IyaDiver
09-29-2003, 04:54 PM
I have a lousy right ear. It is very unpredictable. Sometimes I can't make it past 10 feet, sometimes it is OK untill I am at 90 feet and started to block.
I have seen a few doctors but no result. I been probed with a micro camera up my nose........:mad: and I nearly fainted due to the awful feeling.
Anyway, I have been aborting many dives now due to this ear. To those who liked to force equilization, please read the story.
In 1997 my group went to Manado ( 3 hours away from my city by flight ), part of Indonesia where the wall dive is world famous with viz of 100' being normal. We charter a live on board vessel for 4 days to scout the areas outside the national park. Can't shoot in the national park. Here the water viz was so good, people do 250 footer dive on single 80 aluminum, take a quick peek and ascend. 170 feet feels like 60 feet compared to my regular "murky" hunting zone. Some area you can see the bottom at 300 feet from the surface while snorkling on the wall.
The water was cold at 19* Celcius, I think in Farenheit it is about 63 something. My lousy right ear was acting up on me, expecially due to the water being cold. I am a 25-27*Celcius diver and 19* Cel was cold ice for me. As usual, what I did was to maintain depth to the limit where my ear pain was tolerable. It has always worked for me. Later the lousy ear will have a big POP and clears, sometime as slow as 20 minutes into the dive. Out of the 4 diving days I managed to hit 100+ feet only 25% of the time. The rest of the dives I was only at 30-60 feet due to the right ear clogging. Since this is one of a kind trip, I keep forcing myself to dive, I don't want to miss it. So most of the time underwater I am kind of "DEAF" on the right ear from all the clogging. The last day of the dive, I stopped diving, my ears simply can't take it anymore.
So we flew back to Jakarta. On the plane I felt like shit when the cabin pressure was adjusted.
Few weeks later, I dove a wreck in Jakarta, it was a night dive. We do wrecks day or night those days. It was a 120 feet dive. I was the last person on the descent line, due to my ear..again. I kept forcing to equalize and managed to hit the 120 feet bottom while a few divers were about to ascend. While searching around for fishes on the wreck just for a short 1-2 minutes, I started to feel awkward. I can't focus properly, felt half stoned. Fortunately the wreck was no longer than a 100 foot. So I swam back to the ascend line and grab on it. A friend was there about to ascend. I grab his BCD hard and gave him a hand signal making a circle on my forehead to tell him that I am dizzy and that "watch me" hand signal. So we ascend slowly while I grab his BCD like a million dollar material while I closed my eyes to concentrate, not to pass out.
Every feet of the way up, I felt the explosion on my right ear. The reverse block was causing so much pain to the extend I wanted to faint every few feet up. My friend did not know what happened to me. This is a first case for all of us. He was ascending the normal 30 feet persecond but I could not keep up at all. If there were no ascend line, I would have not been able to slow the ascend and will probably fainted long before. Going from 120 feet to 60 feet was a pain, going from 60 to the surface was a real torture. Between half fainting and half awake, all I could do was pray to dear God and think hard of my kids ( 2 boys at that time ). Somehow at the verge of passing out, thinking of your love ones managed to keep me a bit of conciousness. I don't know how long it took me to surface but I never felt so much pain on my ear to this level.
So I managed to surface and had a feeling of FULL ear all day long. Went to visit the doctor after the trip but no professional diving knowledgeable doctor at that time. I went to ear specialist, that's he the probed me with the camera. Now I realized why when a boxer got puched at the ear, he can go "punch drunk" and loose balance for a minute or so. I quit diving for 3 months, the trauma was so bad. I tried diving after the incident but I kept getting this feeling : " Iya...faint...Iya...faint"..damn, I was scared.
I realized I was a total dummy. We read the books not to dive with screwed up ear and of reverse block possibility. I thought I could run away with it for the past many years but the 1997 event was an eye opener. So after the incident, it took me 2 years to fully recover but untill today it caused me to get dizzy much faster than ever before. Now if the water is so murky (6-10 feet viz ) and my eyes can't focus, I feel kind of dizzy, what I do is look at my depth gauge to get my eyes focus on something. Maybe it is also age factor.
