Lost on the Red Sea

[mikeynl]

Panorama-S: it was definitely a PADI school as I did my AOW with them. Not really sure which school it was tho, as I booked it as a part of a package holiday, then got a name of a school, but it seems like they were more like an umbrella organization managing the divers and sending them to different schools. I dived with another instructor too, and he seemed much better. I was doing my navigation dive as part of the AOW, and since it had been a while since I'd done stuff from the OW course (like take the regulator out and recover it), he let me do all those exercises too.

The reason we split up I explained: it was hard to swim with the 4 of us, so when we saw the beacon reef we split up in 2's, and when we actually got close enough we split up altogether. We tried to stay together even though we split up, but the waves were high and the current string so it was impossible. Scary story about someone dying being smashed to a reef. I was so happy I had a full body suit on!

Supergaijin: thanks for the explanation. All sounds very logical. The currents were indeed strong and in my earlier dive there they were all over the place, I went up and down and left and right, and my instructor had to hold me. During that first dive I had a little scary moment too when I just kept going down, but I didn't panic which made me feel stronger. Just signaled to the instructor that I had a problem, and pulled me up. The currents on the second dive at Jackson were probably even stronger, we had a hard time clinging on to the reef for our safety stop, but I did pretty well on that. Don't think Sipadan will scare me in that sense (in fact, I can't wait!)

DandyDon: the boat left us as it was tilting very much, it looked really scary from the water, and I think the day trip snorkelers on there might have panicked too with all the tilting. It was not just impossible but dangerous to try to get on the steps, that might have been a fatal mistake. And I understood that the boat was drifting towards the reef too (which seems weird) and didn't wanna risk hitting it.

TSandM: we were eventually picked up by an RIB. Amazed me that it took so long for one too arrive this, as I saw a lot of them at the resorts just on the other side of the strait, and there were loads of boats around too, but I guess none had one.

AfterDark: I actually did a night dive as part of my AOW too. My heart was racing when we were about to do it, as I used to be so scared of water, especially dark water, that I didn't even like to cross bridges in the dark. Within seconds I felt at ease tho, the lights were brilliant, and it was a totally out of this world experience. Like floating in space. I'm still trying to figure out what the light was we used, as I definitely wanna do more night dives (I'll be staying on the old oil rig at Mabul when we go to Sipadan, and you can do as many dives as you want there, including night dives). From what I remember it looked like one of the Underwater Kinetics ones, probably the SL4 eLED. You know if that's a good one? Read that it's officially a secondary light, but often used as primary (looked good enough to me).

One thing I regret is not buying the GoPro camera just before my trip. Would have been a "brilliant" movie!

 

[supergaijin]

.... my instructor had to hold me. During that first dive I had a little scary moment too when I just kept going down, but I didn't panic which made me feel stronger. Just signaled to the instructor that I had a problem, and pulled me up. The currents on the second dive at Jackson were probably even stronger, we had a hard time clinging on to the reef for our safety stop, but I did pretty well on that. Don't think Sipadan will scare me in that sense (in fact, I can't wait!)

Don't take this the wrong way, but it still doesn't sound like you are ready to be diving too deep as it doesn't sound like you have mastered controlling your descents yet. The next time you "just keep going down", there may not be an instructor there for you. I would really recommend you get a few more shallow dives in before attempting the walls of Sipadan. The best of Sipadan is exposed to current- the more the better and it can easily get just as strong as what I believe you experienced in Tiran that day.

The SeaVentures oil rig in Mabul is also exposed to current and it's reasonably deep- take care. There are a few more protected dive sites around Mabul though.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I had the snorkel with me but the waves were pretty choppy so it wasn't too useful. Was so exhausted that from time to time that I felt more comfortable with the regulator.[/QUOTE

I have a hard time understanding how you ditched lead, inflated a BC and it was too rough to use a snorkel, but it was calm enough for you to stand up on a live coral reef, to catch your breath.

How big were the waves?

You were able to climb up on the reef while wearing scuba gear?

 

[Ayisha]

I had the snorkel with me but the waves were pretty choppy so it wasn't too useful. Was so exhausted that from time to time that I felt more comfortable with the regulator.

