manni-yunk
Contributor
I was in NC doing what was the 5th out of 6 dives over 3 days. As usualy we plan our dive (me and my buddy who is a friend of 30 years so our communication is great and we have most of the standard signals as well as about 15 of our own). Get to depth (115 ft) and the plan is for me to spot and shoot a grouper ( we take turns with the gun) and then work as a team to get it under control and into the bag - then evaluate our air and surface.
We find a nice black grouper quickly and I shoot him but he tucks into some structure between a part of the wreck and a large rock. I can see him - and see the spear right in the gill plate. I backed out a little and told my buddy that I was going to try to get under the wreck and work the fish loose - keep an eye on me and my gear for snags (one of our signals!). I reach the fish and cannot budge him. He pinned his lips against the wreck and seemed to flair his gills to wedge himself in. He was pretty big and I cant move him. I backed out after a few minutes and checked my air. 1500 - I knew my buddy had more to start with but he checks his and all is fine. I went back, tried again but it was useless. I retreived my spear from the fish and backed out - reloaded and we started working toward the anchor line with about 1400 in my tank.
I wasnt planning on taking another shot - I only reloaded to make carrying the spear easier - but a gag grouper swam out right in front of us and seemed to freeze there as if to say take me! I took the shot and we started to retrieve him. As we did I checked and I have 1300 - I signal to my buddy that I really need to get to the anchor line so lets hurry. As we get the fish in hand - a shark (not a sand tiger - the mate said it was a reef shark) starts to circle us and bumps my buddy. I am back to back with him at this point about 10 feet below and 30 feet horizontal to where we are tied in. I look down and gauge says 1100. The shark came in close for another bump and my buddy pushes him with the back of the speargun . I grab the fish, remove the spear - and Drop the fish. The shark can have him as I have 1000 in my tank and my breathing is rapid. My buddy gives me the OK - signal to agree with my move and we watch the shark grab the fish and we start to ascend and head towards the anchor.
This is where it gets ugly. As we get level with the anchor - a current - a very strong current appears that we are swimming against. It WAS NOT there when we went down (confirmed with the other 20 divers later) and came from nowhere. We swan into the current and barely made any ground. I looked at my gauge and now Im just below 800 and breathing like a madman. I was thinking we either need to get lower or higher than this current and I am not goiing deeper with my linited air. We were at about 101 ft now. We head up to about 90 feet and the current lets up but since the current was in the opposite direction of surface wind, we are now further from the anchor. We get to the anchor line in about 90 ft of water and I am down to just under 500 and I am unable to slow my breathing. I let my buddy know that I am really low and stay close. He says OK. We start out ascent and as we work up - my reg is getting harder and harder to breath from. I look down and see under 300. I am sucking hard. I signal to my buddy that I am switching to my pony (which is a 19). He says ok and we hold hands. (our own thing - if either one ends up on pony we stay connected from that point on) I get 4......exactly 4 breaths from my pony and I cant suck anything from it. I check the dive, predive lever and it is fine. I am getting freaked out as now my pony is empty with me only getting about 4 breaths. I tell my buddy that I have no air in the pony and he looks at me in disbelief. I breath from his octo as we ascend but we couldnt get it away from his body as it had become tangled around something with the mono from the speargun so I had my head in his armpit (with low air we never had the chance to tie it back up) as we ascend the anchor line. We started to ascend faster on purpose at this point but I couldnt tell how fast from only judgiing the feel of the line going through my hand. We get to the bar which is at 20 feet - get our tangle straightened out and start to relax. He signals that he is getting low so I figure no problem - I will go breath form the boat reg that is attached to the bar. When I get there - the boat reg was not clipped to the bar like it always is so I pulled away from the bar as my first breath was from an upside down reg and lost my mask for a second. I turned the reg around, cleared my mask and relaxed. BUT - I had 3 minutes of deco and now I am well away from the bar and only at a depth of 5 feet (for 1 second). I started to try to control my bouyance and it was tough with empty tanks. I sucked every last bit of air from my BC and got back down to between 12 and 13 feet then had to focus on shallow breathing and relax as best as I could while I did my 3 min of deco - 3 min safety stop. Now the bar is full and I think noone wanted to go past me since they saw me breathing that reg they figured that something not good happened. I signaled that it was ok for them to go passed me and start boarding and they did. I hung for another 5 minutes then boarded the boat.
I got my gear off - then started to unwind.
What did I learn -
1) dont shoot with under 1500 even if I am close to the anchor line.
2) current at depth can come from nowhere...and when it does my breathing went through tthe roof
3) a rented 19 pony (only thing I rented) with no gauge is useless if I dont personally confirm the fill with a gauge.
4) I am buying a 30 or 40 pony this week with a button gauge.
I was also going down with less air than normal since my LP95s are usually filled at home to 3200 giving me about 115 of air. The dive shop in NV wouldnt fill them past 2400 so I was starting with about 88. I should have rented their larger tanks instead of using mine. Since I never go past about 4 minutes of mandatory deco we would have called the dive at the same time and had plenty of air to deal with the shark and current.
I was paranoid that maybe from coming up to fast or going to 5 feet I might be in trouble plus the excertion on this dive. Went through the dive profile , and looking back for about 1 minute we ascended at a MAX rate of 42 feet/minute - the rest of the time we were between 30 and 32 feet per minute. I did all mandatory deco, plus safety 3 plus an additional 5. I was still paranoid about every tingle so I called DAN and they said that they were not to concerned with the symptons I had since they were all easily explainable and monitor for others but I should be fine. Especially since it was 26 hours later when I called them and I was mostly fine. Really - I called for peace of mind.
