A down swell can happen very quickly and in my situation, our first indication was having to clear our ears. We were just to the point of a 3-4 minute 15ft safety stop when all of a sudden, we were pulled down to around 70-80 feet in just seconds. It happens very quickly. After being pulled down, we noticed lots of bubbles swirling around and going in all directions. Kicking hard, inflation out BC's helped, but our method of getting back to 15 ft involved swimming perpendicular to the down-swell. It was a slim stream heading down and was easy to see if you were not in it. Once we made it to the surface, we were in what appeared to be the top of a washing machine, about 50 feet across. We could not swim out of it and had to remain swirling around until the dive boat was able to maneuver to us. This entire incident was quite scary to the two woman with me. Several other divers in the group were able to swim out of the swirl, but to keep the two others i was with, I remained with them at the surface until the boat arrived. Bottom line, it is a freak occurrence and one that is hard to plan for.
