Air Tanks & Ego Bruises: My Funniest Scuba Fails

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of breathing underwater for the first time, until your mask floods, your buddy disappears, and you realise you’ve been kicking backwards for five minutes straight. Welcome to the wonderful world of beginner scuba diving, where the fails are frequent, the fish are judging, and the surface never seems quite close enough.

In this post, I’m spilling the salty tea on the most ridiculous scuba mistakes I made (and survived), plus the underwater pet peeves that still make my regulator rattle.

Sink, Float, Flail: My Top Scuba Fails

 

Depth does indeed affect your oxygen consumption:

My buddy and I were heading off to a popular deep dive site in Koh Tao, Thailand. I was still working towards my 40 logged dives, the entry requirement to start your divemaster course. So, in my defence, I was still a novice diver. The conditions were perfect: calm waters, excellent visibility, and a hot, sunny day. The pre-dive vibes were high, and I couldn’t wait to jump in!

During our descent, my buddy was sinking quickly. To keep up with him, I promptly released all the air from my BCD and started swimming down to match his depth. Once we hit the sea floor, I gave him the ‘ok’ and we began our dive. After about five minutes, we conducted an air check. I had just over 100 bars, and it was going down at an alarming rate.

I signalled that something was wrong with my Submersible Pressure Gauge (SPG). He came gliding over and started laughing as I continued to complain about my depleting oxygen. It turns out that nothing was wrong with my SPG; it was just the first time I had ever been diving so deep, and I was ploughing through air quicker than you could point out a school of chevron barracudas.

It was a very short and confusing dive. Having to do a safety stop after ten minutes was not a way to highlight my diving skills. Back at the boat, the surface cover was equally baffled. Still to this day, I am adamant that there was something wrong with my BCD or tank, but hey, a bad workman always blames his tools, so I should admit fault and work on adjusting my breathing to reach great depths.

The time I got high… 30 meters under

During my advanced open water, you get taught all about gas narcosis. Gas narcosis is a reversible alteration of consciousness caused by breathing compressed gases under increased pressure. It is essentially like being drunk while diving. It affects your judgement, coordination and can lead to a euphoric state. It typically occurs at depths around 30 meters.

Symptoms include:

• Euphoria.
• Poor judgment
• Disorientation
• Impaired coordination
• Intoxication-like symptoms
• Hallucinations and stupor

I had never experienced gas narcosis until one of my last dives on my divemaster course. I had to complete a navigation skill at a certain depth, also referred to as a ‘deep dive scenario’. I was assisting my friend with their advanced open water, and while we were doing their deep dive, my instructor said, ‘Okay, cool. Let’s complete your final drill.’

The task was simple: swim out 20 kick cycles, turn around and come back. My friend was my buddy for this drill, and she had the brilliant idea of filming some content so we could look back at our dive at the end of the day. This is when it hit me. All of a sudden, I was so confused, and swimming in a straight line seemed virtually impossible. I totally forgot I was being assessed on this drill, and everything became hilarious.

When I made it back to the group, my dive instructor looked just as confused as I was. Probably because I butchered what was meant to be the most straightforward task of the day. Once assured, my brain returned to normal, almost as if nothing had happened. Back at the boat, I explained the situation to my instructor, and she started laughing and said, ‘Yeah, I did think you were acting strange, Phoebe. You had gas narcosis.’ It was the first and only time I experienced it, but I can safely say I didn’t score top marks on that assignment. The worst part of all this? My friend later showed me the video. It was not my finest underwater minute but it did make for an evening of laughing and watching the video on repeat for hours…

Nothing Like Being Manhandled by the Sea to Keep You Humble:

Let me set the scene: three divers, one sketchy current, and one very questionable decision to get in the water in the first place. The instructors were already side-eyeing the swell before we descended, but hey, what’s life without a little risk?

The dive itself started strong. Well, sort of. My buddy and I were struggling to keep pace with our air consumption while our more experienced dive leader looked like he was just out for a casual stroll in the park. Not fair. Eventually, I signalled to my friend to check his pressure gauge, 70 bar, time for that good ol’ safety stop.

