Monthly Archives: November 2015

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Have you heard the dreaded sound of the recall signal?

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Feeding on plankton upside down
Feeding on plankton upside down

[Note: It’s Thanksgiving, and I almost did not run this piece today because it is pretty dark, but then it occurred to me that it does fit Thanksgiving; see if you agree…

One of the downsides of advanced scuba certification is that you become aware, and sometimes its painful awareness, of how many people struggle with scuba diving.  You also tend to become more sensitive to watching and listening to other divers to find out if they are likely to have problems with the dive. Typically I am watching to see how divers put their gear together to see whether they know how it should be assembled and to see how confident they are in their topside skills. If they don’t know how their gear goes together, that is usually a pretty good sign someone on the dive needs to keep an eye on them underwater because chances are pretty good if something goes sideways they could easily panic and hurt themselves. Sometimes I hear divers say things that just don’t make any sense to me; like an average sized diver asking for about twice as much weight as I would expect he would need. I’m learning that when I hear things like that I really need to watch those divers.

One of the really bad sounds to hear when you are underwater is the captain of the boat pounding a weight on the hull of the boat as a recall signal. A repeated Bang bang bang sound usually means that something has gone very wrong for someone on the dive.

Not long ago I was diving in the Bahamas.  We had quite a few dive professionals on the boat; and we had one rookie blue water diver and an older diver among others. The rookie was buddied up with a dive master and the older diver was buddied up with another dive master. My buddy and I were near the other dive leader and were following him into the current to get to some swim throughs.  I noticed that the older diver seemed to have some problems with buoyancy, and he was way too involved in looking at his go pro. The rookie diver looked like he would huff through his air pretty fast. I figured he would be on the surface inside of 20 minutes on what otherwise would have been at least a 45 minute dive. Once I saw Harry, the older diver in the water, it was pretty obvious he would be all over the place, would have bouyancy problems and I figures he might be down 25 minutes.

At about the 20 minute mark my buddy and I had entered a swim through and were quite a ways into the swim through when I heard the dreaded bang bang bang of the recall signal. We came  out of the swim through and headed to the boat with the current at our backs. We were going relatively quickly, in part because the current was at our backs.  Not long after  I heard the recall signal, I shut down the camera and started kicking towards the boat. We rose in the water column and did most of our safety stop on the way back to the boat. When we got on board, the rookie was sitting on the floor of the boat, but otherwise appeared to be alright. I looked around for Harry and he was no where in sight. I hadn’t seen Harry on the way back to the boat so I assumed something was wrong. Actually, after I looked around the boat and realized Harry wasn’t there, the first thought that came to mind was “oh boy” Harry’s dead.

The captain looked a little nervous, but did not seem to be completely upset. I kept looking in the vicinity of the boat expecting to see other divers. Finally, when my gaze shifted out to about 200 meters away from the boat I could see someone holding on to another mooring line. As the boat made its way over to the other mooring line I could see Harry holding on to the mooring bouy and one of the dive staff was with him. Harry had blown thorough his air and had not been able to swim back to the boat because of the current. Fortunately, the dive leader assigned to him had helped him drop weights after he surfaced and had manually inflated his BC. Harry was ok, but needed help getting back on the boat. Had Harry not been with a professional, Harry could have gotten himself into some real trouble. Harry by his own admission was overweighted, underinflated and unable to do anything except hold on to the mooring bouy. And, until his weights were dropped by the diver professional, Harry was “drinking” a lot of sea water. Harry’s situation could have gotten really bad if he had not had immediate help.

The dive staff earned their pay that day. And just in case you are curious what it sounds like to hear a weight banging on the hull of a boat, here is the last bit of the dive with the banging at the end.

In reflection, the dives for 2015 for me, are pretty much done for the year. Everyone came back more or less in one piece. No one got bent. No one suffered a serious injury. So I do have a lot to be thankful for; I just wish the Harry’s of the diving world would be a little more careful, and maybe take a refresher course so they wouldn’t take such big risks.

Bahamas, Mexico, swim throughs, Uncategorized

Do you like swim throughs?

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A short video clip from a swim through known as the “caves” in the Bahamas:

Swim throughs can occur several different ways.  The Caves in Bahamas is an example of coral growing so high that it creates walls that sometimes meet and cover the corridor that otherwise winds through the reef.  The swim throughs I have been through have ranged from wide enough for 3 divers to go through side by site down to swim throughs where I have to fold in close to the camera housing the arms holding my camera strobes out to the side of the housing.

swim through fins-1

The Caves in Freeport Bahamas’ dive site starts out easily wide enough to accommodate a diver so it is a dive in which we follow the leader.  If you are not the leader of the dive, you have to hope that the divers in front of you do not kick up the sand too much otherwise the visibility gets real spotty really quickly.   Fortunately my dive buddy who went in front of me did not kick up the bottom much at all.  The Caves does get pretty narrow at points.  There were a couple of places in the canyon where I had to  turn sideways just to get the camera in its underwater housing through the narrows.  The narrows did feel pretty narrow. It is not too uncommon for swim throughs to have narrow points.  If you are not the first through, you have to hope that who ever is in front of you doesn’t balk and then try to turn around, or that someone from behind doesn’t bolt and try to  swim over you.

swim through

(If you look closely you can see the diver closest to the camera is actually swimming over the diver in front; not a good idea, even if it is close to the exit).

