saw it floating away with the current. I finned hard after it but fortunately another diver caught it and passed it to me. I was so tired and breathless now that my SAC was in the region of 90 l/m. I managed to wrestle my fin back on and looked around for my buddy. He was nowhere to be seen. I know I hadn’t signalled a problem (I’d focussed on retrieving the fin to the exclusion of all other thoughts) but I just assumed he’d see me wrestling with my fin and help out. I assumed he’d be looking out for me as much as I was him. I gave it exactly one minute of searching and then decided to head back up the shotline. Getting back up was tiring. I didn’t seem to have the strength in my legs to overcome the weight of my equipment and for some reason didn’t even consider inflating my BCD. I started to pull myself up the shotline.

It took 4 minutes for me to ascend from 24m to 12m.

At around the 12m mark the shit hit the fan again. I looked out to my right and noticed the shotline was slack but above me it was taut. Looking back I can see the cogs whirring trying to make sense of the picture I was seeing. Fortunately the penny dropped and I let go of the shotline just as the shot went past me bound for the surface. The last pair in had obviously bagged it up.

I figured it was time to send up the blob. I fished around trying to get the reel (one of the big yellow McMahon things) out of my BC pocket when I noticed my ears starting to pressurise. I was at 18m and sinking. I gave a couple of kicks but was too tired still to give a concerted effort. I landed back down at 25m. By now 10 minutes had passed since arriving at the bottom of the shot.

I spent another minute at the bottom sending the blob up, getting breath and my crap together. All I could think was what a twat I was getting myself into this position in the first place and how complacent I’d become.

For some reason I still couldn’t fin up and I don’t know why but I still didn’t think to blast a bit of air into the BCD. Instead I started winching myself up using the reel. Literally I was hanging off it giving two kicks and then furiously winding in the slack.

I got to 20m and caught my breath for a minute before recommencing up to 14m where I stopped for another minute. By now I started to think about deco. I hadn’t gone into deco (my computer was saying 71 minutes NDT) but I was aware that my SAC hadn’t dropped below 40 l/m in all this time. In fact I looked and could see that my contents were down to 90 bar. I switched to my pony which had 40% in (only about 8% more than my backgas but I figured I needed it) and started back up. The last 14m took 10 minutes, I intended to take longer than normal as I put a 2 minute stop at 6m and 2 minutes at 3m just to be on the safe side but I was still chewing through my air. I think I surfaced with 20 bar in the pony and 60 in the main.

Once on the boat I started to reflect on what a compete fuckwit I’d been. Nothing bad had happened to me but that was more through luck than judgement or skill.

I know the fin had come off due to me clipping the ABS clip on part of the wreck but I was sure I’d locked it before diving. Evidently I can’t have and as I didn’t double check it went unnoticed. This hadn’t been the first time it had happened but I just accepted that it would happen from time to time and I’d manage it as it occurred.

Signifying a problem to my buddy would not have taken much time and would have ensured he was aware of it and remained with me.

My weighting had long been a problem lying in wait, it’s just that I refused to acknowledge it. Classic denial. Everytime I sent up a blob I would be plummeting to the wreck or sea bed so instead of doing a weight check and sorting my buoyancy out I adopted to simply drop down anyway before I sent it up.

Yes I was narked, obviously the swim down had tired me out. It was dark and visability was down to 1-2m which no doubt contributed to the narcosis but I didn’t acknowledge that I was in a narcosis situation FFS we’re only at 24m and I’m on 32% were my thoughts IIRC.

I was unfit, this was evident from how I’d struggled to get down and then struggled even more to get back up.

Any of the above in isolation perhaps would not have caused a problem. Together they were making me a walking accident waiting to happen.

However, all of those problems were compounded by my not giving due respect to the hobby that we practice and the potential risks. By staying out drinking the night before I not only placed myself at increased risk of DCI though dehydration and lack of sleep I also displayed a complete lack of regard for those people I was diving with especially my buddy. I’ve no doubt I was still hung over from the night before and I think it manifested itself in dulled senses and reduced reaction times. I’m convinced that had I restricted it down to 1 or 2 pints and been in bed by 1130 then most of this would not have happened.

I’m glad it did happen. I think it brought things home to me what can happen when things go wrong and how invariably the incident pit is as deep as you want to make it. If the sequence of events had happened towards the end of the dive then it is possible I wouldn’t be here to write this now. That may sound dramatic but when I look at my consumption over the 25 minutes between losing my fin and surfacing I can without doubt state that I would not have had enough gas to make the surface. Would I have ditched my weightbelt? Who knows, I doubt it as I just became focussed on the reel and the surface. Nothing else entered my head.

After the dive I cancelled the second dive and headed home. After about 3 weeks where I decided that it wasn’t going to put me off diving I went out and did some weight checks removing 4kg from my belt.

I’m now much more critical about my diving. I realise the areas that need work and constantly strive for improvement. I would say that I am my own worst critic. I’ve also started restricting how much alcohol I drink on the night before a dive.

[Clare Gledhill]

excellent report

[hogen-deifar]

I concur with Clare. Certainly food for thought and good of you to confess. I personally like to read this sort of thing. It helps me with my diving, so thanks for posting.

[SoggyFox]

Honest write up, mate

apparently i need to put it about before giving you one again.

[Buoyant Babe]

Originally Posted by SoggyFox

Honest write up, mate

apparently i need to put it about before giving you one again.

I've just given him one

Thank you for sharing this. Like Soggy says, honest report

[ShinyD]

Agree with everyone above!

Starting diving and being met with a raft of highly experienced divers is daunting and it's easy to forget sometimes that, by the law of averages, a high percentage of those divers have made mistakes that had I known about I might not have made (or might not make).

Sharing things like this just open the eyes of the less experienced (like me) to some of the multitude of things that can go wrong and start the descent into the incident pit.

Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Have a green for your trouble

[neilh]

Excellent honest and frank write up, thanks for sharing - and glad you came out of it ok.

[Finless]

Welcome to the club.

[jimbob]

Yikes, thanks for that.

[CotoChris]

Great honest report, very well written and a reminder to all divers experienced or not on what can happen. In this sport of ours we have to be constantly on guard.