Tag Archive: divers alert network


 

Photo by Roman Castro

Photo by Roman Castro

“The ultimate goal isn’t how long you can stay down and how big a fish you can shoot. The ultimate goal is to get back home safe and alive.” – John Griffith, freediver and spearfisher

 

It was an easy warm-up dive to 51 ft (15.5 m) so the last thing I expected to happen was a lung squeeze. At  first my dive buddies and I were baffled at the blood I coughed up but we all agreed that it was probably just a little sinus squeeze so we began our quarter mile (330 m) swim back to shore. However, I knew something was terribly wrong when I realized that I was having an extremely hard time catching my breath. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and my body was going into survival mode. Had it not been for a float to kick back in on, calm conditions and dive buddies, I’m positive that making that swim back to shore by myself could have easily cost me my life. It was a rude awakening to what could have happened had I been alone.

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“I queried those at the back of the boat about whether Al had gone into the water on purpose, fallen in by accident or something else. No one could say. Confusion threatened to overtake the situation.”

A San Diego SCUBA instructor described the above brief moment on a live-aboard in a recent article he wrote regarding a dive accident where a diver entered the water without his dive buddy, became unconscious and immediately sank to 84’ (25.6 meters). Continue reading

Dive BuddiesChris had just over 100 dives under his belt and thought himself to be an experienced diver, though he hadn’t dove in over a year. He recently moved back to the west coast from Oklahoma and joined a local diving group. Eager to dive as soon as possible, Chris buddied up with Nick, a stranger from the dive group. Nick was glad to learn that his new buddy was experienced because he was barely just certified with fewer than 20 dives. Though Nick dove the local waters, he still wasn’t quite comfortable with his new skills and wanted to make sure that if something went wrong, a more experienced diver would be there to assist. Since Chris hadn’t dove in the area for some time, he was glad to be buddied up with someone who was more recently familiar with the site and he was happy to help out a newly certified diver with adding some dives to their logbook. They reviewed hand signals and did the proper buddy check procedures before entering the water.

Unfortunately, this dive would put one of these divers in the emergency room. Continue reading

Dive Date Undisclosed

When I woke up, my diving radar told me that I wouldn’t be diving today. Slightly disappointed and a bit skeptical, I put my gear together and drove out to the beach to see for myself. Sure enough, conditions looked sketchy and divers attempting to get past the breakers were coming back in beaten and tired, but glad for their decision. Those that made it past the breakers said that the dive wasn’t even worth the effort as the visibility was sub-par (usually less than 5-7 feet).  IMGP1565

My buddy and I called the dive and I watched in awe as the rest of the morning unfolded. Continue reading

Evolving Back to the Water

evolve

There is nothing quite like looking into the eyes of someone who is sharing their last dive adventure and seeing the sparkle of passion light up their soul. That sparkle (sometimes coupled with a far-off, dreamy stare) was one of the first things I noticed when talking to scuba divers about their fervor for the water and the things in it. The second thing I noticed was that there was something about that enthusiasm that went deeper and drew me further into their eyes than when I spoke to anyone else about their favorite pastime. Continue reading

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