Pedroinspain
Contributor
This dates back to July 2001, but I hope that it is still topical enough to warrant this write up. Our family was on the Comoros Islands in the Mozambique channel, between the African mainland and Madagascar, staying at Le Galawa and diving with Island Ventures. Since then local politics and endemic corruption were the reason for only derelict buildings remaining by 2009. So sad. Anyway, my son (then 16) got his Padi AOW certification during our first week there. His performance was such that the IV manager had no hesitation in accepting him for a dive at Banc Vailheu on our second-last dive of the 2 week trip.
Banc Vailheu is a volcanic seamount in 'the channel', some 25km off the SW corner of Gran Comore (Ngazidja). Elongated east-west it rises to within 7 to 24m of the surface at low tide. The drop-off is sheer, descending to over 2000m. After a long but not too uncomfortable trip, alleviated by the appearance of a school of spinner dolphins, we received our briefing and did our safety checks. The manager of Island Ventures, Andrew Wilcox, was our dive master. We were dropped off where we could see the faint fuzzy darkness of the mount at the limit of visibility. On decent I realised that we were being buffeted by irregular currents and were being drawn rapidly parallel to the wall. This, combined with the fact that one of our dive party had problems equalising caused Andrew to abort the dive. I had been down to 21 metres; total dive time 9 minutes with stop.
Back on board the skipper suggested that we move further west where the prevailing current would meet the seamount at right-angles. About 30 minutes later we were to be dropped off in deep blue and descend to avoid any upwelling currents. Suddenly everyone was paying particular attention to their compasses and the direction in which the skipper was pointing. We tried again. It was a swimming descent through amazing celestial blue, compasses out front, levelling off at 30 metres. I realised that my son was slowly drifting lower and a rap on his tank by Andrew had Martin rejoin us. In disorienting deep blue, too much concentration on direction and not enough on the depth gauge was not a good idea either. The dark behemoth loomed out of the blue and we were soon enjoying a gentle easterly drift along the vertical wall. It had everything; hard corals, sea fans, colourful soft corals, wire corals, and a myriad of small reef fish pegged close to the wall. The South African doctor pointed into the blue. Half a dozen King fish were flashing to and fro. His petite wife was taking photos of everything.
After about 15 minutes (slowly rising) we approached a shelving cone-shaped indentation in the wall, like half a witches hat narrowing upwards, the floor covered with coral rubble. Martin tapped me on the arm and pointed. The coral fragments seemed to be vibrating and shuffling. Andrew motioned us to gather and to swim to the other side of the break, following and sticking close to the bottom contour. We set off together . and all hell hit the fan. We were plucked up by a vicious current and drawn up the funnel. Near the seamount rim the party managed to grab hold of scoured solid coral and clung on, pulled into a 45 degree position, buffeted by the current with computers going crazy; all except the doctors wife who was being held by him by one arm, like a human banner in a hurricane. Stop, think, act. To cap it all a white-tipped reef shark lazily watched us
Andrew made buoyancy signals and then made a porpoise-like motion with his arm. We released BCD air and then he signalled us to let go. It was like Superman flying over the irregular rooftops of Gotham City. Instantly we all sought to adjust buoyancy with small pulses of air. Luckily our training paid off. With body arches we rose into the approaching coral bommies and exhaled down the other side of the mounds, each a metre or three tall. On average we were skimming the summit at a depth of 15 metres. Rocks, rubble, horizontally waving soft corals flew past below us. Here comes the next set of castles. Arch slightly; breath in!! It was wildly exhilarating, spoiled only by the stubbornly unimpressed computers. This must have carried on for about 5 minutes, the party performing like well-trained stunt pilots. Thank heavens for the discipline and practice instilled by the Padi AOW courses. And then the rim of the seamount flashed past beneath us and soon we were in deep blue. But that did not mean that we were no longer moving. The characteristic plucks and pushes against our bodies still affected us. After a further 15 minutes at 15 metres we rose to 5 metres were we stayed for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally we surfaced. Everyone started speaking at once like gibbering monkeys as the adrenaline kicked in. Then we looked around. All we could see was Mount Karthala, the prominent peak on Ngazidja, in the distance. No boat in sight.
