Been here in BON for the past 8 days of shore diving and we fly home to Seattle tomorrow so today is packing / deco day. I'll do a full trip report once back... In the meanwhile I wanted to make a post with what I believe might be helpful and important info. I'll be happy to discuss, answer any questions and provide more details once we get back home......and unfortunately back to reality.
On Friday the girls chose to skip the early morning dive so my buddy and I decided to hit Buddy's dock and dive their house reef. We're not staying at Buddy's but we did buy our shore / Nitrox package from them so have full access to their dock. Having already done a nice mid range dive there earlier in the week, our plan was to hit the "bottom" of the reef at 110 and then work it from there. We're having some wind this week so vis was fair but not awesome....about 45-50ft. We are both SDI/TDS Solo certified and equipped so it is not at all unusual for us to be 50 ft + apart but we still like to stay in the same general area. I take a bend down between legs check and my buddy who was just behind me a minute ago and about 50 ft away is now gone. I stop, look up, down, full 360.....buddy is nowhere to be seen. Not a big deal but "Spidey Sense" has me concerned so decide to call my dive and RTB as quickly as safely possible. When I get to the dock his gear is piled haphazardly at the top of the ladder and he's basically on his back using the entire 5 gallon fresh drinking water dispenser and pouring it on his face. Friday is basically "deco" before flying day.....so there's no one on the dock but him and me at the time....
Here's the basics of our full debrief discussion a few hours later.....
At 70ft, he had performed a simple routine flush and clear of his mask.... and in a one in a million longshot, a jelly had entered his mask. We suspect it was box due to the full moon and recent wind directional changes this week and recent reports. He was in immediately in extreme agony with major loss of vision.....He explained it as similar to blurred underwater vision with no mask combined with extreme agony and pain. Not knowing for sure what the problem was he swapped to his spare mask. No help and no relief. He was concerned about boat traffic so ascended to the top of the reef staying close to bottom and kicking back North miraculously with blurred vision found the rope line back to Buddies ladder. His immediate reaction was to start flushing with the cold fresh water which we found later was exactly what NOT to do. We got him back to the villa two minutes away and continued to flush with fresh water.. No good. He jumped in the shower and continued to flush and the HOT water immediately provided some minor relief so stayed with that while I'm on my laptop looking for info. Bottom line is that HOT fresh or even slightly salted HOT water is the ticket. HOT as you can stand it without scalding. Things slowly improved and about 2.5 hours later after continuous flushing we was back in good shape.....
For the rest of the trip, and moving forward for shore diving Bon...... we now keep 5 single plastic gallon jugs of fresh water in the back of the truck where the sun easily makes and keeps it super hot.... Might be a good tip especially for the far southern sites or trips up to the park.
More later when we return and do a full trip report.... Just wanted folks to know about the jellies currently on BON and the HOT water treatment that worked for us.....
On Friday the girls chose to skip the early morning dive so my buddy and I decided to hit Buddy's dock and dive their house reef. We're not staying at Buddy's but we did buy our shore / Nitrox package from them so have full access to their dock. Having already done a nice mid range dive there earlier in the week, our plan was to hit the "bottom" of the reef at 110 and then work it from there. We're having some wind this week so vis was fair but not awesome....about 45-50ft. We are both SDI/TDS Solo certified and equipped so it is not at all unusual for us to be 50 ft + apart but we still like to stay in the same general area. I take a bend down between legs check and my buddy who was just behind me a minute ago and about 50 ft away is now gone. I stop, look up, down, full 360.....buddy is nowhere to be seen. Not a big deal but "Spidey Sense" has me concerned so decide to call my dive and RTB as quickly as safely possible. When I get to the dock his gear is piled haphazardly at the top of the ladder and he's basically on his back using the entire 5 gallon fresh drinking water dispenser and pouring it on his face. Friday is basically "deco" before flying day.....so there's no one on the dock but him and me at the time....
Here's the basics of our full debrief discussion a few hours later.....
At 70ft, he had performed a simple routine flush and clear of his mask.... and in a one in a million longshot, a jelly had entered his mask. We suspect it was box due to the full moon and recent wind directional changes this week and recent reports. He was in immediately in extreme agony with major loss of vision.....He explained it as similar to blurred underwater vision with no mask combined with extreme agony and pain. Not knowing for sure what the problem was he swapped to his spare mask. No help and no relief. He was concerned about boat traffic so ascended to the top of the reef staying close to bottom and kicking back North miraculously with blurred vision found the rope line back to Buddies ladder. His immediate reaction was to start flushing with the cold fresh water which we found later was exactly what NOT to do. We got him back to the villa two minutes away and continued to flush with fresh water.. No good. He jumped in the shower and continued to flush and the HOT water immediately provided some minor relief so stayed with that while I'm on my laptop looking for info. Bottom line is that HOT fresh or even slightly salted HOT water is the ticket. HOT as you can stand it without scalding. Things slowly improved and about 2.5 hours later after continuous flushing we was back in good shape.....
For the rest of the trip, and moving forward for shore diving Bon...... we now keep 5 single plastic gallon jugs of fresh water in the back of the truck where the sun easily makes and keeps it super hot.... Might be a good tip especially for the far southern sites or trips up to the park.
More later when we return and do a full trip report.... Just wanted folks to know about the jellies currently on BON and the HOT water treatment that worked for us.....
