CTurtle
Contributor
Dove on the Midnight Express on Friday the 13th, with 13 divers...
guess the odds were against us!!
Got to the dive shop at 6am, boarded the boat & left the dock at 7. It was windy, but what do divers from Kentucky know about what the wind could do to the seas! Well, we found out shortly after leaving the inlet.
The intention was to go to the CaribeSea(?) but info over the radio said that it was REALLY bad out there, so we headed over to the Indra. After about 30 minutes of going through 5-8 foot waves, 8 out of the 13 divers got sick (& we still had another 20-30 minutes of travel time left) . Finally got to the wreck & only 6 of us decided to do the dive.
Did my giant stride, grabbed the rope & headed over to the anchor line. Once on the anchor line, I started going down to the wreck only to have my mask knocked off my face (fortunately I didn't panic, just did what I had to do & kept going down). Vis was only 5 feet at best, so didn't know I was actually down at the wreck til it was right before my eyes. Couldn't see much & it was really hard trying to keep track of your buddy(I lost him 3 times even though we were right next to each other all of the time)! Didn't seem like we were down there long when my buddy signals to me that he's got less than 1000 psi left (I've still got 2200, but it's okay with me that we gotta start going back).
So by now it's time to do our safety stop...we grab hold of the rope to do our 5 minute stop & i'm looking at my gauges. I'm being pulled up & down anywhere from 12 feet to 18 feet. My arms are feeling like they are being pulled out of the sockets & now is when I start to get the feeling that I'll NEVER be able to pull myself up the ladder.(wondering if they could just leave a rope in the water & tow me back)!! Finally did get up in the boat & was so exhausted that all I could do was take my bc off, get to the top of the boat & I passed out for the rest of the ride back.
The divers called off the 2nd dive of the day (there were only 3 of us that would have gone back in). Did some sightseeing for the rest of the day. Besides, tomorrow was another day & we were hopeful that things would be better....
We were scheduled for the afternoon boat the next day, so we had all morning long to do our touristy thing. As the day wore on though, we kept noticing that the wind was blowing harder than the day before. We were kindda hoping that the dive would be called (none of us wanted to go through what we had the day before)! Headed over to the dive shop & found out that indeed the captain had called in & said that the dive for the afternoon would be cancelled(we were all relieved). Got our stuff together & headed for home.
Can't say enough good things about Olympus Dive Shop, especially Captain Bob, Jordan or Chris. All of them made the trip pleasant & they did ever thing that they could to make sure everyone had as good of a time as they could . I'd love to go back there & try wreck diving again. Only next time, I'll be more concerned with the "killer" waves than diving around sharks!
guess the odds were against us!!
Got to the dive shop at 6am, boarded the boat & left the dock at 7. It was windy, but what do divers from Kentucky know about what the wind could do to the seas! Well, we found out shortly after leaving the inlet.
The intention was to go to the CaribeSea(?) but info over the radio said that it was REALLY bad out there, so we headed over to the Indra. After about 30 minutes of going through 5-8 foot waves, 8 out of the 13 divers got sick (& we still had another 20-30 minutes of travel time left) . Finally got to the wreck & only 6 of us decided to do the dive.
Did my giant stride, grabbed the rope & headed over to the anchor line. Once on the anchor line, I started going down to the wreck only to have my mask knocked off my face (fortunately I didn't panic, just did what I had to do & kept going down). Vis was only 5 feet at best, so didn't know I was actually down at the wreck til it was right before my eyes. Couldn't see much & it was really hard trying to keep track of your buddy(I lost him 3 times even though we were right next to each other all of the time)! Didn't seem like we were down there long when my buddy signals to me that he's got less than 1000 psi left (I've still got 2200, but it's okay with me that we gotta start going back).
So by now it's time to do our safety stop...we grab hold of the rope to do our 5 minute stop & i'm looking at my gauges. I'm being pulled up & down anywhere from 12 feet to 18 feet. My arms are feeling like they are being pulled out of the sockets & now is when I start to get the feeling that I'll NEVER be able to pull myself up the ladder.(wondering if they could just leave a rope in the water & tow me back)!! Finally did get up in the boat & was so exhausted that all I could do was take my bc off, get to the top of the boat & I passed out for the rest of the ride back.
The divers called off the 2nd dive of the day (there were only 3 of us that would have gone back in). Did some sightseeing for the rest of the day. Besides, tomorrow was another day & we were hopeful that things would be better....
We were scheduled for the afternoon boat the next day, so we had all morning long to do our touristy thing. As the day wore on though, we kept noticing that the wind was blowing harder than the day before. We were kindda hoping that the dive would be called (none of us wanted to go through what we had the day before)! Headed over to the dive shop & found out that indeed the captain had called in & said that the dive for the afternoon would be cancelled(we were all relieved). Got our stuff together & headed for home.
Can't say enough good things about Olympus Dive Shop, especially Captain Bob, Jordan or Chris. All of them made the trip pleasant & they did ever thing that they could to make sure everyone had as good of a time as they could . I'd love to go back there & try wreck diving again. Only next time, I'll be more concerned with the "killer" waves than diving around sharks!