The swell/chop was in the order of 1 to 1 ½ metres. At each peak we stared north to see if we could spot the boat. No dice. Almost to a man we peered below to see if that white-tip had continued to track us. Thankfully nothing. Andrew ensured us that the boat crew were very well trained and were implementing a search pattern as he spoke. My mind drifted back to the story around the bar a few evenings ago of the fisherman in his wooden galawa who had been adrift in the wind and current for almost a week, when land finally appeared. How did he know where he was? The natives spoke Portuguese!!
Each buddy pair had a safety sausage. We inflated them. Two stood proudly in the air, and then after 5 seconds kinked, and soon collapsed. Two just flapped about like stranded mud fish. The DMs lasted the longest, but required regular reinflation. From then on it was more recounting of the experience, regular checks into the abyss below, and chuckles as to whether you peed in your wetsuit or not. Martin was a not and took forever to divest himself sufficiently to be able to attain relief. At the top of each swell we all peered north. Finally, after about 45 minutes since surfacing a dark speck appeared on the horizon. It was traversing to-and-fro and slowly heading towards us. About another hour later it suddenly changed course and headed directly for us. Damn but those Comorans had good eyesight. I later learned that they also had a pair of binoculars on board.
So, what were the lessons?
# Dont dive when currents are expected. Right!! That would wipe out Cozumel for weeks at a time and cancel some of the worlds great dive sites. More realism needed Pedro.
# When you see something peculiar Stop. Think. Act. But how would we have known what to expect exactly from the dancing rubble? Its so easy to be smart now. And yes, perhaps we should all have wiggled our spread hands sideways and given the ascent signal, but thinking back, that is an unlikely scenario. We had no clue as to what we were seeing.
# Keep regular eye contact with your dive buddy. Just proximity might not be good enough.
# Watch your DM all the time when the going gets tough. Stick together.
# Give mutual support through eye contact; touches; facing inwards; etc.
# Pray that you spent your $$ wisely on your training and follow what you learned.
# Buoyancy control is KING
# Binoculars on the boat?
# Check all of your safety kit regularly; not just the obvious components. Include safety sausages, whistles, weight belt buckles, and especially hired gear. Carry a few spare glow sticks always.
# Tables are great but a computer is better
# Learn to speak Portuguese
Anyone go anything of practical value to add? Hope you enjoyed the tale.
Banc Vailheu is a volcanic seamount in 'the channel', some 25km off the SW corner of Gran Comore (Ngazidja). Elongated east-west it rises to within 7 to 24m of the surface at low tide. The drop-off is sheer, descending to over 2000m. After a long but not too uncomfortable trip, alleviated by the appearance of a school of spinner dolphins, we received our briefing and did our safety checks. The manager of Island Ventures, Andrew Wilcox, was our dive master. We were dropped off where we could see the faint fuzzy darkness of the mount at the limit of visibility. On decent I realised that we were being buffeted by irregular currents and were being drawn rapidly parallel to the wall. This, combined with the fact that one of our dive party had problems equalising caused Andrew to abort the dive. I had been down to 21 metres; total dive time 9 minutes with stop.
Back on board the skipper suggested that we move further west where the prevailing current would meet the seamount at right-angles. About 30 minutes later we were to be dropped off in deep blue and descend to avoid any upwelling currents. Suddenly everyone was paying particular attention to their compasses and the direction in which the skipper was pointing. We tried again. It was a swimming descent through amazing celestial blue, compasses out front, levelling off at 30 metres. I realised that my son was slowly drifting lower and a rap on his tank by Andrew had Martin rejoin us. In disorienting deep blue, too much concentration on direction and not enough on the depth gauge was not a good idea either. The dark behemoth loomed out of the blue and we were soon enjoying a gentle easterly drift along the vertical wall. It had everything; hard corals, sea fans, colourful soft corals, wire corals, and a myriad of small reef fish pegged close to the wall. The South African doctor pointed into the blue. Half a dozen King fish were flashing to and fro. His petite wife was taking photos of everything.
