Jonathan Starr
Contributor
I had an unsettling experience last week on Bali, that I hope I never repeat.
We were staying at the Japanese owned Emerald Resort at Tulumben in Northeast Bali. We were the only guests due to the recent sad bombing in Kuta. The resident Dive Operator is Cactus Divers, and I arranged for their chief instructor to guide me around the spectacular WWII wreck of the Liberty, which rests just off the beach.
I asked him to limit our depth to 14 meters and to hit the surface within 45 minutes. I consider this to be a fail safe formula where I don't trust the rental gear, which looked shabby. I made the instructor repeat this back to me, twice.
When I started to descend, I noticed the depth guage was acting erratic. My rig had no octopus. I had no dive watch or computer or compass. It turned out that both the depth and pressure guages they gave me were faulty, and my second stage chattered badly. I should have ended things as soon as I checked out the gear.
After a while of exploring the beautiful wreck with it's great corals and its resident ball of thousands of silvery papio (foot long jacks or pompano) I started to feel resistance in my mouthpiece with 1000 psi showing. It took me three attempts to get the guide to lead us out of the wreck and start to head in and up.
When I could barely pull any air from my mouthpiece, with the pressure guage reading 800 psi, I took my guide's octo and found it delivered more salt water than air. I made it through a slow ascent and safety stop trying to spit our most of the water without drowning. I swam in without being able to inflate my bcd. When I got to shore, my tank was empty and the guage showed 800 psi.
The guide showed me his computer. We had been down over 20 meters and we had been under for 49 minutes. When I asked him about the depth, he said "you wouldn't have seen a lot of the sights at 14 meters ! The guide (This guy is a PADI chief instructor !) thought all of this was funny. I wanted to kill him.
I guess my biggest mistake was in trusting this guy and not maintaining control.
Our other Bali dives, with better operators, were great !
Aloha,
Jonathan Starr
kalepa@maui.net
We were staying at the Japanese owned Emerald Resort at Tulumben in Northeast Bali. We were the only guests due to the recent sad bombing in Kuta. The resident Dive Operator is Cactus Divers, and I arranged for their chief instructor to guide me around the spectacular WWII wreck of the Liberty, which rests just off the beach.
I asked him to limit our depth to 14 meters and to hit the surface within 45 minutes. I consider this to be a fail safe formula where I don't trust the rental gear, which looked shabby. I made the instructor repeat this back to me, twice.
When I started to descend, I noticed the depth guage was acting erratic. My rig had no octopus. I had no dive watch or computer or compass. It turned out that both the depth and pressure guages they gave me were faulty, and my second stage chattered badly. I should have ended things as soon as I checked out the gear.
After a while of exploring the beautiful wreck with it's great corals and its resident ball of thousands of silvery papio (foot long jacks or pompano) I started to feel resistance in my mouthpiece with 1000 psi showing. It took me three attempts to get the guide to lead us out of the wreck and start to head in and up.
When I could barely pull any air from my mouthpiece, with the pressure guage reading 800 psi, I took my guide's octo and found it delivered more salt water than air. I made it through a slow ascent and safety stop trying to spit our most of the water without drowning. I swam in without being able to inflate my bcd. When I got to shore, my tank was empty and the guage showed 800 psi.
The guide showed me his computer. We had been down over 20 meters and we had been under for 49 minutes. When I asked him about the depth, he said "you wouldn't have seen a lot of the sights at 14 meters ! The guide (This guy is a PADI chief instructor !) thought all of this was funny. I wanted to kill him.
I guess my biggest mistake was in trusting this guy and not maintaining control.
Our other Bali dives, with better operators, were great !
Aloha,
Jonathan Starr
kalepa@maui.net