tl;dr: No tragedy. Smart kids. Amazed by both.
I was recently hanging out at 40msw looking at stalactites that I didn't care about, waiting for the single bull shark I had spotted earlier to maybejust maybemake another pass. My dive buddy had managed to convince (read: relentlessly nag) me to once again dive in Belize's Great Blue Hole. I had been to the Blue Hole several times over the past few years, but I went to snorkel at the Hole and then dive in the afternoon. The thing that bothers me most about this particular dive is that it fits perfectly within my expectations for a dive at The Great Blue Hole.
We were on a medium sized dive boat (~50', two ladders at the back, a fly bridge and one head) with roughly 20 other divers on board. The overall plan was to dive in four groups.
The dive brief was typical. Go down to 130fsw, swim around a stalactite or two, hang out for five minutes, ascend to 60fsw to look for sharks for a bit (read: decompress), ascend to 15fsw for a three minute safety stop next to the hang tank, which "you can breathe off of if you run out of gas."
So there we were, hanging out at 40msw and I was really trying to appreciate a hole in the wall. We were about to start making our way back up when Group 4 arrived at our depth. The second group had already come and gone, having made a much faster initial descent than we did. (I was taking my time and looking for sharks on the way down. Why else would I dive here?)
One of the divers from group 4 was on the instructor's octo. Let me restate that for clarity. Two divers had begun sharing air at some point on their descent to 130fsw, and one of them was ostensibly a professional.
The diver who was on the instructor's octo was built like a linebacker and I had figured that he was about 20. I'll call him Tim. (No offense to any Tims.) I wasn't surprised Tim went through air quickly, but I was a little surprised he went through air that quickly. Tim was also upright, kicking to maintain his depth, clearly over-weighted and apparently not aware enough to manually inflate his BCD. I think I almost managed to make myself seasick from rolling my eyes.
My buddy and I looked at each other and had one of those moments of perfect understanding. We checked our air, did the quick math and decided we would stay nearby group 4. The following sentence needs to stand on its own.
Group 4 stuck to their original plan and stayed around 130fsw for five minutes.
After those five minutes were up, the instructor looked at his computer (integrated air and heartbeat monitor, whee, technology!), and then rather hurriedly transferred Tim to another diver's octo after checking that diver's SPG. At this point, I banged on my tank to get the instructor's attention as I couldn't be sure he was aware that we were still nearby with more air than all of his divers combined probably had left. After I made it clear that we would be happy to donate, he waved both of us off and got his group to start their ascent as a rather close knit bunch. We ascended with them, but kept a moderate distanceprobably about five or six strong kicks away from the nearest member of the group.
Shortly after we all started our ascent, the youngest member of Group 4 (14yo.) and his buddy, who happened to be his sister (16yo.) swam over to us. I thought they might be running low on air, but when I asked them, they both said they had over 2000psi remaining. The girl stuck her thumb out over her shoulder at the rest of Group 4 and then made the crazy sign next to the side of her head. They stayed with us for the remainder of the dive. My misgivings about teenagers on the dive sort of evaporated since they seemed to be the only two exhibiting sane behavior.
Tim breathed off of everyone's octo that was left in the group as the instructor kept checking SPG's and moving Tim from diver to diver. They skipped the deep (sorry, I meant shark watching) stop. My buddy's computer had been set for deep stops and it wanted one minute at 20msw so our foursome waited that out before resuming our ascent.
When we got back under the boat where everyone was doing their safety stop, Tim and a diver that turned out to be his father were breathing off of the hang tank. The rest of the divers seemed to be hitting the surface earlier than I expected they would if they hadn't donated so much of their own air. They certainly hadn't had time to complete a three minute stop since we got to their depth about only a little more than a minute after they did. I could barely carry a tune in my head over the beeping of grumpy dive computers.
Our group was the last out of the watermy buddy and I decided to do an extended safety stop as we had gone well beyond our plan and we still had two dives in the afternoon. I also needed time to find a happy place before seeing the instructor on the surface. The kids stayed down with us and our patience was mildly rewarded as we saw a few black tip sharks swim by, long after everyone else had hit the surface.
Back on the boat, I eventually ended up sitting down near Tim and his parents. We talked for a little while. I was being pleasant. I was mostly interested in seeing if Tim or anyone else in the group was freaked out. Tim's attitude suggested that nothing had gone wrongor at the very least, that nothing had occurred that merited worry. I found out during our conversation that despite his size, he was 15 years old and to add to the awesome, that this was dive number 6 since he completed his open water cert. Tim's father turned out to be a paramedic with thirty years experience in a metropolitan fire department.
I walked around and talked to pretty much everyone and the only other people who seemed to be irritated about what had occurred were the fourteen year old and his sister. They also happened to be the only other two on the boat that had brought extra thermal protection for the GBH dive.
I went to talk to the instructor at some point as we were in transit from TGBH to Half Moon Caye and I said (still trying to be pleasant) something like: "Wow, that kid sure can suck down a lot of air, huh?"
The instructor laughed and said something like: "Yeah. On every dive he's always going up when everyone else is at their turnaround pressure."
What else is there to say?
