jonhall
Contributor
Thought I'd share the dumb thing I did this past year (can't remember anything from prior years!) Figure it can be a learning experience. You know what they say about karma.....
Did 10 boat dives off the Kohala Coast of the Big Island. On the last day, I was enjoying another great dive. Had seen a leaf scorpionfish, yellow frogfish, dragon wrasse, sponge crab, and a couple of mantas on previous dives. So on the 9th dive, About 30 minutes into the dive, I saw a dusty sea cucumber and signaled to my dive buddy I was going to it. He saw it also and knew what I was going to do. After getting to it I checked my buddy again who was a little farther away - the rest of our group a little farther ahead of him. I began to dust the sand off of the sea cucumber to spell my last name. When I was done I looked up at my buddy who was not there; no-one was there. KARMA for touching the sea cucumber! - visibility was good so I looked for bubbles - NONE! I started swimming in the direction the group had gone and saw nothing. Good on air, I started thinking about what I was going to do - actually I first thought "you deserved this." I swam back to the last place I had been with everyone - by the sea cucumber. Along the way my thoughts were that I knew the direction of the shore (it's the only thing I really use my compass for), we were probably no more than 4-5 football fields away from shore, there was no boat traffic in the area, the water was calm on the surface and with no other boat traffic, I probably would see the dive boat if I surfaced and if I didn't see the boat, I was going to be pretty embarrassed when I saw everyone again. Once back to where I lost everyone, I swam to the other side of a large rock feature and everyone went swimming by. Turns out had I surfaced right there I would have been within 100 feet of the boat. Yes, I took a picture of the sea cucumber with my last name on it to remind me not to touch the sea life!!
Anyone else with a story?
Did 10 boat dives off the Kohala Coast of the Big Island. On the last day, I was enjoying another great dive. Had seen a leaf scorpionfish, yellow frogfish, dragon wrasse, sponge crab, and a couple of mantas on previous dives. So on the 9th dive, About 30 minutes into the dive, I saw a dusty sea cucumber and signaled to my dive buddy I was going to it. He saw it also and knew what I was going to do. After getting to it I checked my buddy again who was a little farther away - the rest of our group a little farther ahead of him. I began to dust the sand off of the sea cucumber to spell my last name. When I was done I looked up at my buddy who was not there; no-one was there. KARMA for touching the sea cucumber! - visibility was good so I looked for bubbles - NONE! I started swimming in the direction the group had gone and saw nothing. Good on air, I started thinking about what I was going to do - actually I first thought "you deserved this." I swam back to the last place I had been with everyone - by the sea cucumber. Along the way my thoughts were that I knew the direction of the shore (it's the only thing I really use my compass for), we were probably no more than 4-5 football fields away from shore, there was no boat traffic in the area, the water was calm on the surface and with no other boat traffic, I probably would see the dive boat if I surfaced and if I didn't see the boat, I was going to be pretty embarrassed when I saw everyone again. Once back to where I lost everyone, I swam to the other side of a large rock feature and everyone went swimming by. Turns out had I surfaced right there I would have been within 100 feet of the boat. Yes, I took a picture of the sea cucumber with my last name on it to remind me not to touch the sea life!!
Anyone else with a story?
