wetman once bubbled...
Assuming this guy was a brand new diver - because anything else wouldnt make any sense - would it really be that hard to believe that you could escort new people to extreme depths if they were following you as dive leader?
Now if they were following a dive leader, what kind of dive leader would take people like that to those depths? - they must have been wearing regular gear and air (i.e. no doubles, no trimix etc) if they were new divers.
If they weren't new divers then how did he get awarded anything? You could take me to the middle of the ocean but likely i'd try not to go to 2000 feet just because its there. Theres no excuse for these guys to have gone beyond their own limits if they had any reasonable experience under their belts.
I wish there was more info about the actual events. It does sound like it was some kind of escorted dive though - what else could make sense?
steve