Well, here are a couple of photos from before the costume got blown off by the ripping current.
And the full story below.
Basically, two crazy guys had their sick fantasies collide in what was capture on digital media some 30 meters below the surface, inside a shipwreck no less.
I'm not sure how much I can tell you about the first guy, as I think the police might be looking for him from the last time a manisfestation of his fetish occurred. At the very least, some angry Thai guy with a pool stick said the police were called shortly prior to some serious legging went down.
But I can tell you about "Ronald." To mark his 100th dive, he wanted to do something different which is a bit challenging in an environment where its all been done before. Naked diving. Done that. Negative entry from an 8 meter deck. Check. Swap clothing so guys come up with their dive partner's bikinis? Yep. Kood Brothers. Done. Wetsuit exchanges. Covered that. Ronald costume? Eh, haven't heard of that one before.
The dive plan was probably well thought out, but it involved Ronald being completely inert, as if he was in fact, a Ronald statue, and Diver A taking him down into the ship wreck for a photo. But the current blew the plan to shreds.
I had some hulkingly huge camera system but all of the automatic systems had failed. Short answer, I took a camera to a city wide waterfight and it didn't work out so well. Frankly, I'm surprised the thing worked at all. As I was the only one with something that had external strobes, I was picked as "official photographer." I was a bit worried with this responsibility though, as nothing was working right on my camera.
I jumped in first with my dive buddy and we drifted to the descent line from the dive boat. The current was much too strong to swim against, especially with a camera so this worked out well for me. Once at the line, I decided to just start down as I couldn't one hand my rig in the current. Ronald and Diver A roared up onto the line, curtesy of the current and they too started down. Another 5 divers or so also made it to the line. However, with the divers on the line, it was pulled down diagonal so the end of the line was some 15 meters underwater. Another 6 divers were forced to abort the dive as they wound up with no descent line. Just as well, with so many divers we felt like chips in a Mcdonald box trying to work our way up the deck in the current. Only three of us could fit inside the wreck anyway.
Ronald was supposed to be static, but he had to help a lot since Diver A was not capable of doing much in the current. But we did get him down into the hold, and I managed to get a few photos. To look more like a statue, the gear was removed. Luckily, someone thought to hold onto it outside the wreck as it would have blown away. On the exit, Ronald nearly got blown past his equipment and ended up finning it hard. Try doing the BCD removal and replacement underwater at 30 meters with a ripping current!
The way up however was a bit more challenging. The boat was forced to drop the ascent line and pick up the 6 divers who missed the descent line. Without the bouys (nicked by the Thais) or the boat, the line was soon pulled taught and diagonal, ending about 15 meters under water. Ronald lost his wig; the travesty was mourned by all.