Dives in Singapore (in Tioman Island in Malaysia): 19
Some of these dive profiles:
12.2m -> 29’
14.9m -> 39’
7.1m -> 46’
15m -> 37’
22.4m -> 28’
12.9m -> 44’
11.1m -> 1h14
9.3m -> 33’
13.6m -> 42’
16.6m -> 34’
12.4m -> 38’
8.8m -> 34’
11.2m -> 34’
….
And : 1.5m (pool session) -> 2 or 3 hours maximum but not consecutively, maybe in 6 hours.
I’m born with a small narrowing of the pulmonary valve and I’m followed since my birth by the chief of the Heart and Vessel department in a french hospital. At the beginning I saw him every year to do an ECG and a cardiac echo. Then for the last 4 or 5 years, I only saw him only every 2 or 3 years, because it looks always better. Or at least not worst.
He always told me that I could have a normal life, except that I never could be an airline pilot or a professional sportsman.
I never had any problem related to my heart. I’m very sporty: I play Volley Ball at high level, 3 training per week plus tournaments on every weekend. I play also a lot of other sports, like skiing (since I’m 2.5 years old !!), canyoning, etc.
I also swim every morning 20 lengths of pool, so almost 600m.
What I feel exactly:
85% of the time, when I go out of the water I have something like “very small bubbles all over my body”. Even during the pool session at 1.5m or less !!
I never felt these bubbles when I dived in France, or maybe only one time, but I’m really not sure…
These bubbles are mainly on the back of my shoulders and on the back of my neck (not in front close to the carotids) but I can feel them also everywhere on my body (forehead, arms, stomach, etc.).
These bubbles disappear after 25 to 35 minutes once I’m out of the water.
I asked my father, who is chief of the intensive care in the same french hospital as my cardiologist, when he came to Singapore and dived with me and also one of my friend to confirm this feeling by touching my shoulders.
Both of them agreed there was something like “paper to protect glass or something fragile (bubbles paper in french)”. My father had some difficulty to feel these bubbles and my friend felt them immediately.
The bubbles are not red neither any other color.
It’s absolutely not painful. If I don’t touch my shoulders I’m unable to tell if I get them or not.
When I go out of the water, I never hold my breath neither quick ascent.
The bubbles are not present during the dive neither just before coming out.
They appear 1 or 2 minutes after being at the surface.
However I really feel good, go back onboard the charter boat, help my students, do the debriefing, etc. I’m not tired, I have no pain in my joints, no pain in my chest, etc.
I did a pulmonary X-ray High Density and an echo the Friday morning before my trip and the Monday morning following the trip.
All is absolutely normal…
Another thing is that after my weekend trip, sometimes I feel not very good on the Monday evening (around 36h after my last dive). However I do my Volley Ball training without any problem neither being more tired than usually. But on the Tuesday morning, when I do my everyday morning swimming I still feel sometimes not very good.
Maybe it’s something totally independent… Maybe not. That’s why I put that in this “explanation”
Trip profile:
3 or 4 dives on the Saturday
2 dives on the Sunday.
Under water I’m really quiet, I don’t swim everywhere compare to my students! I swim slowly. What I mean is that I don’t do any important efforts. But my dive attitude is the same as in France…
I think it’s a quite sharp summary of what happen. Maybe I can answer some of your questions to explain different points.
Thanks
romainzerr - June 27, 2007 at 1:19 am
This is a very interesting case, In my experience, I have not encountered something like this, anyone out there with a similar experience ??
mike
mike ong - June 27, 2007 at 1:48 am
Well, I wouldn’t call this a near experience, but it sure was a scary one.
I have about 60 dives under my belt, and can hold my trim and bouyancy pretty well.
On my last dive trip to P. Aur, there were 4 of us in the group. As we were rounding the corner of P. Aur and heading into the Dayang straits, the current started to pick up. We were at about 18m, and the current was about 2-3 knots. We were having fun drifting along when we looked at our dive comp and realised that we were being dragged deeper and deeper. We tried finning up the slope but it was no use, we were still being dragged down.
I called the dive when we were at 25m, and we immediately finned upwards, all the while struggling to maintain our bouyancy and trim. The visibility was about 5-8m only. As we ascended past 15m and I was busy trying to deflate my BC so I wouldn’t shoot up to the surface, my computer started beeping at me that I was ascending too fast! I breathed out all the air in my lungs and deflated my BC but I was still going up! My buddy was also having the same problems as me, and the other 2 divers had already separated from us in the poor vis.
