diverlady
September 2nd, 2003, 01:10 PM
I got to dive the Arabia on Sunday!! I've wanted to do that wreck for a couple of years now and finally got the chance. My club had a charter for the weekend with quite a few new divers on board which made the whole situation rather amusing.
At first there were 6 of us that were going to dive it but then 2 (one of which is a divemaster) dropped out. So, down to 4 me being the only female which surprised me since there at least 1/3 of the group were women. One new diver (female) came up to me and said I was "sooo brave!" LOL!! By then, the stories of the fatalities have circulated and I'm sure, been embellished. Also, rumours about my buddy have issues with being narced or doing some weird stuff at depth during one dive earlier in the season started to fly and so that added to the whole "DANGEROUS" thing as well as the idea/fact that the colder the water the more easily divers get narced. I have no idea if that is actually the case or not. There was some discussion about who would be Rescue Diver so that totally added to the awe of the newer divers. Our gear was triple checked by the divemaster and in we went.
We decided to all stick together, more or less so we headed down the stern line. I did feel a bit dizzy or some kind of slight vertigo on the way down (starting at about 25ft) but it didn't get worse with depth and by the time I hit the mooring block and had some points of reference other than just the line, all was fine. It's a nice wreck with plenty to see on it (in my opinion) and I would love to go again. Topside, there were apparently 20 sets of eyes watching our bubbles (commenting that we were all more or less together) and worrying about us while we were pleasantly exploring.
There was a boat moored on the bow line and the plan was they were going to get off the line when their divers were up and our boat would move so we were to come up the bow line. Having never been on the wreck, I didn't know exactly where that was but my buddy did (not that I was completely confident due to the vague info of his troubles circulating) but one of the other divers also knew where it was so all was fine. My buddy was always withing 4 feet of me although we lost sight of the other divers a couple of times only to see them come to form in murky water a few moments later. It was 41F at depth so I was REALLY happy to have a drysuit on! One diver was in a wetsuit. The other buddy pair came across 3 weightbelts and tried to bring one up but dropped it as it was too heavy for him to risk it. Good call but for the fact that he slid it down the line where it nearly knocked me off!! I grabbed it thinking that one of them had lost their belt but obviously not. My buddy then grabbed it and thought the same thing!
Anyway, we all made it to the surface without incident although the boat was NOT moored there!! Apparently the other boat's tech divers surfaced just before we did so our boat didn't have the chance to move. Well, the tech divers were impressive to the newbies on our boat with their doubles and extra equipment which added to the aura of the dive and I'm sure I heard a collective sigh of relief when we all finally surfaced together. I wasn't too impressed having to surface swim back to the boat but you do what you have to! The dm threw us a lifebuoy and pulled us all the final few metres.
All in all, it was a good dive with safety and awareness being the key to keeping it an injury-free weekend.
(I think I jumped up a few notches in the eyes of the newbies as I noticed a surprising increase in the number of questions about diving, drysuits, emergencies etc. directed my way after that. Hopefully, all the new divers will take home the point of being safety-conscious instead of recalling who actually did the dive)
Diverlady
FTR - I found out today what really happened with my buddy that lead to the rumours which I won't go into details about. Suffice it to say, that it was pretty much a one-time thing that spooked the 20yr diving vet and I certainly have no issues with buddying up with him again :)
At first there were 6 of us that were going to dive it but then 2 (one of which is a divemaster) dropped out. So, down to 4 me being the only female which surprised me since there at least 1/3 of the group were women. One new diver (female) came up to me and said I was "sooo brave!" LOL!! By then, the stories of the fatalities have circulated and I'm sure, been embellished. Also, rumours about my buddy have issues with being narced or doing some weird stuff at depth during one dive earlier in the season started to fly and so that added to the whole "DANGEROUS" thing as well as the idea/fact that the colder the water the more easily divers get narced. I have no idea if that is actually the case or not. There was some discussion about who would be Rescue Diver so that totally added to the awe of the newer divers. Our gear was triple checked by the divemaster and in we went.
We decided to all stick together, more or less so we headed down the stern line. I did feel a bit dizzy or some kind of slight vertigo on the way down (starting at about 25ft) but it didn't get worse with depth and by the time I hit the mooring block and had some points of reference other than just the line, all was fine. It's a nice wreck with plenty to see on it (in my opinion) and I would love to go again. Topside, there were apparently 20 sets of eyes watching our bubbles (commenting that we were all more or less together) and worrying about us while we were pleasantly exploring.
There was a boat moored on the bow line and the plan was they were going to get off the line when their divers were up and our boat would move so we were to come up the bow line. Having never been on the wreck, I didn't know exactly where that was but my buddy did (not that I was completely confident due to the vague info of his troubles circulating) but one of the other divers also knew where it was so all was fine. My buddy was always withing 4 feet of me although we lost sight of the other divers a couple of times only to see them come to form in murky water a few moments later. It was 41F at depth so I was REALLY happy to have a drysuit on! One diver was in a wetsuit. The other buddy pair came across 3 weightbelts and tried to bring one up but dropped it as it was too heavy for him to risk it. Good call but for the fact that he slid it down the line where it nearly knocked me off!! I grabbed it thinking that one of them had lost their belt but obviously not. My buddy then grabbed it and thought the same thing!
Anyway, we all made it to the surface without incident although the boat was NOT moored there!! Apparently the other boat's tech divers surfaced just before we did so our boat didn't have the chance to move. Well, the tech divers were impressive to the newbies on our boat with their doubles and extra equipment which added to the aura of the dive and I'm sure I heard a collective sigh of relief when we all finally surfaced together. I wasn't too impressed having to surface swim back to the boat but you do what you have to! The dm threw us a lifebuoy and pulled us all the final few metres.
All in all, it was a good dive with safety and awareness being the key to keeping it an injury-free weekend.
(I think I jumped up a few notches in the eyes of the newbies as I noticed a surprising increase in the number of questions about diving, drysuits, emergencies etc. directed my way after that. Hopefully, all the new divers will take home the point of being safety-conscious instead of recalling who actually did the dive)
Diverlady
FTR - I found out today what really happened with my buddy that lead to the rumours which I won't go into details about. Suffice it to say, that it was pretty much a one-time thing that spooked the 20yr diving vet and I certainly have no issues with buddying up with him again :)