Had first "real" OOA incident at depth...

[Bigg_Budd]

Was diving Beaver Lake for the first time over the Memorial Day weekend. It's a great lake, with crystal clear water and plenty of fish. We were diving from my boat on the far North side of the lake, East of the dam. It's an area that is commonly referred to as "The Bluffs", but we renamed it "Lost Anchor".

So dive 1 was on Saturday. Great dive to ~80 feet. Water was clear and cold. It's the clearest freshwater that I've experienced outside of a Florida spring. Really made for an enjoyable dive. I noticed that the anchor was caught on a tree at ~90 feet, but we planned to just come back and release on the second dive. We tooled around, heading East at first, then worked our way back toward the boat (we could see it from 45 ffw) and headed West. After ~40 mins we turned to go back and noticed that it was raining on the surface. Well, the wife and kids were on the boat...

Needless to say, we ended the dive, got onboard, secured gear and tried to pull the anchor. Well, the anchor was not coming up, so we ditched it ($50 loss) and dropped the hammer on the 4 stroke Suzuki. It was a 45 min ride back in pouring rain. The wife was pissed. The kids were cold. Good times...

We went back on Sunday to get the anchor. I have a GPS fish/depth finder, so we were able to drop right on top of it. The plan was to find the anchor, secure the line, tie it to a lift bag and send to the surface where my little dudes would pull onto the boat (they love helping dad).

Everything was going to plan until I went to inflate the lift bag with my octo (Zeagle Envoy Octopus reviews and discounts, Zeagle purchased at ScubaToys). Well, we successfully filled the bag and sent it up, but the octo was free-flowing. I used every trick in the book to shut her down, but no good. This sucker was going to run until the tank was gone...

I had ~2000 psi when this whole thing started. After a few seconds, I looked and was down to 1700, 1600... You get the picture. I was going to be oout of air in a minute or so. That's when the training kicked in.

My dive buddy for years (~75 dives with him) was johnny-on-the-spot with his octo. I took it, he grabbed my BC, and I continued to try and shut the damn octo off. It didn't matter, cuz it was dry in a matter of minutes.

We ascended slowly, did our 3 mins at 15 feet, and headed for the surface. 16 minute dive. When we broke water, my wife (god bless her) asked "what's with all the bubbles? you boys goofing off down there?". Pretty funny. My kids said that "the lake was boiling, daddy!".

Needless to say, we were well-prepared for the incident, and I'm glad that I had a confident and cool buddy. It was weird. Neither of us ever really panicked. We just dealt with it, and moved on. Still, it was kinda freaky. Glad it's over with, and not looking forward to doing it again.

We drank many adult beverages that afternoon/evening.

[IndyDiver]

Well it looks like you stayed calm and did the OOA drill by the book. Good job, but I'm sure it was still a bit of an adrenaline rush when you realized you couldn't stop the octo from freeflowing.

Don't know how cold the lake you were in was, but here in the midwest where the quarry temps at that depth are permanently 39-43 degrees, I would never try to fill a lift bag with a second stage. Pushing the purge button at depth for a few seconds would almost guarantee a free flow in the conditions we have here.

One other thing you can do once you have done the standard OOA drill and are on your buddy's octo is to reach back and turn off your tank valve, or have your buddy do it for you. If the freeflow is because of a freeze-up, the reg will usually thaw out in a couple of minutes and then you can turn your gas back on and it will work normally.

[Splitlip]

Hind sight is 20-20. Should have just disconnected the lp hose.

Edit: Sorry Jason. I was corrected. I originally thought we were talking Octo-Z, alternate inflator.

[plot]

glad it turned out ok.

fyi: you dove the worst spot of that lake.

there's so many better boat dives on that lake... the bluffs can be reached by shore and just arn't that good compared to the rest.

[IndyDiver]

Originally Posted by Splitlip

Hind sight is 20-20. Should have just disconnected the lp hose.

How does that work with an Envoy?

[Bigg_Budd]

Plot - Do tell. Do you have a map????

[plot]

i dont have a map, but i've seen one before. the foundations is a good dive, drops about 15-20 feet (depending on how high up the lake is, one year they were out of the water) to some foundations, has a rope that goes down to about 40 feet attached to a schoolbus. also there is a great wall dive you can get to while anchored onto the foundations too. there's a bouy in the middle of the lake where they are, from the bluffs you get there by going on past the dam.

also, from the foundations you can see a cove with C&J's dive shop on top of a big hill. in that cove, there's a helicopter, some boats, a few airplanes, etc. all set up in a nice dive park. depths vary from 30 to 60 or more feet while going around the loop. the helicopter is usually in 30' or so, and there's a big plane down in 60 or so feet of water.

again, all those depths can very 15-20 feet.

these were the foundations when they were out of water a few years ago, maybe you can get the gps coords from this:
Your web browser and the Maps site are incompatible
check out the birds eye view. that should all be underwater now.

[clayton]

Splitlip I do beleive he was using an OCTO not an air 2 so no lp hose to disconnecet.

[FishFood]

Originally Posted by IndyDiver

How does that work with an Envoy?

Pull out that wrench that we all carry with us on dives and....

[plot]

and dont forget the plug for your first stage...