I do remember all the skills from class, and it’s something we’ve practiced several times in our LDS’s pool before a dive trip. Mask removal, CESA, always remembering to blow bubbles while ascending, sharing air and our signals. I’m with you, I want it to be second nature if something does go wrong and we really want to take the advanced course someday. When funds and time permits! I do have a dive computer, which I love and watch it carefully. The long exhalation pointer is great! I think that’s actually “sort of” what I was doing on this dive. Just really concentrating on my breathing and taking nice long breaths and exhalations… and like you said, it helps the descent and buoyancy. It’s nice to know the freak out moments don’t necessarily mean I’m a wuss… or at least it’s nice to hear a “keep your head up little camper” from an extremely experienced diver. Thanks.

Thanks again for all your suggestions and hopefully we’ll get to Roatan someday!

One of my old instructors taught me “If you can still breathe, you’re alive, and that’s a good thing.” If you feel yourself approaching that edge of panic, focus on your breathing. Counting to yourself helps: in-two-three, out-two-three-four-five-six…… Force yourself to concentrate on the rhythm of your breathing cycle. Concentrate on the fact that air is in fact being delivered with every inhalation. Listen to your bubbles. Slow it down. Relax.

Freak out moments do occasionally happen in scuba. I encountered my first when I was at about the same experience level as you, Jared, and it wasn’t my last. Don’t berate yourself over it; after all, we ARE going several stories underwater on a life support unit! Instead, think about what led up to the event, how you reacted and what you could do differently, and then practice. Take some time in the shallows to rehearse an out-of-air emergency with your buddy. If a flooded mask bothers you, run through it a few times in a confined water area. The more you work on it, the more you will replace the instinctual “fight or flight” with premeditated training.

Speaking of meditation, your reference to baseball is a great comparison. I was a highly ranked competitive swimmer for most of my youth and had to rely on meditation techniques to ‘clear my mind’ before my events (with variable results– I would often vomit my guts out just before a race due to nervousness). Scuba diving is an incredibly mental sport. Before a dive, I’ll often sit on the boat with the regulator in my mouth, close my eyes, and practice my breathing rate. If it’s not too choppy, I’ll do this on the surface with my face in the water, triggering the mammalian reflex to lower my heart rate. Competitive free divers (breath-hold diving) use a myriad of meditation techniques to physically lower their need for oxygen.

Remember: long exhalation cycles eliminates carbon dioxide— the toxin that triggers your diaphragm to breathe— from your system, helping your relax, conserve air, and maintain better buoyancy control.

A few notes I’d like to make from your dive log in Just Breathe. When descending, especially when feeling queasy, try to drop down in a heads-up position. Sure, you’ll go down a bit slower, but this can be accelerated by negatively breathing (having very long exhalations). The benefits are that it will help you maintain your orientation (thus avoiding vertigo), allow you to make more fine-tuned adjustments to buoyancy, and (most importantly) assist your regulator with breathing.

Most rental regulators have an unbalanced second stage (the part you put your mouth on) that become more difficult to breathe from when in an inverted position. Combining an inverted position with the over-breathing that typically accompanies the start of a dive (when you are the most nervous) and you are likely to experience a slight ‘choking’ sensation on unbalanced second stages. Descending in a heads-up position will help alleviate this. When you go to purchase your own regulator, you’ll probably want to purchase a balanced second stage with a venturri assist valve; my Aqualung Legend regulator has this feature which helps me with doing heads-first descents as well as hovering upside-down when I want to snap a cool picture or drop into a canyon.

Regarding your concerns about going deep, you should only go as deep as the comfort level and training of both you and your buddy permits. You guys are more than just a team exploring the beautiful underwater realm; you’re also each other’s back-up life support! You should never be so far apart that in the unlikely event of an out-of-air emergency you can quickly reach your buddy’s alternate air source. And never, never, never let your buddy talk you going deeper than you feel comfortable; besides being an example of peer-pressure gone wrong, you also have to adjust for increased air consumption, decreased no-decompression time, and nitrogen narcosis. I strongly advise people to take an Advanced Open Water course to learn more about how to safely plan and execute deeper dives. Remember, 100ft is the wrong place to solve a novel problem!

You asked:

“WHAT exactly is the maximum no-deco depth and time for rec diving? Meaning, what is the deepest you can go and do an uncontrolled emerg ascent without killing yourself?”

The maximum depth for an experienced recreational diver is 130ft. Most people set their maximum at 100ft unless there’s a specific reason to be going deeper. If you’re new to the game, 60-80ft is quite reasonable. No-deco times drop-off exponentially with depth. For a first dive of the day, you can get 2 hours 20 minutes at 40ft, 55 minutes at 60ft, 30 minutes at 80ft, 20 minutes at 100ft, and a measly 10 minutes at 130ft. Repetitive dives cut into this allowable maximum bottom time. A live-saving mantra in diving is “Plan the dive, dive the plan.” Use the recreational dive planner to plan your dive in advance with your dive buddy, then follow it strictly, only making adjustments on the side of increased conservatism. Oh, and get a dive computer. I can’t recommend this piece of gear enough; it really changes the way you dive and keeps you significantly safer when used properly.

The deepest you can do an uncontrolled emergency ascent without killing yourself? It’s not a pretty answer: there are reports of divers dying as shallow as five feet by doing an uncontrolled breath-held ascent due to an embolism. The key word is “uncontrolled.” You should never have to do an uncontrolled ascent. Stick close enough to your buddy to grab her alternate air source should something go wrong! If for some reason you’re not close enough, do a Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) by swimming at a controlled rate towards the surface (sixty feet per minute max) while making an “AHHHH” sound the entire way to vent off expanding air. Open Water divers are required to do this from 20ft down as part of their course. I’ve personally done it from 50ft as part of a training exercise and Navy divers are purported trained to do it from 100ft. The control is crucial, as it gives time for air to safely leave your lungs. Remember, at a mere 33ft your lungs are holding twice the amount of air as they would on the surface.

Both the alternate air source and CESA are skills that you should take the time to refresh if it’s been more than a few months since your last dive. Better to have the skills sharp in your repertoire than try to figure them out in a panic!

Keep diving and breathing!

“We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.”
-Fulton Oursler