My 100th dive was on a pleasant and sunny morning during the 2012 Memorial weekend. It was slated to be a rather benign endeavor at Blue Heron Bridge. A dive site we had done many times before including at night. For those not familiar, BHB is a shallow shore dive in Riviera Beach, FL. Its confines are the main boat channel for the inlet 30 meters in front, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway to the west, Singer Island to the east and the public beach.
We typically tow a heavy duty inflatable diver down marker, but I decided this was way too cumbersome, so I bought a small styrofoam marker just prior to this dive. Lisa and I decided to dive the east side, a section relatively new to us. So we set out with me towing the brand new little marker. Early on I noticed the diver down flag that is supposed to sit proudly atop the float had disappeared. I discovered it was very easy to drag the entire styrofoam ball beneath the surface thus pushing the flag up and off the poll. So now the only thing alerting the Memorial weekend traffic on the nearby boat channel was a thin white stick bobbing up and down in the shimmering sea. This would have never happened with the large inflatable float, but not to worry, we were not swimming in the busy boat channel because that would be incredibly stupid and dangerous.
We continued sans flag for a very interesting dive viewing a small eagle ray, squid, sea horses and lots of octopuses. In an attempt to entice a hapless octopus out of a small pipe, I whipped out a bright new nickel. Intellectually challenged creatures are easily distracted by shiny objects. I know this for fact, because while playing with the silvery coin I became so captivated I unknowingly let go of what was left of the dive float. So we went from a float without a flag to nothing at all, BUT, we were no where near the busy boat channel, so forget about it!
After about 75 minutes the tide was going out and the visibility along with it, so we began our underwater journey back. One of the unfortunate aspects of diving the east side and exiting on the far west side is having to avoid the public swimming area. Off limits to divers and patrolled, at the time, by a tyrannical lifeguard. So you must first swim south towards the boat channel to reach the western passage that lay just beyond the swim area buoys. No problem. So with lots of help from the out going tide I’m swimming like hell directly towards the boat channel while painstakingly looking for recognizable terrain to signal our pending and critical westerly turn right. That’s weird. I’m not seeing anything familiar, including my buddy! I decided to pop up and take a look quick around. Hello Harbor Police!!! These guys had been directly overhead staring down at the moron swimming through the middle of the boat channel. My face is as red as my missing dive flag, which just happens to be the first thing they ask about. They said another boater found, and kept by the way, my brand new dive float. Under their incredulous and watchful eye I made the humiliating swim of shame back to the beach. They were very cool about the whole thing, but my self loathing over this debacle lasted for years! The ONLY reason I am revealing this epic fail now is as a warning to others to never be complacent regardless of how simple the dive.
In my defense, I believe the “split fins” I was wearing at the time contributed greatly to this near catastrophe.