Though in the end no one was hurt and there was no emergency. Neither my buddy would discover what happened till after the dive. Here is the back ground information. Most all my gear is relative new, less than two years old, with less than 100 dives on it. On the fourth day of a vacation one of my dive buddies and I decided we wanted to do a deep dive, something below 120. Now we were vacationing on Bonaire and most of our dives had been less 80 ft. It was my first time to Bonaire, but my buddy had been here several times. He said that he knew a spot out from the resort where we could find 130. We were staying at Buddy Dive, and it has a nice house reef, but I had not done much exploring, and none of my dives there were below 60 ft.
We planned our dive, selected our gas, checked our gear, and hit the water. Everything was going well as we slowly sank along the face of the reef. As we passed 90 I heard a loud crack, something a kin to a 22LR or a firecracker going off. I stopped, took a breath, checked my buddys location, (very close), and started checking my gear. I was still getting air, my computer looked OK and was showing everything was normal, my back up computer (my oldest piece of gear) looked ok. I looked carefully at my mask, making sure there wasnt any cracks in the lens, there werent. My buddy had also stopped, and signaled OK, I signaled OK back and we continued our descent. At about 110 I heard a second loud crack. Once again I stop take a breath, and check all my gear. Again nothing was amiss. We continued our dive, though I stayed close to my buddy. We did find a spot that had a depth of 130, and then started our ascent. The rest of the dive went totally uneventfully.
On the surface I ask my buddy if he heard either of the cracking noises. He had not. Once we were out of the water, on the pier, my buddy and I started going over my gear with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything that might have been the source of the cracking noise. We found nothing. Now Id been so concerned about trying to find the source of the sound, I had not taken my wet suit off. I peeled out of my wet suit and soon found the source of the sound. I had a small water proof box that I kept my room key, a couple of cards and some cash in, that was all that could be fit in to it. The box had a crack in it from the middle almost to the top and the bottom. Id used this little box for a couple of years, to the same depths without issues, so I was surprised to see that it had cracked.
If youd been in my fins on this dive, would you have done anything differently?
We planned our dive, selected our gas, checked our gear, and hit the water. Everything was going well as we slowly sank along the face of the reef. As we passed 90 I heard a loud crack, something a kin to a 22LR or a firecracker going off. I stopped, took a breath, checked my buddys location, (very close), and started checking my gear. I was still getting air, my computer looked OK and was showing everything was normal, my back up computer (my oldest piece of gear) looked ok. I looked carefully at my mask, making sure there wasnt any cracks in the lens, there werent. My buddy had also stopped, and signaled OK, I signaled OK back and we continued our descent. At about 110 I heard a second loud crack. Once again I stop take a breath, and check all my gear. Again nothing was amiss. We continued our dive, though I stayed close to my buddy. We did find a spot that had a depth of 130, and then started our ascent. The rest of the dive went totally uneventfully.
On the surface I ask my buddy if he heard either of the cracking noises. He had not. Once we were out of the water, on the pier, my buddy and I started going over my gear with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything that might have been the source of the cracking noise. We found nothing. Now Id been so concerned about trying to find the source of the sound, I had not taken my wet suit off. I peeled out of my wet suit and soon found the source of the sound. I had a small water proof box that I kept my room key, a couple of cards and some cash in, that was all that could be fit in to it. The box had a crack in it from the middle almost to the top and the bottom. Id used this little box for a couple of years, to the same depths without issues, so I was surprised to see that it had cracked.
If youd been in my fins on this dive, would you have done anything differently?
