Most of the times, we read a report on this forum where divers do not make it back, and then try to postulate on how it happened. The following is an account of what happened this weekend, the only hitch is the ending was a good one.
We started our dive as usual, gearing up and discussing where we intend to go, how deep and how long. There were three of us on this dive, and we were diving an area that all three of us know as well as our back yards. There was myself, my buddy who is rescue certified, and my second buddy who is a dive master and soon will be an instructor. We walked to the shore, into the water, and descended to 40 feet at the bottom of the first wall. From their we headed out on our first heading to deeper water, about 80 feet, where we would turn and head for a second wall that dropped to the abyss, about 365 feet, then turn West to the ridge that would lead us slowly up and back to the entry point.
About 15 minutes into the dive my second buddy, the dive master, signaled that she had a problem with equalizing and was going to turn. She signaled she was turning and then waved bye, signaling that she would return alone and leave us to complete the dive. Before I could indicate that we all will return and finish together, she turned and started to head off. I signaled to my other buddy that we should follow and we did. Within a minute I noticed something was not right, we were at 80 feet, and should have reached the sloping bottom that rises to the 40 foot wall by now. A glance at my compass showed me that we were heading out into open water and the 365 foot drop.
I signaled to my buddy that we had too catch up and started to swim as fast as I could, even at that it took about 2 minutes to catch up and grab her fin to stop her. By now we had gone a long way out, and I knew that below us was nothing for about 300 feet. I signaled to her that she was going in the wrong direction, and by this time we were getting too low on air for a return trip at this depth. Signaling to both buddies that we should ascend to 15 feet hold, they both agreed and up we went. At 15 feet we took a compass heading due West and headed back to shore, all the while boats were zipping past over head because we had gone way outside the designated dive area. We made it out with less than 300 psi in our tanks, and all of us had a good discussion of what just happened and what we just learned.
The two simple rules that were strongly reinforced that day, and I hope all of you reading will take them to heart as rules never to be broken are:
1) Always trust your compass, and even when you think you know the area, use your compass. It was the initial failure to take a compass heading West that started our trip in the wrong direction.
2) The buddies you start a dive with, end a dive with you. Without exception, regardless of reasons or circumstances.
This time we had a happy ending, but the realization that if we let her go off alone we may have never seen her again. This made a cold chill run down my back later that evening.
We started our dive as usual, gearing up and discussing where we intend to go, how deep and how long. There were three of us on this dive, and we were diving an area that all three of us know as well as our back yards. There was myself, my buddy who is rescue certified, and my second buddy who is a dive master and soon will be an instructor. We walked to the shore, into the water, and descended to 40 feet at the bottom of the first wall. From their we headed out on our first heading to deeper water, about 80 feet, where we would turn and head for a second wall that dropped to the abyss, about 365 feet, then turn West to the ridge that would lead us slowly up and back to the entry point.
About 15 minutes into the dive my second buddy, the dive master, signaled that she had a problem with equalizing and was going to turn. She signaled she was turning and then waved bye, signaling that she would return alone and leave us to complete the dive. Before I could indicate that we all will return and finish together, she turned and started to head off. I signaled to my other buddy that we should follow and we did. Within a minute I noticed something was not right, we were at 80 feet, and should have reached the sloping bottom that rises to the 40 foot wall by now. A glance at my compass showed me that we were heading out into open water and the 365 foot drop.
I signaled to my buddy that we had too catch up and started to swim as fast as I could, even at that it took about 2 minutes to catch up and grab her fin to stop her. By now we had gone a long way out, and I knew that below us was nothing for about 300 feet. I signaled to her that she was going in the wrong direction, and by this time we were getting too low on air for a return trip at this depth. Signaling to both buddies that we should ascend to 15 feet hold, they both agreed and up we went. At 15 feet we took a compass heading due West and headed back to shore, all the while boats were zipping past over head because we had gone way outside the designated dive area. We made it out with less than 300 psi in our tanks, and all of us had a good discussion of what just happened and what we just learned.
The two simple rules that were strongly reinforced that day, and I hope all of you reading will take them to heart as rules never to be broken are:
1) Always trust your compass, and even when you think you know the area, use your compass. It was the initial failure to take a compass heading West that started our trip in the wrong direction.
2) The buddies you start a dive with, end a dive with you. Without exception, regardless of reasons or circumstances.
This time we had a happy ending, but the realization that if we let her go off alone we may have never seen her again. This made a cold chill run down my back later that evening.
