Mike Boswell
Contributor
It must have been about 1980 or so. I was out diving with two friends on my 18' boat. We had anchored over one of my favorite spots near Moku Manu, off the Kaneohe Marine Air base on Oahu. Bill Haskell, my regular buddy, was about 20 years older than me and a great diver, and "Jim" was a good friend from work but we had not done much diving together.
I was diving in swim trunks, with a homemade backplate, a single steel 72, a Calypso J regulator, an SPG and a depth gauge. We didn't use wetsuits or BCD's. We didn't have any real concept of "buddy diving".
The table said we had 5 minutes bottom time. As we geared up I took note of the strong current heading out to sea, which was usual for that area, and I told Jim to make sure he swam directly to the anchor rope and then down.
I went over the side and headed straight for the bottom as fast as I could, cocking my speargun on the way down. Halfway to the bottom I glanced up and saw Bill heading down, and Jim's silhouette spreadeagled near the surface next to the boat. I headed up-current towards my favorite spot, and when I got there two minutes later a 45-lb ulua swam out of the cave to investigate. My spear took him right between the eyes and he froze, killed instantly by a lucky brain shot.
I turned with the fish and swam back towards the anchor line, checked the anchor, and swam up the rope. At about forty feet, the rope ended, tied off to an empty red 6-gallon gas can. The rope hummed in the current. I couldn't just stay there, and there was no boat above me, so I just slowly rose to the surface (we didn't do safety stops). When I got to the surface there was nothing but ocean, and as I looked around, the boat magically arrived.
It turned out that Jim had not followed my advice about swimming to the anchor line, but tried to follow me, and at 10 feet could not clear his ears and floated back to the surface behind the boat. Fortunately, Bill looked back and saw him, went back up, got back in the boat, untied the anchor line, tied the end to a gas can and threw it over the side, and rescued him before he ended up on Kauai.
It all ended well, thanks to Bill's quick thinking. But it could have gone very badly. Thanks to Bill, "Jim" went on to have two children and now has several grandchildren.
I was diving in swim trunks, with a homemade backplate, a single steel 72, a Calypso J regulator, an SPG and a depth gauge. We didn't use wetsuits or BCD's. We didn't have any real concept of "buddy diving".
The table said we had 5 minutes bottom time. As we geared up I took note of the strong current heading out to sea, which was usual for that area, and I told Jim to make sure he swam directly to the anchor rope and then down.
I went over the side and headed straight for the bottom as fast as I could, cocking my speargun on the way down. Halfway to the bottom I glanced up and saw Bill heading down, and Jim's silhouette spreadeagled near the surface next to the boat. I headed up-current towards my favorite spot, and when I got there two minutes later a 45-lb ulua swam out of the cave to investigate. My spear took him right between the eyes and he froze, killed instantly by a lucky brain shot.
I turned with the fish and swam back towards the anchor line, checked the anchor, and swam up the rope. At about forty feet, the rope ended, tied off to an empty red 6-gallon gas can. The rope hummed in the current. I couldn't just stay there, and there was no boat above me, so I just slowly rose to the surface (we didn't do safety stops). When I got to the surface there was nothing but ocean, and as I looked around, the boat magically arrived.
It turned out that Jim had not followed my advice about swimming to the anchor line, but tried to follow me, and at 10 feet could not clear his ears and floated back to the surface behind the boat. Fortunately, Bill looked back and saw him, went back up, got back in the boat, untied the anchor line, tied the end to a gas can and threw it over the side, and rescued him before he ended up on Kauai.
It all ended well, thanks to Bill's quick thinking. But it could have gone very badly. Thanks to Bill, "Jim" went on to have two children and now has several grandchildren.