Back From Great Travails

[blume357]

Been gone for the last week, did not want to say anything before hand because you never can tell who might be watching.... Good friend was turning 60 and his wife invited us to come celebrate with them, their two daughters, their husbands and two other couples.... 12 folks total!

spent the last week in Belize, did some fantastic diving.... even though I lost my new underwater video camera... out of my own stupidity.... I hate more that I lost the videos I had made. I don't hardly ever scuba but in the past have been pretty comfortable under the water.... but on the first dive I bailed ... did not feel right and never went down after getting suited up and going in the water. I think it was the allergy pill I took an hour before... I did this to help with balancing the pressure.... and it was stupid in that I don't take drugs (legal, prescribed or illegal) and in hind sight had no trouble at all later... 2nd dive two days later I was a bit nervous, especially when the dive guide said we were going to close to 80ft.... but had no trouble slowly dropping down to 50ft and then in the middle of the dive, touring 'the canyon' I checked my air gage and the depth was just over 100 ft! Only problem with that depth is I used a lot of air.... when I finished the dive I was down to 250lbs.... Just for contender and others... it seems I tend to breath too much... on the last (3rd) dive I did on Friday.... I used even more air went below 110ft... and the dive master 'made' me use his backup regulator from his tank while we did the pressure equalizing thing at 20 feet for probably 3 minutes even though it seemed more like 15.

Belize: We stayed on an 'Island' out near the reef (2nd longest reef on the planet) called Ambergris Cay ...... the country looks poor to me... driving though Belize City was depressing even in downtown.... and the town on the place where we stayed... did not look much better... getting there was a bit of an adventure.... fly to Charlotte... 30 minutes.... then to Belize 3.5 hours.. then a 45 minute taxi ride on rough roads to the harbor and a 1.5 hour boat ride, water taxi packed in with about 50 other people (rough seas) to the Island, then gather all your luggage and rent a gas powered golf cart and drive for 30 minutes on the roughest dirt (sand) road there is (keep in mind I grew up in rural S.C. riding and driving on dirt roads) to our Villa, which was really nice. It was no hotter down there than here in Greenville... in fact a tad cooler.... but the wind blew at about 20-30mph for the first 3-4 days... then it rained and the wind died.... and then the mosquitos came out.... they fed well if you drove into town.... The country has an interesting history and one odd thing I found was that even though the Mayans originally lived there and are still a part of the culture... there were no Grits and the torteas and such were from wheat .... probably what they think the folks from up north want. The Mayan people believe they came from corn....and so it is their main food. Food and stuff ain't cheap down there....

Trip back my wife and I took the puddle jumper to the Belize airport.... then had to do the airport thing of get in line and wait.... go through security ... and wait some more... get on the plane and wait some more.... then fly to Charlotte and go through customs.... one more long line and totally stupid... then after going through customs you have to retrieve your luggage... take it 50ft and turn it back over to the airlines and then go through security (long line) again.... I guess this is because they gave you your luggage for all of 2 minutes.... which makes no sense because they never checked it, at least in front of you..... you actually get in a line when you get off the plane... and go through one long cattle line for about 30 minutes to get to a computer kiosk and process your passport and print out a recent with your picture on it... then get back in line for 20-30 minutes to have a customs person check it look at you to make sure you are the same person as on your passport and then stamp it.... but I guess the 2nd security check is logical in that they don't probably trust the foreign security check you went though... all just totally silly that does give a lot of folk a job though....

All in all had a great time..... may post a picture later.

 

[Sin6Sec63451022]

Whew!!! (Glad you had fun.)

 

[contender]

Ahh Belize, a good diving location,,, but as you discovered,,, not always a 5 star resort area. Still the seafood & the diving is usually pretty good.
It's easy to get deeper than you think you are & burn more air in such nice warm, clear water. And with depth, comes faster air consumption. And with increased depth, you tend to absorb more nitrogen than at shallower depths. So the safety stop near the surface is to outgas a lot of nitrogen.
And a safe diver is back on the surface with 500 psi in the tank!
Ok, scolding over!

