I would like to go on record here as someone whose dive buddy was severely narced at 25m(82'), after an exhausting swim against current to get to the reef, and about 25 minutes into the dive(maxdepth 30m/100'). She lost her ability to focus her eyes, couldn't read her dive computer, and was physically weak. As we were aborting the dive, me as her buddy had to control her rate of ascent, and she appeared groggy/sedated, her arm was completely limp in my roman handshake, she was largely unresponsive between the time of the ascend signal being given, until sometime during the safety/deco stop(her computer showed deco while neither mine nor the DMs did, with the same profile). She didn't fully recover until about half an hour after the dive.
To highlight just how strong the current was: at the reef, with a bit of protection from the current, it was barely possible to swim against it, with the help of handholds. After letting go of the reef, I was quickly accellerated to speeds where kicking only slowed me down, by an insignificant degree, I'm thinking something like at least 20kmh/32mph. And for 20-30 seconds, the downward current was strong enough that I had to fully inflate my BCD to keep from being pulled down(just to stay level). The DM was with my buddy at the time of abort, I was the first to let go, and I was separated from them by 30 meters within a 2-3 seconds. We managed to regroup, and during the ascent I noticed she wasn't coming up with us, and that's when I descended back to her depth and had to control her ascent from that point.
This was our first dive that day.
---------- Post added May 6th, 2013 at 01:59 PM ----------
On a sidenote: I'm a natural diaphragmatic breather, I don't chest breath even above water, though I breath shallower(IE: I just breath deeper/slower underwater).
To highlight just how strong the current was: at the reef, with a bit of protection from the current, it was barely possible to swim against it, with the help of handholds. After letting go of the reef, I was quickly accellerated to speeds where kicking only slowed me down, by an insignificant degree, I'm thinking something like at least 20kmh/32mph. And for 20-30 seconds, the downward current was strong enough that I had to fully inflate my BCD to keep from being pulled down(just to stay level). The DM was with my buddy at the time of abort, I was the first to let go, and I was separated from them by 30 meters within a 2-3 seconds. We managed to regroup, and during the ascent I noticed she wasn't coming up with us, and that's when I descended back to her depth and had to control her ascent from that point.
This was our first dive that day.
---------- Post added May 6th, 2013 at 01:59 PM ----------
On a sidenote: I'm a natural diaphragmatic breather, I don't chest breath even above water, though I breath shallower(IE: I just breath deeper/slower underwater).
