David Leach
Registered
This happened about a year ago, but I was not on ScubaBoard at that time, so I have never shared it. It's a long story. As an inexperienced vacation diver, I booked a two tank boat dive with a well-known dive operator while in Nassau on a cruise ship.
There were some winds when I arrived at the dive shop and marina. After we loaded up on the dive boat, the captain attempted to maneuver away from the dock and the winds kept pushing him back toward a couple other dive boats, actually making contact and knocking some SCUBA tanks to the deck. It was no big deal, but I have been around boats far longer than I have been diving, and was a little surprised that an experienced captain would have a hard time getting out of a marina he navigates every day. I should have recognized this as the first warning sign that something unusual was happening.
We reached our first dive site, a wreck called Ray of Hope. The dive was fun and uneventful until we began our ascent back up the mooring line. The weather had deteriorated while we were on the bottom and the boat was getting tossed pretty hard. I first saw someone's GoPro drift from above me all the way down to the bottom, followed a minute or so later by a 4 ft section of stainless safety railing. That gave me pause, as I wondered what the heck was happening topside that they were losing pieces of the boat.
As soon as I surfaced, I saw that the winds and wave action had picked up substantially. Everyone handled getting back on the boat, but several got banged up a bit, enough that most of the divers wanted to call the second dive to avoid having the enter the boat again. Unfortunately, a couple divers did want to dive the second site. I overheard two crew members talking... the first asked why they weren't canceling the second dive and the second crew member replied that the captain said as long as anyone wants to dive, they would not cancel. The crew members clearly did not agree, but did not (could not?) override the captain.
We motored through rough seas to the second dive site, with a couple divers now vomiting. When we arrived, the captain tried for a while to locate the mooring line, but could not hold the boat in position long enough and finally declared that there would not be a second dive. Unfortunately, he also notified us that the weather was now too rough to make it back into the marina and they were working out a plan B.
Plan B was that they would call back to the shop and send for a smaller boat to ferry us back in. Unfortunately, the shop determined that the weather would not permit the smaller boat to even get out of the marina, which led to plan C. We would motor up the coast, around a point that offered some protection, and dock at a private neighborhood marina owned by a friend.
Motoring perpendicular to the waves now, we got tossed very badly. SCUBA tanks came loose and crashed across the deck, with divers dodging equipment and the crew scrambling to keep people and equipment safe. The freshwater bucket (trash can) was overturned. The drinking water cooler came loose and fell to the deck. People slid off the benches and got scraped, but no serious injuries. A fire extinguisher came loose and emptied its contents below deck, with white billowing clouds making it appear for a moment that we had an engine fire. We didn't, which is a good thing, since the fire extinguisher was now empty.
Fortunately, the story ends anticlimactically with a very quiet bus ride from the private marina back to the cruise ship. We had cheated death and nobody felt much like talking about it.
I have thought back on this day many times in the last year. It seems like the biggest mistake was delaying the decision to scrap the second dive out of fear that someone might be disappointed or complain. Had we headed back to the marina sooner, perhaps we would have beat the weather. But we will never know.
Even though this write-up is long, I left out lots of details. I am happy to answer questions and learn from others who want to share their experience or recommendations.
Thank you
There were some winds when I arrived at the dive shop and marina. After we loaded up on the dive boat, the captain attempted to maneuver away from the dock and the winds kept pushing him back toward a couple other dive boats, actually making contact and knocking some SCUBA tanks to the deck. It was no big deal, but I have been around boats far longer than I have been diving, and was a little surprised that an experienced captain would have a hard time getting out of a marina he navigates every day. I should have recognized this as the first warning sign that something unusual was happening.
We reached our first dive site, a wreck called Ray of Hope. The dive was fun and uneventful until we began our ascent back up the mooring line. The weather had deteriorated while we were on the bottom and the boat was getting tossed pretty hard. I first saw someone's GoPro drift from above me all the way down to the bottom, followed a minute or so later by a 4 ft section of stainless safety railing. That gave me pause, as I wondered what the heck was happening topside that they were losing pieces of the boat.
As soon as I surfaced, I saw that the winds and wave action had picked up substantially. Everyone handled getting back on the boat, but several got banged up a bit, enough that most of the divers wanted to call the second dive to avoid having the enter the boat again. Unfortunately, a couple divers did want to dive the second site. I overheard two crew members talking... the first asked why they weren't canceling the second dive and the second crew member replied that the captain said as long as anyone wants to dive, they would not cancel. The crew members clearly did not agree, but did not (could not?) override the captain.
We motored through rough seas to the second dive site, with a couple divers now vomiting. When we arrived, the captain tried for a while to locate the mooring line, but could not hold the boat in position long enough and finally declared that there would not be a second dive. Unfortunately, he also notified us that the weather was now too rough to make it back into the marina and they were working out a plan B.
Plan B was that they would call back to the shop and send for a smaller boat to ferry us back in. Unfortunately, the shop determined that the weather would not permit the smaller boat to even get out of the marina, which led to plan C. We would motor up the coast, around a point that offered some protection, and dock at a private neighborhood marina owned by a friend.
Motoring perpendicular to the waves now, we got tossed very badly. SCUBA tanks came loose and crashed across the deck, with divers dodging equipment and the crew scrambling to keep people and equipment safe. The freshwater bucket (trash can) was overturned. The drinking water cooler came loose and fell to the deck. People slid off the benches and got scraped, but no serious injuries. A fire extinguisher came loose and emptied its contents below deck, with white billowing clouds making it appear for a moment that we had an engine fire. We didn't, which is a good thing, since the fire extinguisher was now empty.
Fortunately, the story ends anticlimactically with a very quiet bus ride from the private marina back to the cruise ship. We had cheated death and nobody felt much like talking about it.
I have thought back on this day many times in the last year. It seems like the biggest mistake was delaying the decision to scrap the second dive out of fear that someone might be disappointed or complain. Had we headed back to the marina sooner, perhaps we would have beat the weather. But we will never know.
Even though this write-up is long, I left out lots of details. I am happy to answer questions and learn from others who want to share their experience or recommendations.
Thank you