Sounds as if you had a great time!

 

[pruger45]

Sounds like fun to me!

 

[blume357]

I think the next time I go diving like this I will take a review class first. Did not realize how much I had forgotten since I was certified, probably 20 or more years ago. Except for a dive probably 15 years ago with others in the Bahamas , I've only dove alone. Here in the upstate at Lake Hartwell I've only gone down about 30 or 40 feet tops..... you can stay down at 30 feet for a long time compared to a 100 feet... what are you using at that depth? over 3 times as much as as on the surface and 2 times as much at 33ft? I totally forgot about the nitrogen thing and was only concerned about the oxygen build up.

 

[737tdi]

Blume, use caution when diving with foreign dive outfits. I'm a certified divemaster and master scuba diver. Tyrone is correct, every dive should end up with at least 25% of your air left. Never take chances at depth. I have chastised many of instructor that they don't teach more about safety. I have refused to dive with some of them due to their lackadaisical attitude.

Remember though when you are at 100' or deeper to control your breathing. You will hit your table limits long before you get low on air. As a recreational diver you are not qualified to go below 130' but if you plan your dive, deeper is possible. I did a few below that but it was to see something we really wanted to see and took a lot of planning. I've dove in every ocean and many smaller bodies of water. Diving is no more dangerous then driving if you are smart and prepare. Going out on a whim and jumping in gets a lot of people killed. Plus using dive services that are far from professional. I always take my own equipment short of the tanks. I just don't trust others with my life.

It is a great sport but one not to be taken lightly. A question, did you look at time at depth off of a reputable dive computer? If not, shame. Your safety is up to you.


Semper Fi:

Karl

 

[contender]

Ok y'all,,, blume has been scolded enough.

But to clarify a few little things.
Blume, it's the nitrogen build-up, NOT O2 that is the problem. In a normal air tank, you have a 20% O2 & 80% N2. As you exchange air, you will in-gas both the O2 & the N2. As you exhale, you will exhale about 13% O2, 80% N2, & 7% carbon dioxide. These are surface rates. Underwater, as you descend, there are "atmospheres" of pressure every 33 ft. At 33ft deep, you will need twice the volume as you will at the surface. At 66 ft, you will need 3X the volume, and at 99 ft, 4 times the volume. That is why the air in your tank doesn't last as long at depth as it will at shallower depths.
But the bad gas is the nitrogen. Your body absorbs it under pressure & doesn't allow it to "outgas" as fast as you took it in. This is the reason for the safety stop in shallower water, (usually 15 ft,) to allow N2 to outgas a lot more.
Now, foreign outfits can be excellent or pizz-poor. I've seen both. Like Karl, I prefer to use my own equipment vs. renting anything,,, unless it's weights & tanks. And I look over the tanks closely before I accept them.
Being on the surface with 500 PSI is the minimum as I taught it. That amount is ONLY used in an actual emergency.

But I depart from Karl here. You should not "control" your breathing as it could lead to skip breathing, or breath holding. I always taught to "relax, breath as calmly & as close to normal relaxed breathing as possible." That said, every person has a different air consumption rate. And I can dive to 100 ft, max out my time & have plenty of air. But I have seen a LOT of folks suck the sides out of a tank & be out of air or low on air long before they max their time.

Now, as noted, recreational diving limits are listed at 130 ft. Unless you have additional training you should never exceed these limits. I have some mixed gas training & I have dove deeper than that. But I'll NOT disclose how deep. But suffice it to say I had the proper equipment & training to do so. Warm, clear water can be deceiving & it's EASY to go deeper than planned.

As I taught; "Plan your dive & dive your plan!"

Refresher courses are always recommended if you haven't been on SCUBA in over 1 year.

PS; I was wet today, looking for one of my Eagles class ring. My metal detector & I went down in about 15 ft & spent some time until I was successful!

Diving safety is always upon each diver.

Now, my info above was to clarify a few things & NOT to give blume any more scolding. I posted this info for the non-divers to study.

