Underwater Education...

I had an interesting experience on a wreck dive last night.  Eight of us took a boat ride about 2 miles out into Lake Ontario from Port Hope.  Sunk thereabouts, in 1912, is the wreck of the Schooner J. P. Locke. I was looking forward to this dive. I've never dived in Lake Ontario, it was a wreck I'd never heard of before and I was happy to get back into the sport.  The day before, I and a buddy had done a fast water dive at Burleigh falls.  So this would be my second dive back after quite a few years out of the water.

Things did not start well for me.  Lake Ontario is big, of course, and we were in a fairly good swell on the way out there.  Nothing enormous, but big enough waves to make moving around on the boat and getting safely maneuvered into a position to roll off the gunnel into the water, while wearing a tank, wet suit, mask, fins and a buoyancy vest with almost twenty pounds of lead stuffed in the pockets...a little  less than graceful.

I made my exit off the boat okay, but on the way over, the calf of my right leg struck a railing and...something I didn't discover until getting back into the boat later...pulled my knife out of it's scabbard and sent it quickly into 80 feet of murky water.  Great.

The really weird thing though happened during my descent.  My buddy Mike and I signaled to each other that all was well and we were good to begin slowly sinking down to the wreck...which lay at about 75 feet just below us.  We let the air out of our vests and let the weight we were wearing slowly take us down.  At about 40 feet or so though, I began to get the willies.  I'm not really sure why...maybe the lack of visibility and poor light, maybe the very cold water...but I began to feel the start of panic.  I've never felt this way while diving.  I've done many dives and had lots of weird things happen to me, even ran out of air once, but never felt this sudden inability to get enough air into my lungs and a nagging urge to maybe just quickly swim back up to the surface for the rest of the evening.  It's frightening.  Especially when you've got fifty feet of water above you.  You very quickly realize how fast things can go south on you if you give in to the fright.

Luckily I do have some training and it kicked in.  I signaled to Mike that all was not well with me and that I needed to just slow things down a bit until I'd gotten things under control.  He was great and hung in there with me.  It's amazing how even a little eye contact at moments like that can make a huge difference.   In a few moments the bottom appeared and for some reason just having my feet on the ground seemed to clear my head.  My breathing settled down to a slow, deep relaxed rythmn and I was good.  We turned our lights on and began to enjoy the dive.  The wreck was big and beautiful and mysterious.   

Then, I noticed that air bubbles were streaming out of the hose connection at my Buuyancy vest.  Another Great.  I fiddled with it, Mike checked it out but neither of us really knew what to do about it.  Luckily our Dive Master, Steve, was not far off and he spotted my dilemma.  He calmly set about disconnecting then reconnecting the hose.  Bubbling stopped, problem neatly handled.  The bummer was that I was now, as a result of the leak and my previous hyperventilation, well below a half tank of air and would have to cut my, and of necessity and safety, my buddies dives short.  Not such a bad thing as it turns out, as Mike was cold and my hands (improperly gloved with uninsulated gloves) were pretty chilly.  At 500 lbs of air left in my tank we began our ascent to the surface, stopping at about 15 feet for a three minute safety check.

I got back onto the boat, safe and sound and all the wiser for having come through some spooky stuff.  I am a better diver because of it and because I saw, first hand, the importance of training, calm, a good dive buddy and a fantastic Dive Master.  My next dive will be that much more enjoyable as a result.  And I learned a good deal about myself too...I am human and I have my limits...and those must be respected and listened to.  Another one of the reasons I love to dive...it's a great education...

Comments

[Deb Weyrich-Cody]

Glad everything worked out, but I'd prefer to think your "willies" were that good old-fashioned "gut feeling" kicking in; that everything wasn't quite right... Maybe just a touch of precognition? (No shortage of ghosts out there to tap you on the shoulder, that's for sure; )