It was in 1975, one of the worst dives of my life, and we looked over the water for a good half hour before deciding we could do it. The conditions were marginal for a December shore dive off Rocky Creek State Park in Oregon. The waves were the main problem, and they were coming in at 3-5 feet, which we decided were acceptable once we got out away from the rocks. Well, once we were out, and dived, the waves went from 3-5 feet to 15-20 feet! And, we were underwater. It was like being a flag in a hurricane as we held onto the bottom when a wave went over, first one direction and then the other. We signaled to surface, and called the dive. We started in, and then a big breaker came over us, broke on top of us, and we were underwater for a good 20 seconds. We surfaced together (held by a 1/4 inch buddy line and parachute webbing belt with metal "D" rings). Bruce was without his helmet, I was without my mask but had my helmet on my head (a whitewater rafting helmet with my snorkel attached). We swam back out, and stayed outside the breaker zone. Our girlfriends at the time called the Coast Guard when they could no longer see us, and just at dusk the cutter spotted my helmet, and picked us up. They were elated, as we were their first live pickups in a year or so; we also were elated as we were telling each other stories that if the Russians sent a team of Seals to invade, we'd tell them to go back to their sub.
The photos below show us before being rolled, after, and the waves on the coast later in the day.
Ever since that day, I’ve had my own rule about when to call a dive. If the thought gets into my head that conditions/equipment/or something else says to my brain, “Should I do this dive?” I don’t dive. Once that thought is there, it’s there for a reason. There is something in my subconscious that says, “Hold on, why dive under these circumstances?” In this case, we had that thought in our heads for over 30 minutes before we geared up and entered the water. We were looking for a rationalization as to whether it was safe to dive, and it was not that day.
I have used this rule of mine several times to say “No” to activities. In one instance, my sons were scheduled to go out on a skiing trip with their Boy Scout troop to the Bend, Oregon area from our town in Roseburg, which is on the other side of the mountains. But weather reports said it was blizzard conditions on the passes, and snowing very, very hard in the ski area. I didn’t even think about it, and was sure the event was cancelled. It was not, and the troop went to the ski resort. One of the scouts skied alone, got lost, and skied into a tree well where he crashed head-first, suffocated and died. I didn’t learn that the scout troop had gone there until the news of the fatality hit the news.
So if your have that little nagging feeling about a dive, simple don’t dive.
SeaRat
