I almost forgot about being left behind - twice.
The first time my buddy and I were diving from a 16 foot bowrider on the wreck of the Robert Gaskin in 60 - 70 feet of water right off Centeen Park in Brockville, Ontario. We left a husband and wife couple from Russia on board who didn't dive to make sure the boat was safe and secure while we were underwater. While underwater we heard and felt a big freighter pass by. Our intestines and teeth were vibrating! After an hour or so we surfaced to see the boat gone. "Hey man, you don't suppose the freighter could have swamped the boat do you?" We last saw it tied to the bow mooring and the bow mooring was still floating there ... as was the stern mooring. Didn't sink anyway. We hung out for an hour on a gorgeous sunny day. My buddy asked, "Well, what do you want to do?" I suggested we swim to shore. There's a line that runs to shore that's tied in near the Gaskin, but not to it. It's within sight of a nearby sunken motor boat. It takes about 20 minutes to swim to the wreck from shore, but only about 10 minutes to go back. I said that we could leave our gear at Brockville Adventure Center, ask Helen if we could grab a couple of T-shirts, borrow money for food, and report our boat missing. Just as we were about to try that plan. We saw our boat coming toward us from the lake side near the center of town. The freighter scared them so they thought they'd go pleasure boating and come back for us!
The second time was absolutely my fault. Three of us left Chippewa Bay in the same 16 foot bowrider. I stayed in the boat while the other two guys dove the wreck of the Keystorm in 115 feet of water. We had really inclement weather, cold, pouring rain. With all of the water coming down no one noticed that we had a leak coming through the stern drain plug. When the team returned one of the divers was using sidemount and had difficulty unclipping his bottles and got his rig caught on the motor. I was at the ladder to help him and it looked like we had too much weight in the stern because the boat seemed to be sinking. I moved forward once he was unfouled and things looked better. But once the third guy boarded we knew something wasn't right. I started the motor and the bilge pump. The third diver to board was also the owner and was checking the craft over while I was slipping into my doubles to dive. We heard him shout, "Guys! We're going down! We need to get weight off the boat." I grabbed my buddy's fins since they were handy and rolled into the water just as the boat looked like it was going to capsize. They quickly got it on plane and circled the area to get the water out. Things looked good (yeah, right, like there was a reason she almost sank) so we decided I'd go diving. After exploring from bow to stern reaching the prop at 115 feet and returning there was no boat at any of the three moorings. I checked my gas and decided to dive the wreck staying shallower. The bow was at 20 feet so there was lots of wreck 50 feet and up. I returned from that cruise and saw there was still no boat anywhere. I decided ... yeah, I know ... genius move, huh? ... to dive a while longer and explore the shoal alongside the wreck. Returning yet again ... no boat. I deployed an orange DSMB and surfaced to see the surface empty of any boat or watercraft. I decided to stay put and hold to the mooring figuring they'd be back or another boat would show. Ryan, one of the captains for Underwhere? Charters, had been onsite earlier but had departed before my friends surfaced. Even though it was late Fall I figured that another Canadian boat would arrive. Nothing for 3 hours. I tried to signal a couple passing freighters hoping they see me and radio the USCG to no avail. A tour boat that was making its way to Singer Castle spotted me and changed course sounding the horn to let me know help was on the way. As I watched it approach in the distance making a bee-line for me, I saw another craft overtake it. My buddies!!! They arrived and picked me up as the tour boat sounded that it was breaking off the rescue and swung back toward the castle. Turns out the motor flooded and they drifted down river and managed to reach an island where they fixed the issue. Being surrounded by islands rather than being "at sea" makes things seem deceptively less dangerous in "the river." Lesson learned.
