35m drysuit full of air and who the hell are you?!

[gingerstu]

Originally Posted by Steve S

Hi Stu,

thanks for posting your experience, I always descend slowly as I've found over the years if I go fast I am more suceptable to narcossis.

Safe diving,
Steve

I hadnt thought of that. Since this incident I have made a point of a more controlled descent and touch wood havent had such a bad narcosis hit since.

[Finless]

Originally Posted by mala

don,t you find it a pain in the arse to wave your arm about to dump air rather than a small shrug of the shoulders?

No, I ascend in a horizontal position with the reel held by my cuff dump arm/hand. I only need to lift my arm 10 inches and out comes the gas. As mentioned previously I suspect I am overweighted to match my comfort levels with regards to gas in the suit so perhaps this makes it easier to dump air?

All I can say is that I have dived like this for years, it works and I only had one rapid ascent when my D/S feed was slowly free flowinf gas into my suit.

One point I would make is that in such instances you have less time to react than you might think - esp if on a shallow dive.

[Nick_lincoln]

If you had only just descended, and quickly as you suggested. The point where you could not prevent positive buoyancy would have been the point to ascend rather than clinging onto the wreck. If you were right at the start of the dive you could re-ascend with little worries - unless it was not your first dive of the day that may add a bit more risk.

Better to get out quick rather than stay down eating into no-stop time with a suit which wont dump.

My 2p worth.

Glad you came back safe dude.

Nick

[gingerstu]

Originally Posted by Nick_lincoln

If you had only just descended, and quickly as you suggested. The point where you could not prevent positive buoyancy would have been the point to ascend rather than clinging onto the wreck. If you were right at the start of the dive you could re-ascend with little worries - unless it was not your first dive of the day that may add a bit more risk.

To be honest I didnt fancy doing a polaris rocket impression. As it was I managed to resolve the issue on the bottom within a minute or two (it seemed a hell of a lot longer) Surley if you can avoid a rapid ascent you should do? I managed this by holding onto the wreck. In this instance it was definately the right thing to do, after all we were in the shipping lanes and I would'nt have had time to blob up.

I certainly stand by my actions in resolving the initial problem and would do exactly the same again, apart from the not thumbing the dive bit.

[Nick_lincoln]

Originally Posted by gingerstu

To be honest I didnt fancy doing a polaris rocket impression. As it was I managed to resolve the issue on the bottom within a minute or two (it seemed a hell of a lot longer) Surley if you can avoid a rapid ascent you should do? I managed this by holding onto the wreck. In this instance it was definately the right thing to do, after all we were in the shipping lanes and I would'nt have had time to blob up.

I certainly stand by my actions in resolving the initial problem and would do exactly the same again, apart from the not thumbing the dive bit.

Even with a shipping lane up top, that early in the dive I would have been out of there after a quick signal to the buddy if time / viz / narcosis quota (!!) allowed.
For the simple reason that if the valve stuck again and you were closer to deco or even worse, into it, positive buoyancy is a lot more serious.

But you came back alive and a bit cold so the decision can't have been a bad one eh?

[Finless]

Originally Posted by Nick_lincoln

For the simple reason that if the valve stuck again and you were closer to deco or even worse, into it, positive buoyancy is a lot more serious.

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Depending on how I felt I think I would probably continue the dive. Once on the bottom and neutrally buoyant you shouldn't need to inflate the suit again. You could always use the wing instead. You can always reel yourself up from the wreck if need be BUT it is not to be recommended in strong tidal area as it is most uncomfortable and hard work on the arms!

[Nick_lincoln]

Originally Posted by Finless

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Depending on how I felt I think I would probably continue the dive. Once on the bottom and neutrally buoyant you shouldn't need to inflate the suit again. You could always use the wing instead. You can always reel yourself up from the wreck if need be BUT it is not to be recommended in strong tidal area as it is most uncomfortable and hard work on the arms!

Fair enough, but I'd still can the dive sharpish if this situation happened to me. I like everything working properly. If it stuck later in the dive, then of course you need to find a way of making a controlled ascent, and what gingerstu did is applicable to this. But at the start of the dive, nah.... no thanks, its cup of tea and ginger biscuits time for me.

Reeling yourself up off the wreck..... the yanks advocate this ascent method don't they? I've been told that anyway, some kind of sacrificial reel attachment is used on the wreck, then up you go like a helium balloon (no reference to trimix divers intended) That said in shadow divers and deep descent they make reference to using lift bags for ascent so I assume they use them in a similar way to DSMB's.

[Finless]

Originally Posted by Nick_lincoln

Reeling yourself up off the wreck..... the yanks advocate this ascent method don't they? I've been told that anyway, some kind of sacrificial reel attachment is used on the wreck, then up you go like a helium balloon (no reference to trimix divers intended) That said in shadow divers and deep descent they make reference to using lift bags for ascent so I assume they use them in a similar way to DSMB's.

I have done it once when I took the skippers word about "must come up the shot line" very seriously - only 2 off us did, everyone else just bagged off as normal!

I new where the shot was at the end of my dive until the tide started running then the line went off somewhere else and I couldn't find it again. As we were just inside the edge of the shipping lanes and all those big ships sounded like they were really close I winched myself up off the wreck and then cut the line on the surface (as discussed in my TDI adv EANx/deco). Although this was not because of buoyancy issues the principal is the same and hanging on any line when the tide is running is damned uncomfortable. I believe I cut short my deco by 4 mins due to being "blown around" too much (inc up and down) - when I saw the boat overhead I went straight up and sucked the rest of my 80% empty.

[rustferret]

I Know a few chaps who have had the same problem with the cuff dump so for a long time now have had both a cuff dump and shoulder dump....... couple of weeks ago I had both block! as luck would have it I was only at 5m (comming back in on shore dive) hung onto a peice of kelp for abit befor it snapped and up I went.

In my case and the original post WHERE WAS THE BUDDY WHILE THIS WAS HAPPENING!

my buddy (new buddy) was lobby hunting and did see him looking as I driffted over head.

My regular buddys and I know how the other dives and we always have half an eye on each other.

Rustferret

[re-form42]

have experienced similar problems on a couple of dives but have always managed to resolve the buoyancy before it became a problem. I think ankle weights have always helped. Has anyone ever thought of putting a cuff dump style valve on the ankle for such emergencies? is this possible?