The Stoney Mesa II dive site was as tough as Stoney Messa I was easy.
The surge picked up and then the current picked up and kicked my butt. About 20 minutes into the dive Nancy was ready to come up because we were fighting the the surge and then the current kicked in big time.
We came up to the hang bar and I grabbed a hold of it and looked like a flag blowing in the breeze. The current was so strong the hang bar slowly went up to the surface, which kind of defeated the purpose of doing a safety stop on the hang bar. So I let go of the hang bar figuring that I would just drop back and grab the trail line. I did drop back from the boat, but at an incredible rate of speed. I had to kick for all I was worth not to get blown off the site.
By the time I had kicked back to the end of the trail line for my safety stop I was at the end of the trail line. I kicked to keep the line in sight and slowing went up and grabbed the trail line with my left hand.
Now the dilemma: I had to either rely on my Cetacea cord to hold the camera or I was just going to end up hanging on the line until they pulled it in. The current was rippin’. I opted for trusting the cetecea keeper and it held, but it was tough for me to let go not knowing if the camera would stay attached to my bc or what it would do without me using one hand to control the camera. It’s at times like these when I wish I didn’t have quite as much invested in the camera rig.
What a beating. It took just about all the strength I had to pull my self back to the boat on the line. I am guessing but I suspect that the current was an easy 4 knots at that point. It was basically kick as hard as I could, pull the rope with both hands just to get to the boat. Once I made it to the boat I had to use one hand to release the cetecea cord and hand the camera up. That was a challenge. Thirty five pounds of camera gear to hand up one handed, while holding on to the boat with my left hand. I got it done; handed the camera up, and then got on board. I was beat. I’m not a young man, but I still work out 5-6 times a week just to stay in shape so I can dive. That was a hard dive. We had lunch and I took off the next dive so that I could take a nap and rest for the remaining two dives of the day.