 

[737tdi]

Tyrone: Understand when I say "control" your breathing. I mean don't accelerate your breathing due to neat things you see. It is a mental thing. You do have to think about it. Yes, have fun but realize that you will start to breathe more when you see things you have never seen before. Yes, breathe normally, but folks don't, they suck up a tank full of air in half the time they would at the surface. I have been in too many student situations where they got into trouble at 30 feet.

Ty: I will admit how deep I have been. At least a little, it was below 150'. We had bottles for the trip up. Just a bunch of Jarheads diving on a wreck. No souvenirs were taken, just a can we do it type of thing. If you read my post and I read yours, PLAN. It is required. These fly by night outfits overseas are not the way to go.

I advise everyone I talk to, get your dive training in the states prior to going south, it could save your life.


Karl

 

[contender]

Karl,
I kinda figured (and hoped) you were talking about proper breathing & all, but I wanted to point it out to the non-divers here.

And as a trained mixed gas tech, I have been a bit deeper, and as you & I both agree, it requires proper planning & all. Beyond the 130 limit, requires special training, additional planning & additional equipment.
And I agree that dive training in the USA is the better way to go. We have liability laws here that many countries do not have. But to expand that even further,,, even USA training can be lacking,,, so I always tell folks to carefully study the scuba training facilities before spending any money with them to see how good their training program is. I am NOT a big fan of these places that have you do "home study by DVD" & then cram a class in a weekend.
Scuba is a very safe & fun hobby as long as you understand what you are doing, and learn to do it safely & properly. In my classes, I taught that you are here to learn how to properly use life support equipment in an environment the human body can not survive in. And you are here to learn how to survive in the event of an emergency in that environment if you have equipment failures or environmental problems.

Boy, this thread has taken a turn.

Blume357 had a recent fun vacation, and we've hijacked it a bit. But, with my apologies, I hope what I've put out has helped anybody here who is considering diving or has dove & thinking about getting back in it,,, even if for a vacation trip.

 

[blume357]

Thanks for the comments guys... one thing I was impressed with is the equipment we used, both the BC's and regulators looked brand new to me....

Even on the dive I did not do a stop on I took my time and came up real slow..... the last one where I was a tad low the guide gave me his emergency regulator and we had to hang out for a while.

I actually think I came up too fast a few years ago from only about 25ft and had the strangest pain under my shoulder blade later that night....

 

[SAJohn]

I cannot stress how much you should have your own regulator on an out of country dive. I also worry about the purity of the air in the tank.

I lost a close relative when he died while diving at only 50 feet in the Bahamas. It was on his first dive of the vacation (he was a certified and experienced diver) and as he surfaced he started thrashing about and then died. No way was he deep enough, long enough to have had an attack of the bends. I suspect regulator failure. As it was out of country, there was no autopsy and the dive gear was not made available for inspection.

On breathing control, I always take long slow inhalations and even slower exhalations (except when ascending). When you are taking in the equivalent of 2 to 4 lungfuls of air with each breath, shallow and rapid breathing is just throwing the O2 away.

Even in the U.S. you can get a crappy dive master who is too interesting in having his own fun instead of doing his job. I was once left as a solo diver as the other two took off with better swim fins than I had and gloves to pull themselves on the bottom rocks against the current. I surfaced and swim back to the small boat while they finished their dive. The guy never even came up to see what became of me. I was charged full fare for my 5 minute dive with no apologies.

I will wager the Contender has never left any of his divers.

 

[Colonialgirl]

Gee, More air??
Go with twin 72's; that's what I had when I use to dive in SoCal; a little heavy to tote about on the surface, but plenty of air, especially for shallow depths.

 

[contender]

Ok, more diving info.
Blume,,, that sharp pain was POSSIBLY a tiny nitrogen bubble. But it depends upon your entire dive,,, as in, how deep you'd been & for how long. As long as your entire dive wasn't deeper than 25 ft,, then it wasn't as likely to be a nitrogen bubble.