Now I fear the deep, that is why 160 feet is my max and 120-130 feet my average. I used to load guns and shoot fishes at 175 feet. We don't do twin tanks here or pony, 80 aluminum is what we use. Spare Air is about it. I used to do 25 minutes deco but now I keep it maximum at 7 minutes, if I really have to.
Also the fact that 40# fish was about the max size (very rare ) and 20# being average of the earlier days with bottom depth of mainly maximum at 140 feet, I need to be more careful nowadays.
Now for the past few years that I have switched to blue water hunting on scuba with bottom depth of the sea bed well beyond our desire or capability, I am more conservative on my air reserve and deco limits and most importantly abort all dives even with the slightest ear problem.
Even when I thought I was careful enough on my lousy ear requirement, there is one dive spot of mine which does not allow lousy ear at all. My ear is so screwed up, I can do 1 & 2 second dive well and suddenly when I jumped in the water for the 3rd dive and managed to hit 20 feet, it went bad on me. DAMN !!! I hate when that happened. A few months back I nearly got slammed on one of the rocks because of a sudden ear problem at 20 feet. This area has a rock popping out from the sea bottom all the way to the surface. It projects about 30 feet from the surface.
It was the day when the current was extremely strong and the swell decently big. What makes this place scarry is that the swell will push a diver to the rocks if you surface at the wrong spot. The current is opposite of the swell. So the current push you to the rock from 6 o'clock and the swell comes from 12' o'clock. The rocks is in the middle of the sea, so you can swim around it if weather permits.
My freediver friends love this rock and they are good at managing themelves on the current side of the rocks. They will drift along the rocks till they reach the end and drift out to open sea where the swell is not hitting the rocks anymore. The current is always stronger than the swell. With these system, one can dive this rocks.
I have done this rocks hundreds of time........with good ears. So the bad luck day came and that 3rd dive I needed to surface twice to try to equalize from the start. By the time I surfaced the second time, I realized I was at the danger zone. The rock is about 500 feet long and in one part there is one opening where the opposite swell can create white water, in calm weather we can swin thru this small channel/opening to swim a short cut to be on the swell side of the rocks.
To cut the story short, I was sucked into this turbulent water at the opening/channel because I could only do 20 feet deep. In this rock area minimum you need to be at minimum 60 feet in some part to say away from the swell and underwater turbulence.
So fear came to me. The boat crew saw what happened to me but could not do anything, they can't come close. I waved them NOT to come close. If the boat got grounded because of me, the other two diver friends of mine will surface and drift to Australia, then all will be screwed.
I kept imagining what will happen if a 6 footer swell come at me at threw me to the rocks. I will be minced meat. Even my freedivers friends avoid this opening/channel. I got no choice but to be more mobile. Threw my Riffe #4, hoping it will sink and be recovered months later when the swell gone. Removed my entire BCD, I can't swim fast with such bulk on me and the momentum of being thrown on a rock with a BCD and tank on me was haunting me. I stopped using a snorkel long time ago, another mistake when we want to do hard surface swim. I tried to swim to the current side of the rocks as I thought it will be safer than the swell side. I kept finning but making no distance, the current was too strong. I saw my inflated BCD being swing around by the swell hitting the rocks but it did not hit anything. I don't know how shallow is the opening/channel but I know from the white foamy water, it is not deep. I had no choice but to swim across the opening/channel to be on the swell side, since the current was too strong to fight. I grabbed my inflated BCD, lay my chest on it and prepared to use it as a buffer if I ever get thrown on the rocks. I was making a slow progress out of the channel to the swell side, where the boat is already waiting and threw me a rope with a 1 liter small float. I grabbed the float with the rope and signalled the captain to engaged gear. The boat managed to pull me away from the opening/channel to a calm water. So bye bye speargun, I can only look for it during the months where the oceanic swell will be less, maybe the end of the year.
I knew the danger of this rock when current is strong and swell is big, but I never knew my ear can act up on me at 20 feet. I could simulate equilizing well on the surface but at 20 feet, I was screwed. So I have not returned to this surface rock of mine for sometime now, I rather hunt the deep sea mount where I can abort any dive without worry of getting slam on the rocks.