I have a hard time understanding how you ditched lead, inflated a BC and it was too rough to use a snorkel, but it was calm enough for you to stand up on a live coral reef, to catch your breath.

I had something like that once where it was hard to breathe with all the chop even with the regulator. It was in Lake Ontario, believe it or not and I've never seen it before or since. A freak storm came out of nowhere as we surfaced from the Wolfe Islander II and I was just about to grab the ladder and the ladder all of a sudden jumped all the way up, I went back, the ladder crashed down, I was suddenly 20 feet back. I started swimming hard for the ladder. The captain told me he'll come and get me, but I still tried. Suddenly I was out 50 feet, then 100 feet out from the boat in seconds, and then eventually probably a couple hundred feet out. The sky got dark and there was thunder and lightening. I had inflated my BC as much as possible and was using my reg and was glad I had finished my dive with 1400 psi, although I had a snorkel as well. It was really hard to breathe while facing the boat, which was up-current (What current in lake Ontario??), but I was afraid to take my eyes off the boat. Once in a while, I turned my face away from the current to catch my breath, and then turned back again to keep an eye on the boat.

I could only see the boat here and there with the high waves and I knew they could see me even less. I had an SMB zipped in my pocket but I was afraid to fumble with it and take my eyes off the boat, so I put my arm straight up. They were all watching me and the captain waved quite often as he pulled anchor, motored into position and then drifted toward me. The first pass was too far, the second was aborted because the boat would have hit me and with the third pass I caught the ring, they pulled me in, didn't put out the ladder because it was so rough, and they yanked me aboard with a little help from me. The boat was taking on water with its position with the back gate open and I could barely get up fast enough. I was really wiped for a few minutes after that and would never want to be caught in something like that again.

So sometimes it is more comfortable to breathe with a reg than snorkel. Maybe it was hard to breathe with the reg because he was facing into the waves?

 

[DandyDon]

During that first dive I had a little scary moment too when I just kept going down, but I didn't panic which made me feel stronger. Just signaled to the instructor that I had a problem, and pulled me up. The currents on the second dive at Jackson were probably even stronger, we had a hard time clinging on to the reef for our safety stop, but I did pretty well on that. Don't think Sipadan will scare me in that sense (in fact, I can't wait!)

I do hope you've since learned to control your buoyancy with the BC. If not - next...!

DandyDon: the boat left us as it was tilting very much, it looked really scary from the water, and I think the day trip snorkelers on there might have panicked too with all the tilting. It was not just impossible but dangerous to try to get on the steps, that might have been a fatal mistake. And I understood that the boat was drifting towards the reef too (which seems weird) and didn't wanna risk hitting it.

Again, I wasn't there - but he could have put his bow into the waves, motored enough to stay away from the reef, then adjusted direction enough as needed to stay with you divers until help was radioed for and arrived. Surely he had a radio. The snorkelers should have bee in life vests by that point.

 

[mikeynl]

supergaijin: not taking that the wrong way, good to hear constructive criticism from people who know much more about diving than me.

I did 6 days of diving in Sharm.
Day 1: I just did a few easy dives, just to get back into it, and that day I had loads of trouble with my buoyancy, and I had problems actually descending.
Day 2: I did that first dive at Jackson Reef, which was the deep dive of my AOW. Again I had problems. The dive after that was my navigation dive, but that was done in pretty shallow water so there weren't much problems.
Day 3: I started with a dive where again I had problems with buoyancy, and my second dive that day was Peak Buoyancy Control dive, as part of the AOW. I learnt a lot that lesson, on positioning your body, and better breathing (before I tended to breath in too fast when I was descending too much, and breath out too fast when I was ascending. The 3rd dive was the night dive which went without a problem.
Day 4: on day 4 I was still pretty nervous about my buoyancy. We were diving with 6 people and my guide/instructor. There were 2 couples diving, one of these were OW, the other AOW, and my buddy was an AOW diver with 100+ dives. I was pretty nervous to be buddied up with such an experienced diver, but in fact I think I was actually most in control that dive ... of all the 6 people. I was keeping my arms folded most of the dive, and actually pointing things out to others (proud to spot an octopus), where my buddy kept correcting with his hands. My dive instructor asked what had happened to me, seemed like I finally got the hang of it. We did 2 more dives that day and again I was totally in control.
Day 5: this was the day we did the dive at Jackson Reef. The dive actually went really well. I managed to stick next to the instructor all the time, he didn't need to correct me at all, and I enjoyed the enormous amount of fish there. The end of the dive was a bit more challenging as we had a hard time holding onto the reef on our safety stop, but when we ascended I felt that I had improved a lot. After the ascend it all went wrong tho, and we simply couldn't dive anymore that day: the guy hand a bandage around his hand, the girl was just full of cuts and bruises, and my instructor had put his arm in a sling. I did make sure to go snorkeling right after the incident tho, just to not get scared of the water.
Day 6: we did 2 dives. Even went through a little cave and all went perfect. My confidence was back.

