MSilvia
Contributor
Friday night:
Spectre and I had been to the Chester Poling once before for a night dive to 80-90 feet with his buddy Matt, and had everything under the sun go wrong short of anyone actually getting hurt. We were much better prepared this time, and were psyched to finally get it right. At the last minute, it came to light that we were going to be buddied up with some single diver we had never met, and while we were gearing up at the site, he slipped into the water without going over the dive plan with us, other than to note that we'd stay together and head for the mooring line when one of us hit 1200psi on our gauge.
Lesson of the day: Pay more attention to new dive buddies, and talk to them to make sure they're at ease. Having never done a deep dive at night in the open ocean, he was clinging to the ladder out of anxiety, and it didn't register with me. When he moved to the downline, I figured he was ready to go. Really, he probably could have used some encouraging chit-chat and supervision.
We entered the water, fired up our lights, and began a controlled descent along the line. New dude went first, I think, with Jeff following, and me in the rear/top. I was pretty excited, and taking deep breaths, so having recently adjusted my weight, I was too bouyant with full lungs at the surface. Shallower breaths allowed me to descend easily, but last in line. As I caught up to the lights ahead of me, everything seemed to be going well (even my bouyancy... I didn't touch the line once after leaving the surface), until an enormous cloud of bubbles surrounded the other two divers. I couldn't tell what was going on, but they seemed to be making a rapid ascent from 45 feet, and I could only see one light. I ascended with them, but under control, and opted to blow off the usual safety stop. We were only two minutes into the dive, so I didn't figure the risk of decompression sickness was very high yet, and wanted to be able to assist if necessary.
At the surface, new guy was already clinging to the boat's anchor line, and, it seemed, trying to climb it. He was clearly panicy, and had completely lost his nut on the way down. He aborted the dive, and we all went back to the boat. On the way, I asked Jeff if he wanted to continue, and he declined for two reasons: 1, he had dropped his light when new guy freaked out under him and crashed into him, and 2, he hadn't realized we were ascending until he reached the surface, which is definately no good. I wasn't into diving solo, so I called it off and removed everything I didn't need for snorkelling behind the boat.
I didn't expect to see anything while doing that, but there was an amazingly high concentration of bioluminescent plankton and comb jellyfish that would light up whenever they were disturbed. As Jeff and I (he wasn't THAT discombobulated) glided through the darkness, it looked like there were trails of glitter following tracer-like behind every motion we made. THAT was cool!
One of the other divers surfaced with Jeff's light too, which was nice.
When we got back, Jeff had collected his composure, and we did a shore dive from Stage Fort Park in Gloucester. We found some cool rock reef, and saw a ton of lobster and skates, as well as several sea robins and a large ocean pout.
Spectre and I had been to the Chester Poling once before for a night dive to 80-90 feet with his buddy Matt, and had everything under the sun go wrong short of anyone actually getting hurt. We were much better prepared this time, and were psyched to finally get it right. At the last minute, it came to light that we were going to be buddied up with some single diver we had never met, and while we were gearing up at the site, he slipped into the water without going over the dive plan with us, other than to note that we'd stay together and head for the mooring line when one of us hit 1200psi on our gauge.
Lesson of the day: Pay more attention to new dive buddies, and talk to them to make sure they're at ease. Having never done a deep dive at night in the open ocean, he was clinging to the ladder out of anxiety, and it didn't register with me. When he moved to the downline, I figured he was ready to go. Really, he probably could have used some encouraging chit-chat and supervision.
We entered the water, fired up our lights, and began a controlled descent along the line. New dude went first, I think, with Jeff following, and me in the rear/top. I was pretty excited, and taking deep breaths, so having recently adjusted my weight, I was too bouyant with full lungs at the surface. Shallower breaths allowed me to descend easily, but last in line. As I caught up to the lights ahead of me, everything seemed to be going well (even my bouyancy... I didn't touch the line once after leaving the surface), until an enormous cloud of bubbles surrounded the other two divers. I couldn't tell what was going on, but they seemed to be making a rapid ascent from 45 feet, and I could only see one light. I ascended with them, but under control, and opted to blow off the usual safety stop. We were only two minutes into the dive, so I didn't figure the risk of decompression sickness was very high yet, and wanted to be able to assist if necessary.
At the surface, new guy was already clinging to the boat's anchor line, and, it seemed, trying to climb it. He was clearly panicy, and had completely lost his nut on the way down. He aborted the dive, and we all went back to the boat. On the way, I asked Jeff if he wanted to continue, and he declined for two reasons: 1, he had dropped his light when new guy freaked out under him and crashed into him, and 2, he hadn't realized we were ascending until he reached the surface, which is definately no good. I wasn't into diving solo, so I called it off and removed everything I didn't need for snorkelling behind the boat.
I didn't expect to see anything while doing that, but there was an amazingly high concentration of bioluminescent plankton and comb jellyfish that would light up whenever they were disturbed. As Jeff and I (he wasn't THAT discombobulated) glided through the darkness, it looked like there were trails of glitter following tracer-like behind every motion we made. THAT was cool!
One of the other divers surfaced with Jeff's light too, which was nice.
When we got back, Jeff had collected his composure, and we did a shore dive from Stage Fort Park in Gloucester. We found some cool rock reef, and saw a ton of lobster and skates, as well as several sea robins and a large ocean pout.
Too bad he didn't have the courtesy to freak at the END OF THE DIVE like me... 