So those with bad ears, please be extra careful.
IYA
I have seen a few doctors but no result. I been probed with a micro camera up my nose........:mad: and I nearly fainted due to the awful feeling.
Anyway, I have been aborting many dives now due to this ear. To those who liked to force equilization, please read the story.
In 1997 my group went to Manado ( 3 hours away from my city by flight ), part of Indonesia where the wall dive is world famous with viz of 100' being normal. We charter a live on board vessel for 4 days to scout the areas outside the national park. Can't shoot in the national park. Here the water viz was so good, people do 250 footer dive on single 80 aluminum, take a quick peek and ascend. 170 feet feels like 60 feet compared to my regular "murky" hunting zone. Some area you can see the bottom at 300 feet from the surface while snorkling on the wall.
The water was cold at 19* Celcius, I think in Farenheit it is about 63 something. My lousy right ear was acting up on me, expecially due to the water being cold. I am a 25-27*Celcius diver and 19* Cel was cold ice for me. As usual, what I did was to maintain depth to the limit where my ear pain was tolerable. It has always worked for me. Later the lousy ear will have a big POP and clears, sometime as slow as 20 minutes into the dive. Out of the 4 diving days I managed to hit 100+ feet only 25% of the time. The rest of the dives I was only at 30-60 feet due to the right ear clogging. Since this is one of a kind trip, I keep forcing myself to dive, I don't want to miss it. So most of the time underwater I am kind of "DEAF" on the right ear from all the clogging. The last day of the dive, I stopped diving, my ears simply can't take it anymore.
So we flew back to Jakarta. On the plane I felt like shit when the cabin pressure was adjusted.
Few weeks later, I dove a wreck in Jakarta, it was a night dive. We do wrecks day or night those days. It was a 120 feet dive. I was the last person on the descent line, due to my ear..again. I kept forcing to equalize and managed to hit the 120 feet bottom while a few divers were about to ascend. While searching around for fishes on the wreck just for a short 1-2 minutes, I started to feel awkward. I can't focus properly, felt half stoned. Fortunately the wreck was no longer than a 100 foot. So I swam back to the ascend line and grab on it. A friend was there about to ascend. I grab his BCD hard and gave him a hand signal making a circle on my forehead to tell him that I am dizzy and that "watch me" hand signal. So we ascend slowly while I grab his BCD like a million dollar material while I closed my eyes to concentrate, not to pass out.
Every feet of the way up, I felt the explosion on my right ear. The reverse block was causing so much pain to the extend I wanted to faint every few feet up. My friend did not know what happened to me. This is a first case for all of us. He was ascending the normal 30 feet persecond but I could not keep up at all. If there were no ascend line, I would have not been able to slow the ascend and will probably fainted long before. Going from 120 feet to 60 feet was a pain, going from 60 to the surface was a real torture. Between half fainting and half awake, all I could do was pray to dear God and think hard of my kids ( 2 boys at that time ). Somehow at the verge of passing out, thinking of your love ones managed to keep me a bit of conciousness. I don't know how long it took me to surface but I never felt so much pain on my ear to this level.
So I managed to surface and had a feeling of FULL ear all day long. Went to visit the doctor after the trip but no professional diving knowledgeable doctor at that time. I went to ear specialist, that's he the probed me with the camera. Now I realized why when a boxer got puched at the ear, he can go "punch drunk" and loose balance for a minute or so. I quit diving for 3 months, the trauma was so bad. I tried diving after the incident but I kept getting this feeling : " Iya...faint...Iya...faint"..damn, I was scared.
I realized I was a total dummy. We read the books not to dive with screwed up ear and of reverse block possibility. I thought I could run away with it for the past many years but the 1997 event was an eye opener. So after the incident, it took me 2 years to fully recover but untill today it caused me to get dizzy much faster than ever before. Now if the water is so murky (6-10 feet viz ) and my eyes can't focus, I feel kind of dizzy, what I do is look at my depth gauge to get my eyes focus on something. Maybe it is also age factor.
