jsado
Contributor
Here's the scenario I encountered this past weekend.....
We decided to anchor off of one point of an island and dive around the whole island resurfacing at the boat. I didn't bring my flag and reel on the boat trip because I knew my buddy had his. As we were getting ready, I asked how he was bringing the flag. Did he have line or a reel or something? He said we'd leave the flag on the boat because we were sticking right along the side of the island and didn't really need it. Of course, I was concerned immediately and eventually made the poor decision to trust him. He has a LOT MORE experience than I do.....
We begin the dive, drop down to about 40ft and start circling the island. Swimming into a stiff current and sticking close to the wall. Here enters the problem. At 40ft the wall goes off in one direction and the island wall turns into 20ft and goes in another direction. We missed that turn. The water starts getting shallower. We start hearing MAJOR boat traffic. Boats start zipping along over our heads. We're both completely disoriented and make another bad decision..... One of us has to surface to see where we are. Naturally, I make the universal hand signals that say "this was your great freakin idea! You're the one who said we DON'T NEED a flag! I'm not getting my head smashed by a boat or chopped up by a prop.... YOU GO".... he concurred and made his ascent. Knowing that he might have to make an emergency descent, he completely deflated his bc, swam to the surface and poked his head out. When he verified the coast was clear, he motioned for me to surface.
After we realized where we were, he said lets go back down and swim to the other side of the island and return to the boat. The other side of the island is known as the "main channel". There is ALL KINDS of heavy boat traffic there....700ft steel freighters go through there 15 times a day. I called the dive and said, "no way lets go back to the boat - surface swim."
The lesson I learned? NEVER DIVE WITHOUT A FLAG
We decided to anchor off of one point of an island and dive around the whole island resurfacing at the boat. I didn't bring my flag and reel on the boat trip because I knew my buddy had his. As we were getting ready, I asked how he was bringing the flag. Did he have line or a reel or something? He said we'd leave the flag on the boat because we were sticking right along the side of the island and didn't really need it. Of course, I was concerned immediately and eventually made the poor decision to trust him. He has a LOT MORE experience than I do.....
We begin the dive, drop down to about 40ft and start circling the island. Swimming into a stiff current and sticking close to the wall. Here enters the problem. At 40ft the wall goes off in one direction and the island wall turns into 20ft and goes in another direction. We missed that turn. The water starts getting shallower. We start hearing MAJOR boat traffic. Boats start zipping along over our heads. We're both completely disoriented and make another bad decision..... One of us has to surface to see where we are. Naturally, I make the universal hand signals that say "this was your great freakin idea! You're the one who said we DON'T NEED a flag! I'm not getting my head smashed by a boat or chopped up by a prop.... YOU GO".... he concurred and made his ascent. Knowing that he might have to make an emergency descent, he completely deflated his bc, swam to the surface and poked his head out. When he verified the coast was clear, he motioned for me to surface.
After we realized where we were, he said lets go back down and swim to the other side of the island and return to the boat. The other side of the island is known as the "main channel". There is ALL KINDS of heavy boat traffic there....700ft steel freighters go through there 15 times a day. I called the dive and said, "no way lets go back to the boat - surface swim."
The lesson I learned? NEVER DIVE WITHOUT A FLAG