1. Last day of a week's diving in Cozumel. A small group of us have arranged to do down the coast to repeat an ealier dive on Devil's Throat and Cathedral. We had an awesome time earlier in the week and wanted a big send off for the end of the week. All experienced divers in the boat... all good friends... we are prepared for diving nirvana. DM's (same we've had all week) are preping gear on the way out, they've gotten used to our gear, and give the high sign that all is well. (Yes, I realize this is wear things went wrong). Got to the sight, all agreed that we'll go over the side at once and proceed directly to the bottom, no floating around on the surface. Everyone is set... over we go and dang if I don't come straight back up... no weights... idiot... so back on the boat, quick fix and back into the water... dive was great... I am still feeling stupid.
2nd dive, again planning a big finish with a "high current" dive, which is a lot of fun given appropriate experience. Anyway, no more mistakes for me... or the DM who is still appologizing... same plan... over the edge and down... executed to perfection... except, I look at my gauge and I've got 1600psi in a standard 80cu.ft. 3000psi aluminum. The tank had not been filled or was some type of left over. Needless to say, I was diving a little shallower than everyone else. oops.
Good dives, no one hurt... just reminders that no matter your experience level, we can all still be stupid, I know I was that day. :) And yes, I know better, and yes, I know what I did wrong, so don't start in on me. :) Happy Friday.

Posted at 9:56AM on Jul 22nd 2005 by Dennis Festerling

2. I guess diving the Baron Gautch cruise liner with my brother qualifies for the stupidity category.

It's a relatively deep dive with the bottom at 42m and since the ship is huge you spend a lot of time swimming in and around the thing. Penetration is easy and it just feels great swimming along the corridors, down stairs and stuff like that.
Anyway, it almost always turns out to be a deco dive (that was actually my first one) and after finishing the deco stops with ease and not really noticing that the current near the surface is a lot stronger than down at the wreck we released the rope and started to swim into the blue.
We figured we'd do a small loop around the boat at 3-5m with the remaining 30 bars left in the tank. An excercise in controlling buoyancy of sorts, there were no visual references, visibility was less than 5m and there was a decent swell to add to the excitement
After swimming around for a while we decided to break the surface and see where the boat was (there was no way to spot it underwater).
Well, turns out we drifted more than a hundred meters in a few minutes of mostly swimming against the current but at an angle.

Luckily for us we were both swimmers for well over a decade so a lot of serious effort finally got us back to the boat (they had to wait for other divers and couldn't possibly pick us up for the next 30min).
The current turned out to be so strong that someone who didn't spend their entire life in the pool just wouldn't stand a chance. With the swell it would also be quite hard for the people on the boat to see you.

I don't remember swimming that hard since I quit competing in marathons ;)

Posted at 12:55PM on Jul 22nd 2005 by Jernej

3. Both good stories so far...

Posted at 2:58PM on Jul 22nd 2005 by Willy

4. I've done a lot of diving in Crystal Cove in Orange County, CA. Usually low viz and high surge. We were planting kelp and I had to return to the boat for something and get back to the dive site.

I took a compass reading at the start and figured I'd get under and head in that direction. Fin, fin, fin, fin, fin.

Oddly enough I noticed more and more sediment in the water and the substrate just didn't look right. The upward slope finally made me realize I was heading toward shore, a complete 180 from where I intended to go. Having to explain this to the group was the humiliating part.

Otherwise, I'm really conservative when I dive so nothing big to mention.

Posted at 1:26PM on Jul 26th 2005 by Eric

5. This may not count, as it was my first "ever" dive, a resort course in FL. First, I put my weight belt on while sitting, not seeing if it was properly secured, I just hopped in the water, and a moment or two later was much more bouyent, you can guess why. Then we (dive master and other "student") saw a shark. It was pretty small, only about two feet, but the dive master either didnt think it was that exciting or just didnt see it, so he kept swimming. My buddy saw it and informed me that he saw something with a fin. I wasnt so sure about swimming in the oppisite direction of the dive master, just because we were about 30' under with a bunch of other dive groups. But I figured what the heck and swam the three or four feet. It was cool, but then along came a nice (very large IMHO) shark, just about 6' shark, and I do have to say either I had a odd case of nitrogen narcosis at 30' or I didnt think it was real, but it was. Anyway, by this time we had lost track of the dive master, but it turnes out that he was a step or two ahead of our game. He decided to swim up behind us so we were sure not to find him for at least another couple of minutes. Not that I can say I am any more experianced, just having gotten my c-card.

Posted at 4:49AM on Aug 9th 2005 by Gregory Montalbano