so we are officially certified. we went into the shop on thurs about the 17th and finished filling out papers et al. we can now legaly rent air. yay! while we were at the shop we saw art who was picking up gear for his weekend dive. it was kind of sad he wasn't able to join us on our boat dives, but he had this trip planned for a while. he was going to palau in november and after i was all healed from surgery and ready to go in he was going to join us on a few dives up in edmonds. some of you may have picked up my switch in tense to past. yes, it was a sad weekend. we found out monday night after rehearsal. art had died on his diving trip on saturday afternoon.
here's a copy of an email after matt spoke with another trombone person who also dives.
- - -
seems matt and i are of the few who actually knew art was wreck diving off nanaimo last weekend. the 3 of us saw each other at the dive shop last thurs while we were doing paperwork he was picking up gear. we had hoped he'd be able to go on the boat dive with us last sunday, but he had already committed to the bc trip. art was not a novice diver - he knew what he was doing, and the shop is really good about preaching 'check your gear', 'safety' and all the things that can cause you major problems if you don't do something even 1 time. they were diving a wreck that sits about 100ft below the surface. although we do not know how deep art was when he started his ascent. was he at 100ft or shallower? we'll have to wait for the computer in to his gear to find out. dave, who matt spoke with today, was on the dive with art. dave had already surfaced (not sure if he was already on the boat or not) when art surfaced and gave the signal 'hey, come get me now i'm in trouble!' to the boat.
on his way to the surface they know he missed his safety stop. - when diving below 20ft you ascend no faster than 30ft/minute to prevent decompression sickness. you *also* stop at 15ft depth for no less than 3 mins. we do not know how fast he surfaced - a 'rapid ascent' or a 'safe ascent', only that he knew he was in enough trouble he had to risk missing the 3min safety stop. actually a safe ascent implies the safety stop. but did he just ditch hs weights and surface (CESA) or did he just propell himself upwards with no safety stop? as the boat was headed over to get him they yelled to him to get his regulator into his mouth (air source) which he did. by the time the boat reached him and they pulled him aboard he was unconscious. but the regulator was in his mouth and there was no water that they could detect in his lungs. they started cpr but he never revived consciousness, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. we can probably rule out:1. ran out of air. 1-he would be with a buddy and could've done a safe ascent with buddy and 2-he would've been keeping an eye on his air reserves and knows when to start surfacing based on the readings.2. an equipment malfunction. 1-he would've been with a buddy...same answer as above3. a total 'rookie move' or lack of judgment on something he tried to do while diving. those who knew art know while he had a wonderful passion for adventurem he loved life and wouldn't risk his life on a stupid decision if there was a safe way of doing it. what makes sense - but of course we have to wait for autopsy to confirm:he didn't die immediately, and his airways were clear.
he needed to surface and get attention immediately. so up he goes, skipping his safety stop. any serious issues he may have received or caused to his self due to the ascent would be secondary to the main COD which is what made him surface in the 1st place.he probably had a heart attack, or some other physical 'badness' that freaked him out enough (ok who wouldn't be freaked out by a heart attack, especially 100ft down in the ocean?). or he could've suffered from a brain anurism which burst - he'd have had a momentary bit of confusion or some weirdness as the brain bled and put pressure between the brain and skull which could've been what got him to surface, and would also cause his comatose state before death.
either way, it hit hard. maybe in part because we had just seen him. maybe in part becuase we had plans in the near future. maybe in part becuase no one expected this to happen.
when i stopped by the shop the following friday to return the wrist seals isaac was there. he said he wanted to tell me but he couldn't. partly becuase store policy - you don't want to advertise that one of your clients died with your gear. i can understand that. i know he knew on monday when i had stopped into the store and returned the tanks and dipped the gear. maybe he knew on sunday before we even went out. maybe that's why he tried so hard to keep me from surfacing during our 1st dive.
so let's get onto happier topics. our boat dive.
we had to be in tacoma by 8.30am adn hve all our gear ready to load aboard. so that wasn't really so bad. it turned out to be a pretty nice day! we get there and find that dave, who was on our edmonds dive trip was with us adn isaac, and that 2 others had joined the group for the day. they have a lot more experience with diving but said htey'd tag along with us as they were unfamiliar with these waters. isaac had requested calm waters, so we learned after that meant a tradeoff for seeing life. meaning mostly likely no octopus or wolf eels. oh well. as it turns out it was a good call as i was still having a few bouyancy issues.
we travel north of tacoma about an hour to KVI Towers (or something like that) for our 1st dive. the dive master was great. she and the captain helped everyone on with their rigs and weights, helped us onto the boat's dive platform, and after the dives we'd line up 1 by 1 stick up our feet and she'd grab adn remove our fins. we thought we might have to have me remove my rig in the waer and hand it up since i had yet to climb a ladder in full weight. and n one would've been surprised seeing as i had so much trouble just walking with the stuff on teh beaches!
anyway, i need to back up.
