Mike
Contributor
Not necessarily. Even if, as others have said, they just carried enough gas to complete the deco they racked up or hung a tank or two to complete their deco obligation, this dive would have been a non-issue when it was all over like the other dives. The above two suggestions are very simple and no one would be bent and no one would be permanently injured or paralysed.
That's not part of the process for the diving they were doing. It's deep dive/bounce dive on air, single tank, go for it, nothing is going to go wrong, no need for contingency plans. It's they way it's done.
Another version of the mentality of deep on air, dangerous yes, but nothing I can't handle --
DEEP SCUBA DIVING OFF COZUMEL AT 240 FEET – AND LIVING 2002
No one, absolutely no one, has any business scuba diving to 240 feet with one tank of regular air….and definitely not alone.Yet, there I was, a normally sane diver, drift-diving 240 feet under water along the wall of Maracaibo Reef with five minutes of air left at that depth… and not a soul in sight.
Maracaibo Reef is the last dive spot at the southern tip of Cozumel, an island famous for its diving. Cozumel is across from Cancun, Mexico at the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. Maracaibo Reef, open to whip-saw currents and waves topside, is a wall dive for experienced divers.
The usual dive depth is 90-120 feet, but depending on the currents and where you arrive on Maracaibo reef, 140-160 feet is not uncommon. Maracaibo is known for large fish, eagle rays, turtles, some sharks – I never saw any there on two dives – and huge coral formations.
Like most of Cozumel’s dives, it’s a drift dive – hop in one place, drift with the current, get picked up later down-current in another spot.
At 240 feet, the seascape of Maracaibo’s wall recedes from indigo blue into an inky black, the last stop being 10,000 feet or more. It’s dark at 240 feet, looking almost like dusk, murky, an eerie and foreboding quality to the light and the surroundings at that depth. It’s too dark to see far, and with coral outcroppings blocking my view in many places, I lose sight of the two divers below me.
It all started innocently enough. Paco pulls the fast boat for experienced divers up to the dock at the old Plaza las Glorias hotel – I loved that hotel in Coz – with Pedro, our dive master, and two divers I’ve not met. I hop in, stow my gear, and we make intro’s.
One is a dive master with 2000 dives under his belt – he lets me know this right away, but I’m short on bowing and grovelling this morning. I’ll call him Doofus for reasons that will become clear. His buddy is a triathlete, a nice guy. I’ll call him Roofus, because he went along with Doofus. We pick up another diver, Dan, at another hotel and we’re off.
“Where to?” I ask no one in particular. “Anywhere is fine with me.”
Doofus, with a macho edge to his voice, asks, “Maracaibo Reef…. That OK with you?”
“Sure, no problem,” I joke, “I have two hundred feet of clothesline to tie us together if the current gets too bad,” Roofus and Dan laugh; Doofus doesn’t. Intense. I had to give the man a chance, right?
We get to Maracaibo Reef and put on our gear. Pedro gives us instructions in case we get separated, then hops in the water to check our position, currents, and the reef. After a minute, he tells us to go in and head straight for the reef edge, about 100 feet into the current and 120 feet down. Roofus and Doofus roll off the boat, first. Dan and I take positions and back-roll into the waves ten seconds later. Pedro waits to see us on our way and brings up the rear. But Doofus and Roofus are not waiting.
A stiff current wells up from Maracaibo’s wall and R&D kick into this current like banshees on speed. Assuming we’re to stay together, I follow with Dan behind me, burning some air kicking hard into the current coming up from below. I follow Doofus and Roofus to 160 feet and they’re still cranking down Maracaibo’s wall into deeper water.
I’m comfortable at 160’ and turn around to check on Pedro and Dan, drifting twenty feet behind and above me. I hand signal, “What are these guys doing?” Pedro and Dan shrug their shoulders – they don’t know, either. Doofus and Roofus are at 190 feet and still going. It’s dark down there. I’m thinking these clowns are going to get in serious trouble and I may need to make a bounce dive – fast dive down and fast return – to bring one or both of them back.