At this time I did something stupid. I inflated my sausage at 25m, IN THE CURRENT. My safety sausage became a liability immediately, as I had to fight the slack line, fight the current, and maintain bouyancy and depth at the same time. My initial consideration was so that the boat could see the sausage early and come and get us, but it became more like a kite that dragged me along due to the strong current! Stupid stupid mistake.
My depth became 5m really quick, and I instinctively knew that I needed to get back down quick. Finned down to 10m, and overshot the depth to 13-15m. It was a classic case of the ding-dong dive, but my bouyancy control was totally wrecked by the strong currents. My buddy was also having similar problems, but the good thing was that we were both rather experienced, and had no problems staying together. We finally did a gradual ascent (3m per minute) up to the surface, and by then we were easily 2-300m from the entry point, 25min into the dive. The other 2 divers were nowhere to be seen, as they had drifted at least another 100m away or more (couldn’t even see their sausage).
IN short, this was the most harrowing experience for me so far in my 2 years’ of diving. I had to fall back on my training to keep my bouyancy under control as much as possible, and needed to fight to keep from panicking. While the ascent profile was definitely bad, but we did not experience any symptoms of DCS (thankfully). We were planning to do a night dive, but after this dive the 4 of us decided to take it easy.
My advice for new divers out there are these:
- The underwater environment is by default a HOSTILE one. While it may be pretty, and diving may be fun, but things can go wrong really fast, especially if you are not prepared through good training and possessing strong fundamentals. – NEVER leave your buddy
- If the current is too strong, call the dive. Extending your dive so that you won’t “waste” the compressed air on your back is NOT worth it.
- Don’t deploy your safety sausage in strong current!
Good Morning,
I passed my 1st french level in 1998 and my 2nd french level in 1999, with the equivalence CMAS 2*.
In Singapore, after completing my PADI RESCUE, I’m actually on the way to finish my DIVE MASTER.
Number of dives : 69
Previous dives in France: 50
Some of my french dive profiles:
30.8m -> 37’
25.1m -> 47’
38m -> 32’ with 7’ decompression stop (Computer CX2 Beuchat)
36m -> 50’ with 12’ decompression stop (Computer CX2 Beuchat)
29.7m -> 45’
28.3m -> 43’
36m -> 26’
37.6m -> 26’
…..
Dives in Singapore (in Tioman Island in Malaysia): 19
Some of these dive profiles:
12.2m -> 29’
14.9m -> 39’
7.1m -> 46’
15m -> 37’
22.4m -> 28’
12.9m -> 44’
11.1m -> 1h14
9.3m -> 33’
13.6m -> 42’
16.6m -> 34’
12.4m -> 38’
8.8m -> 34’
11.2m -> 34’
….
And : 1.5m (pool session) -> 2 or 3 hours maximum but not consecutively, maybe in 6 hours.
I’m born with a small narrowing of the pulmonary valve and I’m followed since my birth by the chief of the Heart and Vessel department in a french hospital. At the beginning I saw him every year to do an ECG and a cardiac echo. Then for the last 4 or 5 years, I only saw him only every 2 or 3 years, because it looks always better. Or at least not worst.
He always told me that I could have a normal life, except that I never could be an airline pilot or a professional sportsman.
I never had any problem related to my heart. I’m very sporty: I play Volley Ball at high level, 3 training per week plus tournaments on every weekend. I play also a lot of other sports, like skiing (since I’m 2.5 years old !!), canyoning, etc.
I also swim every morning 20 lengths of pool, so almost 600m.
What I feel exactly:
85% of the time, when I go out of the water I have something like “very small bubbles all over my body”. Even during the pool session at 1.5m or less !!
I never felt these bubbles when I dived in France, or maybe only one time, but I’m really not sure…
These bubbles are mainly on the back of my shoulders and on the back of my neck (not in front close to the carotids) but I can feel them also everywhere on my body (forehead, arms, stomach, etc.).
These bubbles disappear after 25 to 35 minutes once I’m out of the water.
I asked my father, who is chief of the intensive care in the same french hospital as my cardiologist, when he came to Singapore and dived with me and also one of my friend to confirm this feeling by touching my shoulders.