we get to the dive site and take our turns doing the 'giant stride' entrance. i get in fine - jaquie (dive master) and captain george (i think) were informed this was matt and my 1st boat dive ever. the plan was to sink to about 60ft and swim around. i started down just fine. slowly at first it seemed like the surface wouldn't leave my sight. when i looked down i couldn't see anything. the water was pretty durn murky and it was kinda hard to see the others even! then all of a sudden there's the ocean floor. no problem with the ears or anything. when we looked at our computer we were at 60ft! wow that went fast! we swam around a little bit. saw a big orangy-red sea cucumber, lots of anemones, small fishies. no ling cod here though. crabs, flatfish, and lots of animals i couldn't begin to name. starfish, sea stars... you get the idea. anyway, we're swimming around, and i'm real happy - i'm actually 'floating' in teh water - almost able to 'hang' suspended at any point water - teh total idea behind neutral bouyancy! yay! isaac and matt saw so i know i wasn't imagining things. i look at my guage and i'm down to about 1/2 my air - already! man it went fast! i was really sucking it down. i knewi was breathing pretty quickly, and was trying to slow it down, but i wasn't having much luck with that at the time. anyway, i get isaac's attention and let him know my air, and we swim a little bit more, and then i start to feel it. i work (and i mean it was work) my way over and down to matt and try to signal that i'm about to float. a few more breaths of air and i start to float up. isaac's managed to come over and is trying to find otu what's happening - which didn't take long becuase for some reason matt and i dropped hands and up i start... isaac grabbed at my fin and held it a little, but there was no way around it. i was now 'bob'. up i went. the last depth i checked on my computer said 40 something feet. isaac said he was abut 30 something when he dropped my fin so he thinks i was in the low 30ft depth. so not great to surface from there with no safety stop. and i didn't think i went up that fast, but isaac told me later that i did indeed go up at a pretty quick rate. big surprise - i was the 1st of our party to surface. jaquie (jacky?) was a little surprised to see me and asked if everythign was ok. i gave her the 'ok' signal and made my way towards the boat. i checked my guage and saw i was actually down to about 700psi so i would've been on my way to the surface in 2 mintues or less anyway since i have to include that 3 minute safety stop. before i was on the boat matt surfaced. within 5 minutes everyone else was up too so while i was really pissed at myself becuase of how i surfaced, and that the rest didn't continue without me - which turned out to be moot after looking at the air reserves. but i was still pissed about becoming bob. after getting rid of my fins i work my way over to the ladder. i wanted to try and climb out before just ditching everything in the water. adn you know what, i did it! they had me sit on teh platform to remove my rig since it was so weighted down, so i took a little longer than the otehrs to get back aboard, but oh well.
as soon as we get out of our rigs and everythign's secured, captain heads the boat north again. during this run we ate our lunch - hot chicken noodle soup, that pilsbury pop the canister and make bread sticks stuff, as well as stuff for sandwiches. there was also hot tea, coffee, cocoa and cold water. the second dive site was across from west seattle not far off the coast of the next island over. called somethign like maury island barges. we anchored between a couple of pilings - called dolphins i've learned. although i don't quite get it. anyway, again i need to back up.
while we were having lunch everyone was great and trying to offer ideas on why i surface against my will. it took me a while to calm down and get over being upset. along the way jacky took isaac over and wondered if my BC was really expelling all the air - it was bunched up real tight near the bottom by bungies - maybe i'd start upwards, and when i get to that specific depth teh few bubbles of air trapped would expand just enough that i couldn't control the force of bouyancy and up i'd go. so he moved the bungies on both matt and my BC for the next dive.
we get to the next site and i'm the last in teh water. no problem. we start to descend, only i'm realizing i'm sinking way fast, and i can't keep up with my ears, i start to feel pressure, so i start to kick up to the surface. let's try that again. jacky wasstill at the side of the boat watchign us and made sure i was ok. i let her know yes, i was, i just needed tolearn teh correct compensation for hte bc now that i might actually be getting rid of all the air in it (as opposed to before where i thought i was getting all the air out becuase nothing else was comign out). so i tried again. i got about 15 ft down and while the rate was much better, my right ear wouldn't clear and i had troubles 'hanging' in place until i could clear it, so i started back up. we did this again. after that attempt jacky threw a line over the side of hte boat for me to use so i could hang onto that and not be struggling to go up or down while clearing my ears. by this time the others were about 30 feet out and 40 ft down. i knew theiry heading, and i startedmy descent. thisok me a bit to get to the ocean floor but i did it. i guess i was at about 48ft at the bottom of hte line. i had no light, and while i knew where i'd seen everyone last, if htey had moved a little bit, or if i was off just a little bit i'd miss them since the water was so murky. so i decided to stay close to teh boat and pilings. it was ok with me. i got to the bottom wich was important. without that i wouldn't have gotten the drysuit cert. anyway, on my way down when everyone else was already ahead of me, i saw a jellyfish. it was big and white and fluffy - not a moon jelly which are so common in aquariums, including ours here in seattle. it kind of looked like the one pictured on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_nettle but i'm not conviced that's it. no one else saw it. so that was kinda neat. i had my own little private moment. matt comes back over and gets my attention - he signalled he had to go up. i knew i had been down about 20 minutes and while i ws basically just 'hanging out' and actually not sucking down air too quicky, h is my buddy adn i could tell something was up, so i followed him to the surface, including the 3minute saftey stop. when we surface he tells me he was down to about 300psi. again i climbed aboard the boat 1st, and matt was close behind. while he was getting out of his gear the others shoed up and came over. talk about service, i was barely out of my rig when the cap'n shoved a staming hot mug of cocoa into my hands, and said the chocolate chip cookies were hot. boy did they hit the spot!
so i was thrilled with myself for my perserverence on teh 2nd dive, and while i was bummed to a point about not getting to swim around, i did the safe thing. overall it was a good day. when we got back to tacoma isaac, dave matt and i hit the pub for a brew and food.
*not totally conviced the sea nettle is what i saw, but i haven't found an img yet. maybe i'll see what the library has for 'field guides to teh pacific jellyfish' haha.
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