Are you prepared for emergencies?

[punkpup]

All these posts are very thought provoking!

I was certified in Massachusetts in 1986 by a former Marine D.I. who is a NAUI certified Instructer. He was incredibly thorough in his instruction. For certification as a "SCUBA Diver" I attended classes for six weeks and had to pass weekly written tests as well as pool tests and was not elegible to do open water dives until I passed all written and pool tests. I then went on to take the course for "Advanced SCUBA Diver" that year as well.

As to the subject of overweighting........ it is extremely dangerous!!!

In 1987 I was in the Caymans on a live aboard dive boat for my second Caribbean Dive trip.The first dive of the day is generally anywhere between 90' to 120'. The minimum rating for any of the divers was Advanced SCUBA/Open Water depending on NAUI or PADI certification so all of us are competent divers and can plan multiple dives with the appropriate decompression stops without the aid of Dive Computers. The water was very rough and my regular Buddy was not feeling well enough to dive so I Buddied with one of the Dive Masters. We planned the dive, checked our gear and loaded our weight belts with lead. Being excited to make the first dive of the trip I made a critical and potentially deadly error; having been so accustomed to diving in a 1/4" Neoprene Wet Suit I overweighted my belt . Needless to say my descent was nice and easy and at 90 ft I began stablizing but on checking my air guage was a bit alarmed to notice that I had consumed an excessive amount of air. At this point I notified my Buddy that I would have to begin my ascent soon but that I was comfortable ascending on my own. BIG mistake! After a few more minutes at about 100' I began my ascent. I cannot begin to tell you how alarming it was to see my air gauge drop so fast and for the air to get harder and harder to inhale and not be anywhere near the surface. In addition I could not locate the ship! At 30' I only had a little bit of reserve air left and decided to go to the surface in an effort to locate the ship. The surface was so rough I had difficulty locating the ship and here's another dangerous mistake; no snorkel! Once I located the ship and took a compass heading I descended to 10' and swam like there was no tomorrow, which at that point was a clear possibility. With dread I watched as my reserve disappear and knew I had to surface. The one thing that was saving me at this point was that I had just barely enough air in my BC to float on the surface but I was nearly exhausted and the ship still looked really far away. With no other choice I started swimming. Although I am a competent, graceful and efficient SCUBA diver I am a weak surface swimmer and struggled without really making any headway. All this time it never occured to me to drop my weight belt! Thankfully one of the other Dive Masters on the boat saw me, threw me a rescue doughnut and dragged my half dead, choking and spluttering carcass out of the water.
So even though I may not have been in a full blown panic it is quite obvious that in a stressful situation I made some verrrry bad decisions and almost killed myself.

Plan the dive then dive the plan. Double check your gear, have your Buddy check it too and vice versa. My first and biggest mistake was not doing this with my new Buddy. My regular Buddy and I have a pre dive checklist from which we never deviate. Most importantly, stick with your Buddy at all times!

Safe and happy diving!