Years before I took an advanced dive course from Ron Merker, an ex-Navy Seal who owned the Aquatic Center in Newport Beach (now, Beach Cities Scuba - a good, pro dive shop) – dump your tank and weight belt on the ocean floor at 60 feet and come up – that kind of thing. So, I have some confidence in my abilities.
Holding my dive meter and checking my depth, I begin to drift down easily – 170, 180, 190…. it’s getting dark…. and I’m paying close attention to what my mental processes are doing. At the first sign of nitrogen narcosis, if I start to feel drunk or act woozy, I’m going to have to bag it and leave them to their fate. Breathing regular air from a tank under pressure, which is 79% nitrogen, causes the nitrogen to build up in your bloodstream, which can make you feel very drunk and fuzzy-headed at deep depths.
The water compresses my buoyancy compensator/vest so I sink, gently free-falling in pursuit of Roofus and Doofus. “What’s another body length or two?” I tell myself, - that’s only 6-12 feet – just keep checking your depth and mental processes for signs of nitrogen narcosis. And down I drift – 200…210…220 – where I lose sight of them. Where’d they go? I drift lower looking for them – 225 …230 …235 .. 240 – that’s when the nitrogen narcosis hits me.
Like that, it feels like I had one too many drinks – woozy and real fuzzy thinking. I flip my dive meter around and see the needle on my air gauge hitting 1250 PSI (pounds/square inch of pressure) – about half a tank left. It’s when I take a breath and see the needle go from 1250 to 1220 do I realize through the mental fog that I’m in deep trouble. At 240 feet, 1250 PSI of air is no more than five minutes of air. Time to boogie out of there!!
For you non-divers, air pressure at sea level is 14.7 PSI (pounds per square inch); that’s what’s called one atmosphere of pressure. Every 33 feet you go below the surface adds one more atmosphere of pressure on your body. To be able to breath, your Scuba regulator increases the air pressure and volume of the air you’re breathing to match the surrounding water pressure – that’s allows you to breath under water.
So, at 240 feet, I’m breathing against seven more atmospheres of pressure and each breath I take is actually seven times the volume of air of the same breath at 33 feet. That’s why half a tank of air at 1250 PSI might last 30 minutes at a depth of 35 feet, but doesn’t last much longer than five minutes at 240 feet.
I look at my computerized dive meter and it tells me that I have to make two decompression stops for another twenty minutes, too. My mind clears for a moment – I actually calculate about 40 full breaths at 30 PSI/breath will burn the 1200 PSI left in my tank at 240 feet. Even through the fog of my mind, I think, “You damned fool, you don’t have enough air to make it back. You’ve been diving too long to kill yourself this stupid way.”
I look up, thinking I’ll see Pedro and Dan drifting 80 – 100 feet above me, to buddy breath if we have to, but they are no where to be seen. The currents at different depths moved us at different speeds and I’m alone… at 240 feet.
Now, there’s being alone and there is alone — and you can trust me on this: drifting in a swift current 240 feet down in a dark, watery landscape and running out of air with no soul in sight is alone as it gets.
When you think you’re probably going to die, your first instinct is to do some fast breathing, a bit of hyperventilating. After all, your situation, for better or worse, is definitely pulse-pounding, adrenalin-rush scary and exciting. But most would agree that it’s not the best idea to breath fast when five minutes of air is the only thing keeping you from becoming fish food. In these moments, paying your cell phone bill on time no longer seems important.
I start up with a few kicks and glance at my dive meter to check my ascent and to make sure I’m not going up too quickly. I see that I haven’t moved at all and am still at 240 feet – SURPRISE, DUMBSKI! I’m very negatively buoyant and nitrogen narcosis is screwing up my perceptions and thinking. I pop more air into my vest to give me some lift, and start kicking, what I think is kicking, anyway, and check my depth meter. I still haven’t moved off the 240 foot mark. I am running out of air going absolutely nowhere!
Stay tuned: Part II follows tomorrow:
