As new divers we are inclined to gobble up our air faster than a very experienced person would do. This can be annoying for the others in your group because when one person is getting to about ¼ tank left then everyone surfaces, so the experienced ones are theoretically having their dive cut short. One way round this is that the first person who gets low on air uses the second regulator on the divemasters tank and effectively piggy backs on their air. Mike needed to do this on all four dives although it was taking longer each time. Due to the current during this dive we had needed to breathe a bit harder than usual! Just as this happened on the final dive one of the others, who had made it clear earlier how super experienced he was, appeared looking very stressed and frantically making the ‘out of air’ sign. This is extremely bad form because you are supposed to be watching your air gauge very closely and of course, new bugs such as Mike and I are very, very interested in how much air we have at any given moment. Said chap then vanished! It turned out he had decided to surface but the divemaster had to spend time looking for him before the rest of us could go up and do the correct safety stop at 5m. The diver concerned got a real telling off and I suspect was not able to dive with the company again – they had warned us at the beginning that any irresponsible behaviour and you would not be allowed back. |