Well, I am kind of embarrassed about the dive but knew Id have to spill the beans at some point.
We descend on the beach in about 15ft of water. He struggles to get down, so we wait for him in the bottom. He gets down and then he points to his mask, and we wait for him to clear it a few times. We set off, and my buddy goes a bit ahead holding the float line. As we slowly descent further we need to stop several times, we are not quite sure why but every time I ask I get an OK and go ahead for an answer. We get to 50ft and level, and he drops behind me and starts having great trouble keeping up.
At this point I am cursing in my mind that I ended up in the middle. I am constantly peeking between my legs or over my shoulder to see where he is, and whether he is having ear trouble or something but not saying so. Every time I drop behind trying to get next to him, he just drops further back, and I start losing sight of my buddy, so I have to speed to keep them both in sight. (Viz is is not great and by this time he has kicked up a soup around us).
Finally, about 10 min into the dive I see him clearing the mask again, fiddling with the strap, so I stop and ask again, and this time he actually signs iffy, points to ear or head and shows index finger up. He has now stopped moving, my buddy hasnt seen it yet and I am trying to show him a sign to wait a second. He didnt thumb it, so I would think he could hold on few sec, so I could fetch my buddy before we change direction. The moment I kick a couple of feet ahead I see why my buddy didnt stop. She saw the boat, and is quickly trying to tie the float on the mooring, so she can come assist him with both hands free. However, I know she cannot anymore see him because I can barely see her fins, and when I turn to take that one kick back, he has vanished anyway. That much for trying to be visible for both.
So, trusting I know what my buddy is likely to do next, I dash after the guy towards the direction he pointed, and do a quick search. Nothing. I return enough so my buddy can see my yellow fin tips and join me. I sign to him the guys message. We both do a brief search both backwards and towards the direction he pointed. I am starting to feel a bit freaky but I know hed signed a coherent plan, so we decided that Ill slowly ascent on top off my buddys bubbles while my buddy will circle down. I hope I came up slow enough, no computer, no line, no reference. I pop up and theres nothing. No head and no bubbles nowhere to be seen. Good amount of waves, so as I look towards shore the line he should have taken, its no way I could see the bubbles anyway. I will not swim far because even though we have float tied I am not leaving my buddys bubbles knowing that in that water from 40-50f down she will not be able to see me and is truly alone.
I am talking myself down but its a long couple of minutes. (Its hard not to go back down right away when not seeing nothing!) I am just about to start signing to the son ashore or the lifeguards but taking into account how slow this guy was I was a bit resistant still. Just about when I am getting real nervous, he pops up all the way at the buoys. Its too far to yell anything, and by now my buddy comes up too, and we both are about ready to curse. He had just dumped us and surfaced at the beach. Obviously he was able to continue the dive, didnt have to surface, so why the heck he just vanish. We are like I know we are supposed to go there and talk to him BUT I am gonna rip his head off for scaring us like that. Its not like we didnt say its thumbs up or clearly tell if ditching. Then we are like, is he signing hes coming back??? Hes pointing to his mask and waving. Were looking at each other. Guess what we did next?