Now I fear the deep, that is why 160 feet is my max and 120-130 feet my average. I used to load guns and shoot fishes at 175 feet. We don't do twin tanks here or pony, 80 aluminum is what we use. Spare Air is about it. I used to do 25 minutes deco but now I keep it maximum at 7 minutes, if I really have to.
Also the fact that 40# fish was about the max size (very rare ) and 20# being average of the earlier days with bottom depth of mainly maximum at 140 feet, I need to be more careful nowadays.
Now for the past few years that I have switched to blue water hunting on scuba with bottom depth of the sea bed well beyond our desire or capability, I am more conservative on my air reserve and deco limits and most importantly abort all dives even with the slightest ear problem.
Even when I thought I was careful enough on my lousy ear requirement, there is one dive spot of mine which does not allow lousy ear at all. My ear is so screwed up, I can do 1 & 2 second dive well and suddenly when I jumped in the water for the 3rd dive and managed to hit 20 feet, it went bad on me. DAMN !!! I hate when that happened. A few months back I nearly got slammed on one of the rocks because of a sudden ear problem at 20 feet. This area has a rock popping out from the sea bottom all the way to the surface. It projects about 30 feet from the surface.
It was the day when the current was extremely strong and the swell decently big. What makes this place scarry is that the swell will push a diver to the rocks if you surface at the wrong spot. The current is opposite of the swell. So the current push you to the rock from 6 o'clock and the swell comes from 12' o'clock. The rocks is in the middle of the sea, so you can swim around it if weather permits.
My freediver friends love this rock and they are good at managing themelves on the current side of the rocks. They will drift along the rocks till they reach the end and drift out to open sea where the swell is not hitting the rocks anymore. The current is always stronger than the swell. With these system, one can dive this rocks.
I have done this rocks hundreds of time........with good ears. So the bad luck day came and that 3rd dive I needed to surface twice to try to equalize from the start. By the time I surfaced the second time, I realized I was at the danger zone. The rock is about 500 feet long and in one part there is one opening where the opposite swell can create white water, in calm weather we can swin thru this small channel/opening to swim a short cut to be on the swell side of the rocks.
To cut the story short, I was sucked into this turbulent water at the opening/channel because I could only do 20 feet deep. In this rock area minimum you need to be at minimum 60 feet in some part to say away from the swell and underwater turbulence.
So fear came to me. The boat crew saw what happened to me but could not do anything, they can't come close. I waved them NOT to come close. If the boat got grounded because of me, the other two diver friends of mine will surface and drift to Australia, then all will be screwed.
I kept imagining what will happen if a 6 footer swell come at me at threw me to the rocks. I will be minced meat. Even my freedivers friends avoid this opening/channel. I got no choice but to be more mobile. Threw my Riffe #4, hoping it will sink and be recovered months later when the swell gone. Removed my entire BCD, I can't swim fast with such bulk on me and the momentum of being thrown on a rock with a BCD and tank on me was haunting me. I stopped using a snorkel long time ago, another mistake when we want to do hard surface swim. I tried to swim to the current side of the rocks as I thought it will be safer than the swell side. I kept finning but making no distance, the current was too strong. I saw my inflated BCD being swing around by the swell hitting the rocks but it did not hit anything. I don't know how shallow is the opening/channel but I know from the white foamy water, it is not deep. I had no choice but to swim across the opening/channel to be on the swell side, since the current was too strong to fight. I grabbed my inflated BCD, lay my chest on it and prepared to use it as a buffer if I ever get thrown on the rocks. I was making a slow progress out of the channel to the swell side, where the boat is already waiting and threw me a rope with a 1 liter small float. I grabbed the float with the rope and signalled the captain to engaged gear. The boat managed to pull me away from the opening/channel to a calm water. So bye bye speargun, I can only look for it during the months where the oceanic swell will be less, maybe the end of the year.
I knew the danger of this rock when current is strong and swell is big, but I never knew my ear can act up on me at 20 feet. I could simulate equilizing well on the surface but at 20 feet, I was screwed. So I have not returned to this surface rock of mine for sometime now, I rather hunt the deep sea mount where I can abort any dive without worry of getting slam on the rocks.
So those with bad ears, please be extra careful.
IYA