(Drowned) Fish Stories

[horge]

I was wondering if anyone else has had fairly serious scrapes while down there, and if they could have done anything differently.

My own worst experience involved a minor earthquake (3.2, epicentered about 130 km away as I found out) while snorkelling. I never felt it of course. The water just suddenly pulled me several metres out from my position, then threw me hard onto sparse formations I had been examining.

I lost my mask and snorkel, one fin and nearly all my fingernails as I tried to hold on. I held my breath, my eyes shut to what had to be silted water. It was crazy for maybe a minute and ten, then I kicked up. Just in time to see a wall of water coming back from shore had just passed me over. I swam the hundred metres to shore like mad, the next wave shoving me onto my knees on what should have been beach.

This was on the South China Sea coast of Luzon, in the province of Bataan, over a decade ago. My right pinkie finger is permanently fused at the first joint because of that incident. I have never gone to Bataan again, and every time and anywhere I snorkel now, I'm practically in tears for fear --until I get my first ten minutes of calm aqua.

[SkiDog]

Wow horge, that sounds like a heck of a ride !

There have been a few times that I have been concerned about the events that were taking place during a dive. The most annoying was a BC valve failure on a FW { black water } deep air dive.
While ascending to my first deco depth I started hearing bubbles, a-lot of bubbles :(
So I started checking valves { I was sure that tank One had blown an o-ring }.
I soon noticed thai I was descending FAST! I was able to grad a Pecan tree branch and stop my descent, so that I could find out what the heck was going on with my equipment. Well, I had not blown an o-ring, the inflater hose had come OFF the bladder on my BC { D'OH ! }
No problem, I can remove it and try to reinstall the valve { a complicated trick with three reels, a canister light, Four tanks, and while sitting in a tree at 90 ft :) } Well.. while I was removing gear I got so heavy { all the air has now exited the BC bladder } THAT THE BRANCH BROKE :(
Pow... Smash...Pop..Crack.. down I went, breaking the Pecan branches as I sank. As soon as I got my arm back into the BC I started dumping air into my drysuit, trying to stop my descent. { had to get the BC on before I could fill the drysuit }.
Well, it did not stop me BUT it did slow me down so that when I HIT that big SHARP branch it did not tear my suit { or me for that matter }. The big sharp branch did stop my descent { and it hurt too ;) .
After all that, I decided to use my lift bag as a BC and swim to shallow water where I could find a good place to do my deco stops :) And suck down as much 75%O2 as I had, after the fall back to 145 ft I was concerned about getting a DCS hit :(
Anyway I made it back, did not get A DCS hit :) I did get a-lot of snide remarks from the other team members that where there, who saw me surface with my drysuit bursting at the seams, and all the Pecan branches stuck in my gear :)
My dive buddy gave them a play-by-play of what had happend { some buddy }. He had seen the whole thing but could not get into the tree to help, and I never saw him after we left the bottom before the whole incident. I guess I was to busy.
I cant think of anythin I would have done differently, maybe find a stronger branch, or I could have used the lift-bag instead of trying to fix the BC bladder, but I have always considered that to be my second to last resort. The last resort would have been a inverted { feet up } ascent so that the drysuit would FILL with air, but that would be difficult to control.

The moral of the story is " sitting in the tree tops is for the birds " ..ahh...better make that fish.

Later
Mark

[horge]

Sorry, mark, but imagining you, dripping on deck, looking like a pincushion for branches---LMAO!!!

[SkiDog]

Well.. yes, sad but true :D

[bmw]

I wasn't going to post here again, being an antique I think---but--
Closest call I ever had was diving off a little island in the Bahamas--got a local with a little john boat to take us out-not too far. Some serious current, drifting along happily. Came up on this old scow-maybe 100-120 feet. When we surfaced saw several well armed gentlemen along the deck. I think they were, uh, free-lance pharmecutical importers. Fired a couple of shots over us. (I do not not how in the world they thought we might actually navigate 15 feet or so up the side of their ship, but anyway). We left in a hurry. :)
Anyone ever hear a high velocity bullet going thru the water?
I have also stepped on a couple of Nurse sharks. The first time it seemed like a dangerous thing--course the 2nd and 3rd time it just seemed stupid.
b.

[horge]

Poor nurse sharks!
You're a meanie, bruce, hehehe :p

And no, I don't know what bullets fswswssing through the water sound like. Don't want to know.

[horge]

BTW bruce: you could have told them you were an acquaintance of Q-ball's or RJ's. I suppose they'd be nice as a gesture to some of their biggest clients :D

[bmw]

Horge-
The "conversation" was rather brief! There really was not room for discussion. :)
Not sure Q-Ball or RJ was a factor at that time. :) (About 20 years ago)
I wonder though, the "fswswssing" description was so true--sure you have not heard that? :)
b.

[horge]

Hehe.
You never know bruce.
I live where I live.