After about 15 minutes (slowly rising) we approached a shelving cone-shaped indentation in the wall, like half a witches hat narrowing upwards, the floor covered with coral rubble. Martin tapped me on the arm and pointed. The coral fragments seemed to be vibrating and shuffling. Andrew motioned us to gather and to swim to the other side of the break, following and sticking close to the bottom contour. We set off together . and all hell hit the fan. We were plucked up by a vicious current and drawn up the funnel. Near the seamount rim the party managed to grab hold of scoured solid coral and clung on, pulled into a 45 degree position, buffeted by the current with computers going crazy; all except the doctors wife who was being held by him by one arm, like a human banner in a hurricane. Stop, think, act. To cap it all a white-tipped reef shark lazily watched us
Andrew made buoyancy signals and then made a porpoise-like motion with his arm. We released BCD air and then he signalled us to let go. It was like Superman flying over the irregular rooftops of Gotham City. Instantly we all sought to adjust buoyancy with small pulses of air. Luckily our training paid off. With body arches we rose into the approaching coral bommies and exhaled down the other side of the mounds, each a metre or three tall. On average we were skimming the summit at a depth of 15 metres. Rocks, rubble, horizontally waving soft corals flew past below us. Here comes the next set of castles. Arch slightly; breath in!! It was wildly exhilarating, spoiled only by the stubbornly unimpressed computers. This must have carried on for about 5 minutes, the party performing like well-trained stunt pilots. Thank heavens for the discipline and practice instilled by the Padi AOW courses. And then the rim of the seamount flashed past beneath us and soon we were in deep blue. But that did not mean that we were no longer moving. The characteristic plucks and pushes against our bodies still affected us. After a further 15 minutes at 15 metres we rose to 5 metres were we stayed for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally we surfaced. Everyone started speaking at once like gibbering monkeys as the adrenaline kicked in. Then we looked around. All we could see was Mount Karthala, the prominent peak on Ngazidja, in the distance. No boat in sight.
The swell/chop was in the order of 1 to 1 ½ metres. At each peak we stared north to see if we could spot the boat. No dice. Almost to a man we peered below to see if that white-tip had continued to track us. Thankfully nothing. Andrew ensured us that the boat crew were very well trained and were implementing a search pattern as he spoke. My mind drifted back to the story around the bar a few evenings ago of the fisherman in his wooden galawa who had been adrift in the wind and current for almost a week, when land finally appeared. How did he know where he was? The natives spoke Portuguese!!
Each buddy pair had a safety sausage. We inflated them. Two stood proudly in the air, and then after 5 seconds kinked, and soon collapsed. Two just flapped about like stranded mud fish. The DMs lasted the longest, but required regular reinflation. From then on it was more recounting of the experience, regular checks into the abyss below, and chuckles as to whether you peed in your wetsuit or not. Martin was a not and took forever to divest himself sufficiently to be able to attain relief. At the top of each swell we all peered north. Finally, after about 45 minutes since surfacing a dark speck appeared on the horizon. It was traversing to-and-fro and slowly heading towards us. About another hour later it suddenly changed course and headed directly for us. Damn but those Comorans had good eyesight. I later learned that they also had a pair of binoculars on board.
So, what were the lessons?
# Dont dive when currents are expected. Right!! That would wipe out Cozumel for weeks at a time and cancel some of the worlds great dive sites. More realism needed Pedro.
# When you see something peculiar Stop. Think. Act. But how would we have known what to expect exactly from the dancing rubble? Its so easy to be smart now. And yes, perhaps we should all have wiggled our spread hands sideways and given the ascent signal, but thinking back, that is an unlikely scenario. We had no clue as to what we were seeing.
# Keep regular eye contact with your dive buddy. Just proximity might not be good enough.
# Watch your DM all the time when the going gets tough. Stick together.
# Give mutual support through eye contact; touches; facing inwards; etc.
# Pray that you spent your $$ wisely on your training and follow what you learned.
# Buoyancy control is KING
# Binoculars on the boat?
# Check all of your safety kit regularly; not just the obvious components. Include safety sausages, whistles, weight belt buckles, and especially hired gear. Carry a few spare glow sticks always.
# Tables are great but a computer is better
# Learn to speak Portuguese
Anyone go anything of practical value to add? Hope you enjoyed the tale.