Both of them agreed there was something like “paper to protect glass or something fragile (bubbles paper in french)”. My father had some difficulty to feel these bubbles and my friend felt them immediately.
The bubbles are not red neither any other color.
It’s absolutely not painful. If I don’t touch my shoulders I’m unable to tell if I get them or not.
When I go out of the water, I never hold my breath neither quick ascent.
The bubbles are not present during the dive neither just before coming out.
They appear 1 or 2 minutes after being at the surface.
However I really feel good, go back onboard the charter boat, help my students, do the debriefing, etc. I’m not tired, I have no pain in my joints, no pain in my chest, etc.
I did a pulmonary X-ray High Density and an echo the Friday morning before my trip and the Monday morning following the trip.
All is absolutely normal…
Another thing is that after my weekend trip, sometimes I feel not very good on the Monday evening (around 36h after my last dive). However I do my Volley Ball training without any problem neither being more tired than usually. But on the Tuesday morning, when I do my everyday morning swimming I still feel sometimes not very good.
Maybe it’s something totally independent… Maybe not. That’s why I put that in this “explanation”
Trip profile:
3 or 4 dives on the Saturday
2 dives on the Sunday.
Under water I’m really quiet, I don’t swim everywhere compare to my students! I swim slowly. What I mean is that I don’t do any important efforts. But my dive attitude is the same as in France…
I think it’s a quite sharp summary of what happen. Maybe I can answer some of your questions to explain different points.
Thanks
This is a very interesting case, In my experience, I have not encountered something like this, anyone out there with a similar experience ??
mike
Well, I wouldn’t call this a near experience, but it sure was a scary one.
I have about 60 dives under my belt, and can hold my trim and bouyancy pretty well.
On my last dive trip to P. Aur, there were 4 of us in the group. As we were rounding the corner of P. Aur and heading into the Dayang straits, the current started to pick up. We were at about 18m, and the current was about 2-3 knots. We were having fun drifting along when we looked at our dive comp and realised that we were being dragged deeper and deeper. We tried finning up the slope but it was no use, we were still being dragged down.
I called the dive when we were at 25m, and we immediately finned upwards, all the while struggling to maintain our bouyancy and trim. The visibility was about 5-8m only. As we ascended past 15m and I was busy trying to deflate my BC so I wouldn’t shoot up to the surface, my computer started beeping at me that I was ascending too fast! I breathed out all the air in my lungs and deflated my BC but I was still going up! My buddy was also having the same problems as me, and the other 2 divers had already separated from us in the poor vis.
At this time I did something stupid. I inflated my sausage at 25m, IN THE CURRENT. My safety sausage became a liability immediately, as I had to fight the slack line, fight the current, and maintain bouyancy and depth at the same time. My initial consideration was so that the boat could see the sausage early and come and get us, but it became more like a kite that dragged me along due to the strong current! Stupid stupid mistake.
My depth became 5m really quick, and I instinctively knew that I needed to get back down quick. Finned down to 10m, and overshot the depth to 13-15m. It was a classic case of the ding-dong dive, but my bouyancy control was totally wrecked by the strong currents. My buddy was also having similar problems, but the good thing was that we were both rather experienced, and had no problems staying together. We finally did a gradual ascent (3m per minute) up to the surface, and by then we were easily 2-300m from the entry point, 25min into the dive. The other 2 divers were nowhere to be seen, as they had drifted at least another 100m away or more (couldn’t even see their sausage).
IN short, this was the most harrowing experience for me so far in my 2 years’ of diving. I had to fall back on my training to keep my bouyancy under control as much as possible, and needed to fight to keep from panicking. While the ascent profile was definitely bad, but we did not experience any symptoms of DCS (thankfully). We were planning to do a night dive, but after this dive the 4 of us decided to take it easy.
My advice for new divers out there are these:
- The underwater environment is by default a HOSTILE one. While it may be pretty, and diving may be fun, but things can go wrong really fast, especially if you are not prepared through good training and possessing strong fundamentals. – NEVER leave your buddy
- If the current is too strong, call the dive. Extending your dive so that you won’t “waste” the compressed air on your back is NOT worth it.
- Don’t deploy your safety sausage in strong current!
Have fun, and dive safe!
A. Tan