I was recently hanging out at 40msw looking at stalactites that I didn't care about, waiting for the single bull shark I had spotted earlier to maybejust maybemake another pass. My dive buddy had managed to convince (read: relentlessly nag) me to once again dive in Belize's Great Blue Hole. I had been to the Blue Hole several times over the past few years, but I went to snorkel at the Hole and then dive in the afternoon. The thing that bothers me most about this particular dive is that it fits perfectly within my expectations for a dive at The Great Blue Hole.
We were on a medium sized dive boat (~50', two ladders at the back, a fly bridge and one head) with roughly 20 other divers on board. The overall plan was to dive in four groups.
- Group 1: My buddy and I. We were each diving sidemount with two AL80's.
- Group 2: 1 DM + honeymooning couple who were flying to Ambergris the next day, so they didn't want "to go too deep" (70fsw). All diving single AL80's.
- Group 3: 2 DMs + 6 women with a median age of about 60. All diving single AL80's. The women had been diving with each other as a group on several prior trips. (1 DM was 'their' DM, the other was just along because she felt like diving that day.)
- Group 4: 1 Instructor + 8 people with an age range of 14 to 70. All diving single AL80's.
The dive brief was typical. Go down to 130fsw, swim around a stalactite or two, hang out for five minutes, ascend to 60fsw to look for sharks for a bit (read: decompress), ascend to 15fsw for a three minute safety stop next to the hang tank, which "you can breathe off of if you run out of gas."
So there we were, hanging out at 40msw and I was really trying to appreciate a hole in the wall. We were about to start making our way back up when Group 4 arrived at our depth. The second group had already come and gone, having made a much faster initial descent than we did. (I was taking my time and looking for sharks on the way down. Why else would I dive here?)
One of the divers from group 4 was on the instructor's octo. Let me restate that for clarity. Two divers had begun sharing air at some point on their descent to 130fsw, and one of them was ostensibly a professional.
The diver who was on the instructor's octo was built like a linebacker and I had figured that he was about 20. I'll call him Tim. (No offense to any Tims.) I wasn't surprised Tim went through air quickly, but I was a little surprised he went through air that quickly. Tim was also upright, kicking to maintain his depth, clearly over-weighted and apparently not aware enough to manually inflate his BCD. I think I almost managed to make myself seasick from rolling my eyes.
My buddy and I looked at each other and had one of those moments of perfect understanding. We checked our air, did the quick math and decided we would stay nearby group 4. The following sentence needs to stand on its own.
Group 4 stuck to their original plan and stayed around 130fsw for five minutes.
After those five minutes were up, the instructor looked at his computer (integrated air and heartbeat monitor, whee, technology!), and then rather hurriedly transferred Tim to another diver's octo after checking that diver's SPG. At this point, I banged on my tank to get the instructor's attention as I couldn't be sure he was aware that we were still nearby with more air than all of his divers combined probably had left. After I made it clear that we would be happy to donate, he waved both of us off and got his group to start their ascent as a rather close knit bunch. We ascended with them, but kept a moderate distanceprobably about five or six strong kicks away from the nearest member of the group.
Shortly after we all started our ascent, the youngest member of Group 4 (14yo.) and his buddy, who happened to be his sister (16yo.) swam over to us. I thought they might be running low on air, but when I asked them, they both said they had over 2000psi remaining. The girl stuck her thumb out over her shoulder at the rest of Group 4 and then made the crazy sign next to the side of her head. They stayed with us for the remainder of the dive. My misgivings about teenagers on the dive sort of evaporated since they seemed to be the only two exhibiting sane behavior.
Tim breathed off of everyone's octo that was left in the group as the instructor kept checking SPG's and moving Tim from diver to diver. They skipped the deep (sorry, I meant shark watching) stop. My buddy's computer had been set for deep stops and it wanted one minute at 20msw so our foursome waited that out before resuming our ascent.
When we got back under the boat where everyone was doing their safety stop, Tim and a diver that turned out to be his father were breathing off of the hang tank. The rest of the divers seemed to be hitting the surface earlier than I expected they would if they hadn't donated so much of their own air. They certainly hadn't had time to complete a three minute stop since we got to their depth about only a little more than a minute after they did. I could barely carry a tune in my head over the beeping of grumpy dive computers.
Our group was the last out of the watermy buddy and I decided to do an extended safety stop as we had gone well beyond our plan and we still had two dives in the afternoon. I also needed time to find a happy place before seeing the instructor on the surface. The kids stayed down with us and our patience was mildly rewarded as we saw a few black tip sharks swim by, long after everyone else had hit the surface.
Back on the boat, I eventually ended up sitting down near Tim and his parents. We talked for a little while. I was being pleasant. I was mostly interested in seeing if Tim or anyone else in the group was freaked out. Tim's attitude suggested that nothing had gone wrongor at the very least, that nothing had occurred that merited worry. I found out during our conversation that despite his size, he was 15 years old and to add to the awesome, that this was dive number 6 since he completed his open water cert. Tim's father turned out to be a paramedic with thirty years experience in a metropolitan fire department.
I walked around and talked to pretty much everyone and the only other people who seemed to be irritated about what had occurred were the fourteen year old and his sister. They also happened to be the only other two on the boat that had brought extra thermal protection for the GBH dive.
I went to talk to the instructor at some point as we were in transit from TGBH to Half Moon Caye and I said (still trying to be pleasant) something like: "Wow, that kid sure can suck down a lot of air, huh?"
The instructor laughed and said something like: "Yeah. On every dive he's always going up when everyone else is at their turnaround pressure."
What else is there to say?
