fah
Guest
On my most recent trip to Grand Cayman I was diving the north wall with my son and a group of other divers. The profile was 100' wall dive with a head first entrance swim-thru at 80' exiting on the wall face at 95'. I was the last in the follow the leader line to enter the swim thru which was a head first entry with an approx 6' x4' opening into a larger cavern exiting onto the wall. I have never had ear problems and did not experience any difficulity on this dive until I was half way into the opening when my left ear started to hurt. I could not back up without turning around which meant I had to descend at least 10' to turn around and ascend. I was very worried that my ear drum would burst and I would have a sudden attack of vertigo, to the point that I was looking for which piece of coral I could grab if the spins started. Fortunately, the cavern had a raised overhead opening which I ascended into (while still able to maintain sight of the group), clear my ear and continue. I was a little nervous for the time on the deep wall with some residual ear pain, but no vertigo. Later I was fine and all remaining dives were fine with no ear problems. In retrospect, I probably forgot to equalize my ears sufficently for the sudden descent into the opening and my usual subconscious equalizing that I do below 30' did not work well in a head down orientation. The lesson for me was to make sure all is well with ears, gear and anything else before entry into a restricted space.
