Why should we cancel or abort a dive?
This past Monday, January 1st of the New Year 2018, our dive club at Extreme Sports Scuba did NOT have our annual Polar Bear Dive. On the 27 of December, a decision was made to cancel the dive club dives for the day due to the predicted stupidly cold weather, wind chills if the minus teens. The decision was made for the safety of the divers as well as those that were going to be “smarter” and just watch Diver Dan and his fellow cold water divers.
The correct decision was made for the dive, it was to be way too cold for just your average fun recreational diving. For the safety of divers and onlookers, the outing was canceled. (It will be back in 2019, so don’t worry.)
Now, what are some of the reason you would abort a dive or dive trip? There are several reasons:
One reason already discussed is the weather. Storms, cold, excessive heat, or too windy if you are boat diving. You don’t want to do anything that will keep you from doing a dive another time. Your shore dive should be aborted if the waves/surf are strong enough to possibly cause you injury entering or exiting the water. We canceled a shore dive in Cozumel because there was no way to exit safely with the 3-5 ft surf breaking on the rocks and around the dock.
Be smart, be safe, so you can dive tomorrow.
If you find the dive is going to be more difficult than you are trained for or are comfortable doing, don’t be afraid to call the dive for yourself. “I think I am going to sit this dive out. I’m not comfortable doing this dive.” No one wants to be a statistic in the DAN diver incident report.
Be smart, be safe, so you can dive tomorrow.
If you aren’t feeling well. ie: stuffed up nose or sinuses, headache, recovering from injury or illness. Your dive will be made more difficult and you could very easily cause damage to sensitive nasal or sinus cavities and ruin your dive and your day,
Be careful, be smart, be safe, so you can dive tomorrow.
Equipment problems are a good reason to call your dive. A regulator that is hard to breathe or free flows to easily is just going to make your dive end prematurely. If your BC has a leak in the air compartment, your buoyancy is going to be affected. Does your inflator work, can you deflate your BC from all available deflate spots. Diving with damaged gear is just really a big NO, don’t do it.
Be smart, be safe, so you can dive tomorrow.
After entering the water, you find more current than you expected and have difficulty getting back to the dive boat for your camera. WOW, you went through 1000 pounds of your air just to get your camera, you’re already exhausted….now, where did my dive group go? Where is my dive buddy? If you have to ask these questions it just might be time to get back on the boat and rest up for the next dive. You don’t have to be the one that dives every dive every time. You are already tired, you are already short on air, and you can’t see any of your other divers. Get back on the boat and relax and be ready for the next dive.
Be smart, be safe, so you can dive tomorrow.
You start your descent…….ow your tooth hurts, time to surface and abort the dive. Tooth squeeze, not much you can do about it but see your dentist. Hint time. Do a local dive after having dental work before heading out for your dive vacation. If you have a tooth squeeze you have time to remedy the issue before you leave.
You start your descent….. OUCH…..your ears, you can’t clear your ears. Stop slowly ascend a few feet and try to gently clear your ears. If successful, great continue your dive and make sure to clear more often. If not ascend a few more feet and try again to gently clear your ears. Keep ascending a few feet at a time until you can clear your ears. If you can’t clear then abort the dive.