SAJohn, First, it always saddens me to hear of ANY diving accident or fatality. Sorry for your loss.
Bad air, especially carbon monoxide, has been known to take divers in foreign countries. Failure to maintain compressors, exhaust too close to an intake on gas driven compressors, etc. If he made it to 50 ft & was breathing,,, I doubt it was a regulator failure,, but more likely bad air. If I had more details, I could offer a more educated OPINION.

And as for DM's leaving divers & all. PIZZ poor attitude & I would have paid with a card, then immediately cancelled the transaction. Let them fight for their money. And no, I've never left any divers. I've had some panicked divers, some who wanted to even fight me, but not a single incident, much less an accident. But I have pulled a few rescues from other boats, other students, etc. One dive shop in Az still owes me dinner for saving a diver in Mexico many years ago due to their stupidity.

CG, who needs that much air? I use a normal 80 cu ft tank with 3000 lbs & can be the first in & last out with air to spare.

 

[737tdi]

SAJohn: While in Beaufort SC I worked with a couple of instructors from the local dive shop. They were both very good instructors. We worked well together because the students always came first. We also would only do one on one qualification dives, one student/one instructor or DM. Of course safety always came first.

The worst accident I ever experienced had a positive outcome but it was very dicey. I had a young Marine getting his advanced open water cert., so we dove on the Betsy Ross which is just off the coast of Beaufort. The deck of the ship is appx. 130' but the ocean bottom is about 160 if I remember correctly. We were on the deck watching the sharks drifting in the current when he decided to go over the side of the ship. I took off after him and finally caught him but we were way too deep. I got him headed up and everything was going good until he drained his bottle. Boy that dude was scared (could see it in his eyes). I gave him my spare reg. and he was breathing way to hard. He drained my bottle at about 80 ft.. I kept him in my grasp and kept ascending, key is don't panic. We both got another gulp of air about half way to the surface and by the grace of God we both broke the surface. I swear I wanted to kill that guy for almost killing me. Fortunately my experience and training plus doing 100' free ascents for my DM cert. paid off big.


Karl

 

[exavid]

Sounds interesting. I prefer airplanes.

 

[rimmer]

I hope you had a great time, and everybody seems to be an expert. maybe they were all Navy Seals?

 

[contender]

rimmer,,, I am NOT a Navy Seal, nor have i ever claimed to be one. But what I am is a person who learned to scuba dive in the late 70's, when gear was harder to use & heavier. When it was a male dominated, macho sport. I also began helping teach scuba in 1982, and got my instructor in 1987. I taught scuba until I retired from teaching it in 2004. I'm a certified tech in several types of equipment, have many different certifications of training, including some mixed gas. I have also taught or assisted in teaching a few thousand folks to dive without a single incident, much less an accident.
I have also had a few of my newly certified divers assist in rescues of other divers who were not properly trained.
But no, I am NOT a Navy Seal, nor do I ever attempt to play one.

 

[737tdi]

Great posts Ty and DixieBoy: Nope, not a Navy Seal either. Did dive with them a couple of times off the coast of Turkey, strictly recreational, they were embarked on the carrier I was on and there was a small dive club formed to enjoy some of the ports of call. A lot of the sailors and Marines just wanted to hit liberty and drink themselves stupid, we planned dives instead. Diving in the Med. is very controlled and disturbing artifacts will get you jailed in a heartbeat, plus there are several areas where diving is prohibited. We had to make sure we stayed out of these places and having people experienced in diving these areas was invaluable. Nope, not a Navy Seal, just a man who enjoys the sport.


Semper Fi:

Karl

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

Blume, glad you have a good time. Would love to hear more about Belize, and see some pictures if you had a chance to look around.

 

[blume357]

geeze, a fellow forum member makes a joke and gets reamed..... I would like to apologize for the experts. Some folks did get pretty serious in commenting on what happened to me.... this happens when someone like me who is pretty lame on a subject talks about the subject. I suspect the same thing would happen if one of you folks started talking about chimneys, fireplaces or wood stoves... I promise you may think you know but you really don't. I took it all in stride and did not get insulted or bent.... I survived once again and promise to do better next time. I'm sure Contender and I will discuss it a little the 1st of October.

