Posted by Anonymous (original poster) on May 11, 2005 at 14:06:34:
In Reply to: questions posted by scottfiji on May 11, 2005 at 12:25:34:
It was a beach dive.
Max depth was 50 ft.
We were nearing the end of our dive, sightseeing in 20ft. of water. We were not at a safety stop or heading towards the surface during the incident.
Buddy claimed to have 300psi upon surfacing and that the regulator was breathing extremely hard. I did not check. I did not want to add insult to embarrassement.
By the way, if I was the one out of air at 20ft., I would have generally think about heading directly to the surface. However, since this was my first night dive, I routinely looked up to see if I could find my way to the surface in the event of an OOA situation. Visibility was less than 10 ft. and I saw no light or clear indication of the surface. I actually did a lot of thinking about OOA situations on that dive (before the OOA incident) because it was my first night dive. When I was at 50ft, I mulled over the following:
1. If I ran out of air right this second, what would I do?
2. At 50ft, an ESA seems like an awfully dicey proposition given the bad visibility and lack of light to point you towards the surface. Sure, bubbles are very helpful, but it still seemed like a scary proposition.
3. Even sticking close to my buddy, I saw how easy it was to momentarily lose sight of them or their light. I imagined how much easier this would be to lose the buddy in a panic-type situation.
4. Given the riskiness of the ESA and the higher likelihood of losing your buddy, I resolved (before the OOA situation, when I was at 50ft.) that I would treat my night dives like deep and wreck dives. Next time I'm bringing my pony bottle!