As a dive site, the caves also has a good amount of fish life on the reef. I saw a school of goatfish which was quite large both on an individual basis and based on the number of individuals in the school .  Of course the fish life is what keeps me going back to see more creatures underwater. You never know when a plate sized angel fish or a turtle might meet you in a swim  through.  For me, the potential of a meeting of an interesting creature never gets old.

We have just finished swimming through a swim through
We have just finished swimming through a swim through
wreaks

Have you seen the Papa Doc wreck in Grand Bahamas

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The Papa Doc replacement with fish

Not far off shore from Grand Bahama lie the remnants of an old transport vessel that some would be militia thought they would sail over to Haiti to lend support to the rebels in the Hatian revolution of 1968. Well to say they did not get very far would be an understatement. Now they left port in a storm, but they only made it less than a few miles before the ship foundered and sank. For a while the Papa Doc wreck was a site that divers could easily visit since it sat in about 50 feet of water. Years underwater were not kind to the Papa Doc which dissintegrated over time. All that remains today of the Papa Doc are a couple of engines and other small remnants that are largely buried under the sand. Occassionally the sea gives back a rare find such as a bayonnet, but that is infrequent.  The engines, however, remain and are worth inspecting.  On our dives we found small pederson shrimp and even a flamingos tongue on the engines. Both the shrimp and the flamigos tongue were relatively well hidden in the engines so it took some time to spot them.

Eventually a local dive shop Unexso, sank a tug boat on the site where the Papa Doc had previously sunk. (A word about Unexso, they are an awesome shop. They have an experienced and knowledgeable staff that is very concerned that the divers who dive with them, have a safe and enjoyable trip. As an older diver, I always want to dive nitrox, oxygen enriched air, because on repetitive dive days over the course of a week I always feel better on nitrox than I do on just good old air. No there is no scientific proof that nitrox will make you feel better on repetitive dives, but my antidotal experience is that it is a huge help for me. Regardless, when I asked for nitrox at Unexso, it was available and we tested it and the volume of gas in the tanks to make sure each tank was exactly what I wanted.)

Eventually in the place of the Papa Doc, Unexso sank the Badger tugboat on the site of the Papa Doc.  The Badger tugboat is largely still intact. The wheelhouse is in relatively good shape and has become a haven for snappers and black margot. Coral and some sea fans are starting to grow on the wreck. Fish such as squirrel fish hide in the recesses in the wreck. I played “peak a boo” with couple of squirrel fish for bettter part of 3 minutes just trying to coax them out to take their picture.

It took a while to get both squirrel fish to venture into the image
It took a while to get both squirrel fish to venture into the image

Around the tugboat there are some patch reefs and some large expanses of sand and broken coral. Spend sometime looking at the sponges on the patch reef because there often are spinny sea stars and a few golden crinoids are present. Often times near the sponges there are arrow crabs which are also interesting to watch. Underneath some of the coral heads are fairey bassetts which are a beautiful purple and gold fish.

In the sand you may find a significant number of blennies and some jaw fish who have dug holds in the sand and quickly retreat into the sand.

This blenny was one of several hundred that make their home near the Papa Doc
This blenny was one of several hundred that make their home near the Papa Doc

I looked for quite some time for a jawfish with eggs in its mouth, but did not find a single one. I guess I will have to go back again and re-explore the site.

Bahamas, Sharks, wide angle

Have you been to shark Junction?

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Some dives are just awesome.  The captain had just handed down my camera and I was continuing to clip the camera to my BC when I looked down.  Fifty feet below I could see gray reef sharks swimming over the reef.  Waiting the couple of minutes for my buddy to roll into the water and be ready to drop down to the reef seemed like an eternity.  Since my buddy had had some issues equalizing her ears on the first dive I paused before dropping down, just to make sure I didn’t pass her on the way down.

On the way down, I was turning on the strobes, the camera and the focus light and my video light.  I was still 25 feet from the bottom when I turned on the video light and started the video running.  For the next 11 minutes all I did was breath, refocus the camera and try to keep up with the action.  I lost count of the number of sharks that swam through the site.  We weren’t feeding the sharks so I didn’t have to huddle up and kneel in the sand, yeh.  Instead I was free to swim slowly and try to keep up with the action.

There were some small male sharks who swam through at various times.  the big females were amazing, easily 6 to 8 feet in length.  They were such graceful swimmers words do not do them justice.

One of the many sharks at Shark Junction
One of the many sharks at Shark Junction

Mid way through filming, there was a large black grouper who was easily 200 pounds who swam through.  He was quite a contrast to the sharks. Large bodied sharks could turn on a dime and still give you 9 cents back.  The black grouper turned more like an old Cadillac– slow and steady.

A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction
A 200 plus pound Black Grouper at Shark Junction

We also saw a school of horse-eyed jacks.  They are so graceful and their silver bodies glimmer in the water.  Here is a short video with the sharks and the horse-eyed jacks.

So would I go back to Shark Junction in the Bahamas, absolutely.