As for Belize... first the only part of the inland country I got to see was on the drive from the airport to the harbor at Belize city.... looks poor to me. Good bit a damage from Hurricane Earl did not help with this.... but I spent all my time out on Ambergris Cay... an Island. The town here, San Pedro, is pretty big but not very well kept... lots of older buildings... stuff actually on the beach of course looks a good bit better because it caters to tourist. Lodging and food is not cheap.... streets in town seem dangerous to me with all the gas powered golf carts and a few cars and trucks flying all over the place... One Belize dollar is equal to 50 cents U.S. and so initially everything looks real expensive but even when you divide by two stuff still cost more. I think they get you on this too because when ever you pay in American money they give you change in Belize.. and I suspect the actually exchange rate is 1.8 or so not '2'. We stayed in a pretty high end large villa that had it's own house man, pool boy and yard folks. the house man lived in a separate house behind the big house and was available for advise and helping with local travel and bookings...There were 6 couples and each had their own bedroom, three of the couples had their own bathrooms and then two couples had to share. there were some maintenance issue with the house, but not bad.... took me until friday to figure out how to get hot water in the shower of the penthouse where my wife and I stayed... still can't figure it out... water heater was about 8ft away in a closet but if you turned only the hot on in the shower nothing came out...cold or hot... finally on Friday I just left it on hot and all I would get was a slight drip.... I left it this way for about 3 minutes and finally warm, then hot water came out.... seems beside very low water pressure ... the water in the hot water line drains back out.... past the heater and then has to come back up to make enough pressure to push the hot water in the tank of the heater come out and over to the shower.... exterior electrical was looking pretty poor... Interesting thing is it looks like all the newer resort houses along the cost are built totally of concrete. here is a link to the realty companies site for the place: https://www.vrbo.com/122290#

 

[Colonialgirl]

My brother was/is a certified Dive instructor and did commercial diving with his own boat bottom cleaning business for a while then went to College in Santa Barbara (don't know if community college or state university) Got certified as a Commercial diver and spent a couple of years down off Brazil diving on an oil rig. Lost ALL of his gear when the rig caught on fire and they had to "abandon ship" in a hurry. Finally went back to school got certified as a welding inspector and went to work for LA County inspecting steel construction/Welding. Worked on the big Sew plant LA built near the airport, worked DOWN in the tunnel UNDER the runways (loved it, 10hr days with 2 hr OT, PLUS paid for "hazardous duty" which increased the deeper they went and the further from the entrance. They were running the outfalls out to sea. He was down under when the One Airliner landed atop the smaller one and several of them "popped up" through a manhole to see the action. He Did ALL of the weld inspections on the loading gate they built to handle the new (at the time) Giant Airbus airliner. Retired now, but worked for quite a while doing contract inspection work; great pay !! I think he has finally given it up though (turned 77 in June). He still wreck dives and belongs to a Wreck Divers Club there in SoCal.

 

[blume357]

Colonialgirl, I have a good friend who lives over in Seminol that I think use to dive under some airport.... seems like in a discussion he told me this. I wonder if he knows your brother? He's a true gun nut in that he got tired of the cost and buearacracy of full auto guns and so figured out the secret... he just got licsenced and registered as a manufacturer. He's coming up this way the middle of Sept. to do our annual chimney sweep machine gun shoot near Lake Muray....

 

[Colonialgirl]

Colonialgirl, I have a good friend who lives over in Seminol that I think use to dive under some airport.... seems like in a discussion he told me this. I wonder if he knows your brother? He's a true gun nut in that he got tired of the cost and buearacracy of full auto guns and so figured out the secret... he just got licsenced and registered as a manufacturer. He's coming up this way the middle of Sept. to do our annual chimney sweep machine gun shoot near Lake Muray....

My Brother was out in Los Angeles County; They built the sewage treatment plant and then ran the outfalls Under the runways to the ocean; NOT sure what the name of the plant was (apparently NOT Hyperion as then the outfalls wouldn't gone under the runways. If you talk to your friend, My brother's name is Jim Dunn.