Hathaway Pond, Monday 3/27 Dive Report
Believe it or not, we had 46 degrees there!!!!! Still a bit of a sphincter squeezer when you walk in and that water works its way up your legs and hits the boys, but a whole lot better than expected.
We had a...... productive... dive. We geared up hiding behind my truck because the wind was whipping over the water. (To the point that as I carried my tank down to the picnic table my hat got blown off my head, "This isn't looking good for post dive undressing!!!") We talked to a guy down by the waters edge who had just got back from vacation where he did his first dives. He was all excited about diving up here. "Ya, well it's not exactly like what you were diving down there. It's better in many ways, but lets say it's an aquired taste."
We waded in, finned up and dunked under. A quick "I'm OK, You OK? OK, lets go," and I headed to the platform with Ben-wa on my wing. I get to the platform and realise that I'm alone. Damn, he was right next to me when we got to the rock wall, where did he go? So I sit and wait.. And wait. And wait. OK, he's not coming, something must be wrong, I'll go find him. Back up to the rock wall and about 1/2 way up I see him struggling to clear an ear. (We had about 15-20 foot vis max.) He thinks he gets it and so we head back out. Nope, he's stopped again. OK, I'll wait. He just can't get his left ear cleared. We started and stopped a half dozen times, eventually getting to the area where the grass stops beyond the platform (Maybe 35 feet?) but it wasn't going to happen. I watched him struggling and decided that the prudent thing to do was call the dive. We swam back to the beach were he told me that he had had trouble right from the start. His mask had flooded, probably had his hood under the seal, and he had taken a hit of water up the nose trying to clear it. THen he somehow had managed to knock his reg out of his mouth while his mask was flooded and swallowed a bit more water. He was only in 10 feet of water while all this was going on, (And I was apparently swimming off without a care in the world except for my freezing gonads) so he surfaced and got it together and then tried to play catchup. Which his ears rebelled against.
So instead of just bagging the day, I suggested we see if he could get back to the platform comfortably and we practice skills. He agreed and we swam back without a problem and practiced OOA and flooded mask drills. We spent 35 minutes total and called it a day with tanks 2/3 full. But valuable lessons learned. Ben-wa is a beginner, got certed in September of last year. He only has a dozen or so dives. He's been my friend for years and I guess I was looking at him as an equal, not as someone whom I would need to keep an eye one. I've only got about 100 dives myself, so I'm no-ones expert, but I've got way more experience then him and should have been more attuned to his in-experience. Plus he hasn't dove since October. I was looking at this as a fun hour or two, he was looking at it as something else again entirely.
We ended up by doing the thing that was most productive, refreshing his skills. No one was hurt. We still got a dive in. So it was a good day. But I learned a very valuable lesson. Just because I'm comfortable doesn't mean that the guy I'm with is, and I need to be more aware of that. I'm not a DM, but I feel like I've got a responsibilty to everyone I dive with to be sure that they are ok, and are having a fun, safe dive. Next time, I'll be a better buddy.
PTN