I do understand your concern, but I'm a quite conservative diver. I would not go diving just with my buddy yet, and if I do dive I try to stay as close as possible to the instructor/guide as possible. I'm definitely not overconfident and I wouldn't do anything stupid. By the way, I understood that the depth of the reef at the Seaventures rig is 18 meter. Should be ok then. And from the people there I understood that the first dive will definitely be an easy dive, so they can assess how good or bad the divers are.

DumpsterDiver: I really haven't a clue how big the waves were. Probably smaller in real than they were in my mind. Thing is though, they were crashing pretty hard on the reef, burt the reef consisted of a big plateau about 50cm to 1m deep, and the waves were breaking on the reef, such that a bit further down onto the reef the water was totally calm, allowing me to stand up. I didn't climb onto the reef, a wave pushed me on top of it, and as soon as I was I tried to swim as far as possible onto the reef. It took another 3 waves crashing on top of me, but by then I had reached calmer water.

Ayisha: we were facing the waves most of the time, so we could anticipate them.

 

[mikeynl]

I have a hard time understanding how you ditched lead, inflated a BC and it was too rough to use a snorkel, but it was calm enough for you to stand up on a live coral reef, to catch your breath.

The sea was just pretty choppy. The waves broke at the reef though, so deeper into the reef there were no or hardly any waves. We crashed onto the reef with our full gear on, and further down the reef - where there were no waves - we could stand up and walk.

---------- Post added March 6th, 2014 at 06:45 PM ----------

I do hope you've since learned to control your buoyancy with the BC. If not - next...!

Just an update. I didn't feel totally ready for Sipadan so I spend another week in Egypt in the autumn of 2012. The first dives were pretty bad (buoyancy) so I asked the instructor/guide to just let me do my buoyancy exercises again, specifically the pivoting. That helped immensely and at the end of the week I was gliding perfectly over the corals, using my breath to control my depth. Sipadan went just fine, the currents were not as strong as expected. I did another week in Hurghada last year, this time to work on my air consumption. At the beginning of the weeks my dives were averaging under 50 minutes, and I was usually the first to be running short of air, by the end of the week my dives (similar depth etc) were all over an hour, and I felt more comfortable than ever.

 

[comcomtech]

You did great!

 

[flots am]

Seems to me you did very well especially with a fear of water as you stated. Keep running this over in your mind for things that you'd do differently if it happened again.
Maybe consider toting a SMB as part of your standard kit. This experience will make you a better diver if you use it to that end. Others poo-poo it but I wear a snorkle on every dive, never know when you'll find yourself drifting on the surface low or out of air. Right?

Yep. Bring a big one. Even if it's inconvienient to deploy underwater, it's easy on the surface, and there's nothing like a big, bright marker when you're on the surface and the boat is gone.

I always bring a snorkel too. It's possible to survive without one, but when the waves keep crashing over your head, it makes things much nicer.

flots.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Did you not have gloves on?

I remember on my last visit to the Red sea gloves were banned as it's a national park and their premise was that they didn't' want people touching things. That was in 2007 however the rules may have changed. I believe they've also reduced the depth limit from 40m to 30m for rec diving too.