I know I made mistakes, but man was I scared for a while there. I was as calm as can be - and never lost my head - although I wish I could have controlled my breathing a little better when it hit the fan -
We find a nice black grouper quickly and I shoot him but he tucks into some structure between a part of the wreck and a large rock. I can see him - and see the spear right in the gill plate. I backed out a little and told my buddy that I was going to try to get under the wreck and work the fish loose - keep an eye on me and my gear for snags (one of our signals!). I reach the fish and cannot budge him. He pinned his lips against the wreck and seemed to flair his gills to wedge himself in. He was pretty big and I cant move him. I backed out after a few minutes and checked my air. 1500 - I knew my buddy had more to start with but he checks his and all is fine. I went back, tried again but it was useless. I retreived my spear from the fish and backed out - reloaded and we started working toward the anchor line with about 1400 in my tank.
I wasnt planning on taking another shot - I only reloaded to make carrying the spear easier - but a gag grouper swam out right in front of us and seemed to freeze there as if to say take me! I took the shot and we started to retrieve him. As we did I checked and I have 1300 - I signal to my buddy that I really need to get to the anchor line so lets hurry. As we get the fish in hand - a shark (not a sand tiger - the mate said it was a reef shark) starts to circle us and bumps my buddy. I am back to back with him at this point about 10 feet below and 30 feet horizontal to where we are tied in. I look down and gauge says 1100. The shark came in close for another bump and my buddy pushes him with the back of the speargun . I grab the fish, remove the spear - and Drop the fish. The shark can have him as I have 1000 in my tank and my breathing is rapid. My buddy gives me the OK - signal to agree with my move and we watch the shark grab the fish and we start to ascend and head towards the anchor.
This is where it gets ugly. As we get level with the anchor - a current - a very strong current appears that we are swimming against. It WAS NOT there when we went down (confirmed with the other 20 divers later) and came from nowhere. We swan into the current and barely made any ground. I looked at my gauge and now Im just below 800 and breathing like a madman. I was thinking we either need to get lower or higher than this current and I am not goiing deeper with my linited air. We were at about 101 ft now. We head up to about 90 feet and the current lets up but since the current was in the opposite direction of surface wind, we are now further from the anchor. We get to the anchor line in about 90 ft of water and I am down to just under 500 and I am unable to slow my breathing. I let my buddy know that I am really low and stay close. He says OK. We start out ascent and as we work up - my reg is getting harder and harder to breath from. I look down and see under 300. I am sucking hard. I signal to my buddy that I am switching to my pony (which is a 19). He says ok and we hold hands. (our own thing - if either one ends up on pony we stay connected from that point on) I get 4......exactly 4 breaths from my pony and I cant suck anything from it. I check the dive, predive lever and it is fine. I am getting freaked out as now my pony is empty with me only getting about 4 breaths. I tell my buddy that I have no air in the pony and he looks at me in disbelief. I breath from his octo as we ascend but we couldnt get it away from his body as it had become tangled around something with the mono from the speargun so I had my head in his armpit (with low air we never had the chance to tie it back up) as we ascend the anchor line. We started to ascend faster on purpose at this point but I couldnt tell how fast from only judgiing the feel of the line going through my hand. We get to the bar which is at 20 feet - get our tangle straightened out and start to relax. He signals that he is getting low so I figure no problem - I will go breath form the boat reg that is attached to the bar. When I get there - the boat reg was not clipped to the bar like it always is so I pulled away from the bar as my first breath was from an upside down reg and lost my mask for a second. I turned the reg around, cleared my mask and relaxed. BUT - I had 3 minutes of deco and now I am well away from the bar and only at a depth of 5 feet (for 1 second). I started to try to control my bouyance and it was tough with empty tanks. I sucked every last bit of air from my BC and got back down to between 12 and 13 feet then had to focus on shallow breathing and relax as best as I could while I did my 3 min of deco - 3 min safety stop. Now the bar is full and I think noone wanted to go past me since they saw me breathing that reg they figured that something not good happened. I signaled that it was ok for them to go passed me and start boarding and they did. I hung for another 5 minutes then boarded the boat.
I got my gear off - then started to unwind.
What did I learn -
1) dont shoot with under 1500 even if I am close to the anchor line.
2) current at depth can come from nowhere...and when it does my breathing went through tthe roof
3) a rented 19 pony (only thing I rented) with no gauge is useless if I dont personally confirm the fill with a gauge.
4) I am buying a 30 or 40 pony this week with a button gauge.
I was also going down with less air than normal since my LP95s are usually filled at home to 3200 giving me about 115 of air. The dive shop in NV wouldnt fill them past 2400 so I was starting with about 88. I should have rented their larger tanks instead of using mine. Since I never go past about 4 minutes of mandatory deco we would have called the dive at the same time and had plenty of air to deal with the shark and current.
I was paranoid that maybe from coming up to fast or going to 5 feet I might be in trouble plus the excertion on this dive. Went through the dive profile , and looking back for about 1 minute we ascended at a MAX rate of 42 feet/minute - the rest of the time we were between 30 and 32 feet per minute. I did all mandatory deco, plus safety 3 plus an additional 5. I was still paranoid about every tingle so I called DAN and they said that they were not to concerned with the symptons I had since they were all easily explainable and monitor for others but I should be fine. Especially since it was 26 hours later when I called them and I was mostly fine. Really - I called for peace of mind.
I know I made mistakes, but man was I scared for a while there. I was as calm as can be - and never lost my head - although I wish I could have controlled my breathing a little better when it hit the fan -