Except… we were still nowhere near the boat.

The current had shifted from “strong” to “oh no oh no oh no,” and it was doing everything it could to yeet us into open water. We finned like maniacs and somehow made it to the mooring line, where we clung on like wet socks in a cyclone.

At 5’3″, equipped with some deeply unimpressive plastic fins, I was absolutely no match for the ocean. The current was tossing me around like a pool noodle. At one point, my buddy had to physically grab my arm and hold both me and the line to stop me from being dragged back to England.

Those three minutes at the safety stop were the longest, most dramatic CrossFit workout of my life. When we finally flopped back onto the boat, there was a solid 60 seconds of pure silence, everyone too breathless to speak and too stunned to even laugh. Just the sound of adrenaline, bubbles, and bruised egos hissing out of our tanks.

Would I do it again? Probably. But maybe with better fins. And a bungee cord attached to the mooring line

Shoddy navigation and a 24-minute surface swim:

My friends and I along with me, decided to go on a ‘fun dive’. We were paired with a girl who was relatively new to diving and was planning to pursue her Divemaster program. We were under strict instructions to let her ‘lead the dive’ and practise her navigation. It seemed that everything was going well until we encountered a strong current, which disrupted our navigation. We realised we no longer knew where we were…

We were heading back in the general direction of the boat but after a ‘air check’ we realised that we needed to make a safety stop and begin our ascent to the surface and hopefully the boat. There was a little underwater disagreement over whether we should do our safety stop stationary or continue swimming towards the boat, fighting against the current. The final call was made and it soon proved to be the wrong one. During our stationary safety stop, the current picked up once again and we realised, a little too late, that we were again being dragged further away from our dive boat.

Upon surfacing, we realised how far we had been dragged. The realisation of a long surface swim, against a current, was not a happy moment. We began swimming toward the speck on the horizon, which, as we grew closer, we realised was indeed our dive boat. Twenty-four long minutes later, we made it back to our ship safely. To be met by a loud standing ovation from EVERYONE on the boat. It turns out that our little group had set a record for the longest surface swim they had this year. Impressive, no. Humbling, yes. At least we can now look back and laugh at our poor attempt at going on a nice, chill ‘fun dive’ and making it back to the boat successfully.

What a bloody mess

During my time in Koh Tao, it became a ritual during your surface time to jump, flip or flop off the top level of the dive boat. I loved jumping from the height and it was such a rush free falling 15 meters. I had done it a few times and even pushed my luck with a few successful, and slightly less successful front flips.

We had to wait for 40 minutes before our next dive. So, after some obligatory snacks and a cup of coffee, we all decided it was the perfect day to send some jumps off the boat. On my third and final jump, I held my nose to stop the water from entering and drowning my brain. I thought I was fine. However, when I researched, my friend pointed out that my face was covered in blood. It turns out that I wasn’t holding my nose; my finger was hooked into my nose ring. I must’ve pulled hard when I hit the water.

After a couple of minutes of laughing and me telling my friend not to bother diving down because there was no way he would find my 8mm gold hoop in the middle of the ocean, we all climbed back on the boat. That’s when the panic set in. The instructor, who was working as surface cover, was convinced I had torn my nose and that I may need some stitches. Not something you want to hear. I made it back to shore and poured a bottle of TCP on my nose to assess the damage. It wasn’t as bad as we all thought, and after a couple of days with a little scratch on my nose and a temporary nose stud, I was back to flipping off the boat with a nice new gold hoop.

Final Splash: What I’ve Learned (Besides Don’t Panic)

Despite the flailing, the fog, and the occasional existential dread at 30 metres, I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything. Scuba diving has humbled me, thrilled me, and taught me that even the worst dives make the best stories.

I hope you enjoyed my outing, some, there’s more of my favourite scuba flops. Would you like to share your own diving experiences? Drop them in the comments below, or get in touch on our Instagram page, or email me at … I’d love to hear I am not alone in learning from my dive mistakes. And if you want to dive deeper into more stories, tips and dive-related adventures, don’t forget to follow the blog. Let’s make this journey together, one dive at a time!