Small Caution: Break Water

[El Dude]

This reminds me of another close call. I was finishing my open water skills for my rescue class up in Trinidad Bay. My buddy and I were doing expanding squares and out of the corner of my eye I see his head jerk. I turned and saw his mask on top of his head and his hood pealing back. It took what felt like eternity to see the lure. I instinctively grabbed the lure like I was unhooking a fish, bad habit. Anyway the fisherman on the pier started reeling so I cut the line, it must have been 80 lb test because it ws strong. Anyway I unhooked my buddy, one part of the hook caught his mask silicon and the other caught his hood. It was funny at the surface but crazy down there. I'm just glad my buddy kept his cool and didn't freak out.

 

[mikeguerrero]

This reminds me of another close call. I was finishing my open water skills for my rescue class up in Trinidad Bay. My buddy and I were doing expanding squares and out of the corner of my eye I see his head jerk. I turned and saw his mask on top of his head and his hood pealing back. It took what felt like eternity to see the lure. I instinctively grabbed the lure like I was unhooking a fish, bad habit. Anyway the fisherman on the pier started reeling so I cut the line, it must have been 80 lb test because it ws strong. Anyway I unhooked my buddy, one part of the hook caught his mask silicon and the other caught his hood. It was funny at the surface but crazy down there. I'm just glad my buddy kept his cool and didn't freak out.

Thanks for sharing your experience. There are so many close calls out there that we don't know about.

I'm so glad he was okay and I'm really proud of you being there for your buddy.

That is what this thread is about, I should have written Situtional Awarness as the caption instead of caution, oh well.

Your diving buddy is your life line and someone that you can count on.

I cannot over emphasize, the importance of that statement.

I'm new to diving and I'm learning to be a better diver each time I dive, and learning great things from others.

After my close call, my buddy showed me the importance of my dive light, told me that had I waved it around, they could've gotten to me even faster. :shocked2:

Wow, now that is impressive, faster than what they already did for me, cannot imagine anything faster than that.

Thanks to my buddy, I now have a better understanding of the capabilities of my dive light beyond just illumination in the dark corners of the rocks and crevices.

 

[bbianchi]

Could have always had you buddy anchor to you and then grab the line and pull like hell. Worst case you get a new fishing pole .

Glad to hear you were all able to manage to get out of the entanglement. I havent been hooked before but I managed to get my manifold caught in a line once. Thankfully the fisherman must have been too busy with his bud light, he didnt start reeling until a few seconds before it was cut.

 

[cool_hardware52]

If you dive enough at the Breakwater it's bound to happen but as they don't hook your sensitive parts or use 180 lb test you'll be fine.

You have uh Parts that are insensitive to fish hooks?

Guess ya gotta be tough to dive Mocal.

Tobin

 

[Katamuki]

I would LOVE to hear the story the fisherman is telling his friends about what he almost caught!

 

[Brewski]

Last weekend I had an encounter with some line and a fairly heavy lead jig. Once it was apparent I was caught, I immediately broke it off and then worried about getting untangled. I have no sympathy for someone casting into that area when they see divers entering and exiting in droves.

 

[VladC]

Scary... I wander, don't they see the bubbles?

 

[DocWong]

Dude, since you can make about anything, maybe you could invent and manufacture something that would protect our "sensitive parts."

You have uh Parts that are insensitive to fish hooks?

Guess ya gotta be tough to dive Mocal.

Tobin

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

You should have headed off to the metridium fields and emptied his spool.

 

[fisheater]

I had a similar incident last year.

I was on the last dive of a weekend filled with specialty cert dives. It was late Sunday night and I was cold and tired. Just my instructor and me.

We were diving at the Breakwater and vis was horrible. It was all we could do see each other, even with our HID lights and rather frequent hip bumping to make sure we were still together. (As we're both XXL divers - or better - you can imagine how bad vis was.)

I came upon a white frilly "thing" flaring a few inches off the bottom and closed to investigate. Right about the time I realized that it was fishing lure, I saw that my instructor had been hooked. I reached over with my left hand to grasp the fishing line, so as to keep him from getting entangled and in preparation of cutting it if need be. I could only see it because of a bit of glint from my light.

Next thing I know, I'm vertical in the water and spinning around on the axis of my left hand, still holding the fishing line. I'm trying to figure what what the heck was happening to me and how it could get worse.

I couldn't tell if I, too, was hooked by another fisherman or if I'd become entangled in the same line that my instructor had been hooked by. I was concerned that I may be dragged to the surface (at too fast an ascent) if the line I was still holding onto got cut. If so, would finning down keep me at depth? Could I roll up, find the line and cut it in time? Or, should I simply flare and fight the upward pull of the fisherman?

While I was sorting this out in my mind, I suddenly found that I'd stopped spinning and was returning to my horizontal trim.

At the end of the dive, I learned that (a) the knot had come apart at the terminal tackle, which was still firmly attached to my instructor's wetsuit chest and (b) he'd not noticed that I was in any sort of trouble. (The later freaked him out a bit.)

I also learned that I'm not too prone to panic underwater, even though I didn't understand what was happening to me or exactly how I was going to deal with it.