haha. My understanding is that this maneuver puts feces into the sea directly, not into the wetsuit.
No, I was doing a TDI advanced trimix course about 9 years ago. It was in Cozumel. Buffet breakfast every morning. But one morning I guess they didn't agree with me so I had to call the shop and put off the training that day. The following day I *thought* I was better. Very solid in the morning, no sharp pains in the abdomen. Able to eat a pound of bacon and eggs and refried beans at 7:30 like a champ. I boarded the dive boat in good spirits and told everyone how much better I was feeling.
It was the first dive of the day. We were about 270 feet deep, off the coast of Playa San Juan. I started to get a little crampy, but it didn't seem very serious. As it turns out, the instructor was fond of having me do the helicopter turns frequently. That's where you use your feet to do a 360° turn while maintaining buoyancy and trim and stay within a foot or so of the depth that you start from. From time to time he'd come up and make a symbol which I knew meant he wanted me to practice the helicopter turn.
Just as I started to feel a serious cramp and felt that a three-phase blast trying to make its way out, he came up and made the turn sign. Oh, seriously? Now? Now, he indicated. So I made a sorry attempt but the form was awful because I was keeping my cheeks firmly pressed together to avoid disaster, all while clasping my painful stomach. He looked at me and shook his head in disappointment and made the sign again. Well, if I'm gonna pass this course I suppose I must...
My execution was near perfect the second time, but as a result I began to feel a warmth and a slime making its way around the middle two-thirds of my erstwhile beautiful Cressi Castoro 5-mm neoprene suit. He was delighted at my form and wanted to have me do another, for good measure. "Practice makes perfect", I suppose he was thinking. I was hesitant but he was very encouraging. Alas, I obliged. That third one pretty much moved it all over the inside of my suit.
About an hour and a half later, after a few miserable decompression stops and deployment of my SMB from 40 feet, we broke the surface. Immediately I pulled out my regulator and explained the situation. Needless to say he had a good laugh. When Captain Giovanni made his way to our location some time later, I suggested that he board quickly then pull ahead at least 15 meters from my location and explain it all to the captain. This was because none of us wanted the paying customers--there were about 10 recreational divers on the vessel who had much shorter dives and had already been collected--we didn't want them to bear witness as I doffed my soiled wetsuit. He insisted that I hand up all my tanks except the doubles on my back, and loosen the belt on my backplate/wing BCD and hand up the lead weights as well, which was probably a good idea.
Once the boat was far enough away, I quickly came out of the BCD, then I attached my fins to the belt on the backplate. While holding onto that I managed to get my booties off (Pphh! What a stench!) After some fidgeting, I managed to get the rear zipper down enough for me to come out of the wetsuit. Oh, man, was it ugly? Thankfully only the captain, on his high perch, could glimpse the nastiness.
On a brighter note, I was suddenly surrounded by many reef and pelagic fishes. I had never been surrounded by so many hungry marine creatures as I was on that occasion. It was a magnificent sight. They were everywhere, hitting the surface and enjoying some of what in their opinion must have been delightful morsels.
Aboard the vessel the news had spread to all the crew. Somehow they managed to keep it from the customers, but they were all having a good laugh at my expense. I looked at them and said "Pensé que estaba un pedo" and one of the deck hands, Pepe, looked at me and said "¡Pedo con premio!" and they all burst out in laughter again.
Needless to say there was no second dive for me that day. Captain quickly dropped me off at Puerto de Abrigo where I could find a public restroom and then get home quickly. Don, the instructor, was rather impressed that I took it all in stride. In the future we had many excellent technical and recreational dives together.
It took me a looooong time to get that wetsuit clean, but eventually, with a whole lot of Fabuloso and an an even greater lot of patience, I was able to make it clean.
. But, let's see, I think that puts me at 59 years an active diver. Good grief.
