Close call in Micronesia

[fbosch]

In 2001, I went on 2 week trip trip to Yap and Palau. My brother and I dived way too often and on only 4 hours sleep after the long trip from Boston. This was opur first mistake. By the end of 4 days in Yap we already had sore throats. After we got to Palau, we started diving right away. At that point it was really too late as the long trips to the the dive sites in wind and rain really wore us down even more. On our first dive from blue holes to blue corner, we both had trouble equalizing and I got vertigo. On the surface I was really dehydrated and nauseous. I know something was wrong but decided that the trip was too expensive to stop diving, even if it killed me, and it almost did. On my 18th dive in 2 weeks, we were at blue corner and I was 25' down AND YET NOT CLEARED, the dive master said you need to go up, at first I resisted because it was blue corner but when I started spinning I realized that I was in danger. He lead me to a rope of the sea hunter and slowly brought me to the surface! I only suffered a bloody nose. I went to the doctor and they pumped me full of steroids and took a lot of wax out of my ear. I got really lucky, this could have gone much worse. Lesson learned, never dive if you feel ill at all. This is your body saying something is wrong. Also take enough time to sleep and catch up on the jet lag, no matter how excited you feel. I think back to that alot, how diving is an extreme sport and how most diving mishaps are probably about bad choices that are avoidable.

 

[DandyDon]

Hi Fbosch,

On my 18th dive in 2 weeks, we were at blue corner and I was 25' down AND YET NOT CLEARED

Well, 18 dives in 2 weeks is certainly not pushing it. Clearing by 15 ft down is my standard or I do go deeper - stop at 15 until my bud & I do, usually him needing more time.

All in all some interesting points shared on how you might have done better & safer. Were you new then?

 

[fbosch]

I was not new, but really tired and jet lagged and needed more time to get acclimated to the time zone. Bottom line, I think I did not feel well enough to dive