Quote:
Originally Posted by Slims
Just remember that your buoyancy decreases as you descend, requiring you to add a little air to your BC and the reverse is true in ascent....divers who do not bleed extra air when they ascend sometimes end up rocketing to the surface due to stupidity.
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Ha! I missed this. I've done this. One of my first OW dives was in Tillamook Bay with my instructor. The vis. was so bad I lost him almost immediately after descending to approx. 80ft. After looking around for him a few minutes I decided to surface. I was watching my gauge and thinking about the 3min. safety stop when I noticed I was picking up speed. My first reaction and thought was to swim down. Didn't work at all. I never even thought about letting air out of my BC until after I shot out a few feet out of the water right next to two old guys fishing in a small boat. Scared the shit out of them and me. Never did find my mask or snorkel. Yep stupidity.
Speaking of stupidity...
Years ago I used to regularly do the drift dive on the jetty in Tillamook Bay, Oregon. I had a house with a view of the bay and could see if the water was clear from my deck. On low vis. days I'd always do the incoming tide. On clearer days I'd sometimes do the out going tide, putting in at Barview and drifting down the jetty toward the end. One day I got off work on an out going tide and looked at the bay and thought some cod sounded good for dinner. I put in at Barview and started the drift. Two things happened- one I put in farther down the jetty then I usually did due to parking and two the tide was moving faster then I realized. I drifted down the jetty watching my air and stabbing a few fish on the way. I looked at my air and had about 1500 left and thought "Ok, should have another 10-15 mins before the end of the jetty, better start thinking about looking for a good spot to climb out of here." As I got that thought through my tiny brain I noticed the large rocks of the jetty seemed to disappear. "Hmm, that's odd... Oh, crap I'm headed out to sea!" I quickly became aware of the fact my light was full of nearly dead bats. I'm dressed in a mostly black dry suit with a black Zeagle BCD and the suns setting fast. I did have one small orange whistle. At first I tried to swim against the tide, that was stupid and a waste of air. I kept thinking I can read the headlines now- "Man's truck with one scuba tank found parked at Barview." I finally managed to get out of the main current and on to the north side of the jetty. I got the living tar pounded out of me and my gear climbing up the jetty's north side. Tore and flooded my suit, lost my gun and crushed my gauges. I honestly thought my arm was broken as well as my leg. An x-ray proved that not to be the case but they were swollen for a week or two and it took 24 stitches to close up my leg.