I met my friend Tim during our Divemaster class. He later mentored me through years of deep wreck dives. I used to call him a floating dive shop. He used double 120s with a thirty foot hose looped behind his manifold. He carried five lights with him, and not the streamlined canister types but the large, bulky handhelds. He had two consoles taped together so that he had a backup for everything. He also carried a large mesh bag with a crowbar and parts and accessories unknown to common man.
Although he was certified for trimix, he made several deep air dives each year to save money. I'm not talking about 150' dives either. His goal was to dive to 600 feet. He made it as far as 400 feet once. He said he looked away from his gauge to check out the reef for a few moments. When he looked back at his gauge, his vision was so blurred that he couldn't make out the numbers. He ascended, leaving his reel on the reef.
My ex-wife used to tell him to log his dives so we could write a book about him after he died. Unfortunately, he did just that a year later during a deep air dive at Farnsworth Bank, Catalina Island. is body was never recovered, so we don't know what happened to him.
