And if there’s a current running, perhaps shooting a bag might not be such a good idea. It could just create more separation between you and your buddy as it will provide additional drag that might pull you along in the current faster than it is pulling your buddy … so only shoot the bag if the circumstances call for it, and if doing so isn’t likely to complicate the situation.
I would tend to think if you have a surface current, all the more reason to shoot the bag. While it may create a bit more drag as well as initiate a multi tasking situation in what could already be a stressful situation, the benefit of having your buddy team see the bag as you are ripped around a point, or pulled off shore are huge.
Case in point (not a buddy separation issue, but a good example of what current can do). A buddy of mine and I were planning on doing a drift dive along Point Defiance North wall.
-We jumped out of the boat, and dropped to 10 feet.
-My buddy paused us at 10 feet to explain he had a hole in his dry suit. I asked if he wanted to abort, he said no, and we dropped down.
-We were expecting to see the bottom at about 60 feet.
-60 feet came and went.
-70 feet
-80 feet
-90 feet (Have any of you who dive in the PS ever seen that dark “shape” out in front that just HAS to be that wall/wreck/rock/reef, whatever, that you are looking for, only to swim towards it and never have it get any closer? That was the illusion we were falling prey to-probably enhanced by a little narcosis.)
-100 feet passes.
-We hit 110 and I signal to my buddy to head up as we have missed the wall.
-We start up with out shooting a bag.
-We do a 2-3 min stop at 10 feet and pop up.
Good Lord! We had jumped in the water maybe 50 feet from shore. We were now at least 3/4 of a mile off shore on the way to Sunrise beach! Total bottom time was 8 minutes. The boat was a small speck on the horizon. My buddies small leak was a one inch long slit and he is soaked to his neck with gallons of water in his suit! (why he did not abort the dive at 10 feet is another topic for discussion I suppose)
We were lucky and had an alert boat crew who, while we were not due up for at least another 45 min, was watching for us and saw our lights out in the channel. Being what was over a mile from shore by the time the boat hit us, with a massively flooded dry suit in the middle of a channel could turn ugly.
Lessons learned on that dive:
-We should have shot a bag once we hit 70 feet or so. Our boat might have seen it before we were in the channel. Had we shot a bag, we might have been more visible.
-A sharp boat crew is godsend when things go foul
-When you are moving with the current, there is no relative movement. You are moving the same speed as the water. If you are in a blue water situation with no references to bottom, you will not even know or sense you are moving.
-Love those 18 watt HID’s
-If you have a one inch slit in your dry suit, for heavens sake call the dive!
Side note, if you shoot a bag, and get hammered by current or multi tasking, simply secure the line on the reel, and stop screwing around with trying to reel it back in. Just hold the line, drop the reel and do your ascent. Pull the reel/spool up after you get to the surface.
That up line is a real security blanket. Somehow when you are all stressed out, or all alone in the water worrying about your buddy, having that nice white safe line that you know goes to the top, that you can follow and see if you are going up or down relative to the surface, and know that you may be giving your surface support team a head up that you are on the way up, goes a long way to provide relief. Or perhaps I’m just nutty that way.
That Edmonds story Bob told is the first time I really considered the scenario of doing or not doing a safety stop in given situations. I know I learned from that one.