A nice & clear morning at San Benedicto with air temperature about 81F. We got company, I think Solmar V, there too, as you see in silhouette to the left of the sun rise.
We did a checkout dive at Fondeadero or The Anchor, by doing a giant stride from the back of Belle Amie, as scheduled. Water temperature was 70-76F. The surface current was a little brisk, so we drifted away from the boat and held on to a line away from the boat while letting the rest of the group to enter the water. Once we were all in the water, we did a weight check before descending. My weight seemed OK. I had 8lbs weight with my 5mm wetsuit & 15L Steel tank and descent slowly to the bottom to meet the rest of the group. Once I reached to the bottom. I had a little excitement at the bottom. my BCD inflator would not inflate. It turned out the Dive Alert that the Nautilus loaned us, as part of their safety requirement (including DSMB & Marine Rescue GPS), would not letting the air into my BCD. I ended up taking it off the inflator LP line and gave it to our DM (Xavier), while I was at the bottom. It turned out that I was not the only one that had the same problem. It happened to
@Soloist too. The lesson learned from this little excitement is to check the power inflator operation before entering the water.
Afterwards the rest of the dive went fine. Visibility wasn’t good, may be as low as 30 ft at the bottom, but we saw a Silky Shark before descending to the bottom. During the rest of the dive, we saw Whitetip Reef Sharks, Spiny Lobster, Clarion Anglefish, and Manta towards the end of the dive.
After the dive, one of the guests (not part of my group) had a medical problem. I don’t know any more detail other than we cancelled the rest of the dive plan and headed out to Socorro Island for medical evacuation back to the mainland.
KNOK