Good diving, bad air, and sad news
I finally have something to report, and so have a relatively meaningful entry in my blog for the first time in quite a while. And it’s diving related - something I need to get back to after plenty of stories about all things Japan in the past few months.
On Saturday, I and 9 other people got onto a boat at Ginowan for a dive trip out in the Kerama islands. I arranged this trip for everyone myself (the first dive trip I’ve tried to arrange) and out of the 12 people who said yes originally, I was quite pleased to find that 9 of them turned up. 2 people cancelled on me for no reason (24 and 48 hours before the trip respectively) and one person said they would come but never got back to me. The latter might have had to go out of the country on business at very short notice though so they will be excused. But everyone else turned up bright and early on a gorgeous looking day. I met up with Brian a little earlier than everyone else, just to chat about the week, get my intake of caffeine for the day and talk about what we’d be doing today.
Once we’d got everyone and all the equipment and tanks onto the boat, we headed out to the Kerama islands. For those of you that don’t know, the Keramas is a group of 22 islands lying around 20 miles west of Naha. Only 4 of these islands (Zamami, Tokashiki, Aka and Geruma) are inhabited. Around the Keramas is some of the best snorkelling and diving you can find anywhere in Asia, and I truly believe that. Visibility of at least 30m/100ft is the norm, as well as the chances to see sharks, eels, turtles and many more marine life. By boat, the trip is around 1 hour, and you’re crossing a bit of open ocean so the wind and waves can play a part. On our trip there was northeasterly winds resulting in a bit of swell coming across us as we travelled west. When we’d got to the dive site, a couple of the people were feeling a little seasick. I must remember next time to remind everyone to take seasickness medication. It’s one of those things that you learn to tell people after the first time. Won’t make that mistake again.
So we kitted up quickly and got into the water. Brian set the anchor and so he & his buddy headed out early. They knew what they were doing and so headed out on their own. I was going to stay back with Otis (the guy from the shop I’d arranegd the trip through, Reef Encounters) and we were going to look after the other group of divers. I was really pleased with the divers, especially as a couple ofthem hadn’t dived in over 12 months. There were no huge problems with any of them; nobody tried to rocket to the surface or take their mask off underwater or anything silly like that. Everyone had decent buoyancy too which helped me and Otis as we led the dive. The dive was nice and relatively relaxing, although relatively uneventful.
We surfaced and changed our tanks before moving to the next dive site, and soon enough we were getting into the water again. This time I was leading the dive on my own, as Otis had some blockages in his sinuses. That was fine with me though as I’m getting much more used to leading groups of divers. This dive was a little more fun and we saw a turtle from some distance on the return leg of the dive. Brian and his buddy saw a family of 3 or 4 turtles on their dive, which was very cool for them. A couple of the divers in my group were a little envious, but I assured them that our time would come.
And come it did, on the 3rd and final dive of the day. This was intending to be a drift dive, although when we’d below the surface we realised there wasn’t that much of a current to carry us along. But this dive was turtle crazy! We must have seen at least 8-10 of the things, swimming around us, above us, below us, everywhere! When I went to get the anchor at the end of the dive, a huge turtle swam almost within touching distance of me. That dive was the longest dive of the day (51 minutes) which was great for all the divers, but was’t good for me on one front.
When I got into the water from the third dive, I exited to the back of the boat. As I took a couple of breaths on my regulator, I thought the air tasted a little strange. Put it down to maybe just having breathed in a lung full of boat exhaust fumes before I put the regulator in my mouth and thought little of it. As I descended and started the dive though, I realised that this certainly wasn’t the case. The air was definitely contaminated, although I was unsure with what. I knew it wasn’t carbon monoxide as you can’t taste or smell that, and this certainly had a metallic and very dry taste to it. And, of course, as we descended, all dive professionals and physicists know that the physiological effect of any gas is increased, so the effects were worse. If I had been diving only with one dive buddy I would have probably called off the dive after 15-20 minutes but I was leading a bunch of others who were loving their time, and I didn’t really want to let them down. So I pushed through the dive and made it to the end. I have to say though that when I reached the surface and could actually breathe clean air, I was very relieved. Later on the boat it emerged that the tank supplier had just changed their filter, and it must be contaminated with oil. Brian told me that he thought his was the same on the first dive.
Never breathed air contaminated with oil before, but for those of you interested, I really don’t recommend it. Got back to my apartment after the day’s diving and was just completely drained. My head was fuzzy, I didn’t feel hungry despite not eating all day (only thirsty), and didn’t even have the energy to clean my dive gear. I just drank some water and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. Even after almost 12 hours sleep, I still felt pretty out of it the next day, and didn’t really fancy diving again during the weekend. Also, the omens were not good for diving again. On Saturday night I heard the sad story that a 32 year old US marine had been killed while diving at Toilet Bowl. There are a couple of stories going round about how it happened, but I don’t want to speculate at this time. All I can say is that we have sadly lost a fellow diver and, even though I didn’t know him, any death of a diver gets to anyone who goes into the water.
So there are the 3 components which made up Saturday, and the exciting part of my weekend. Will hopefully be able to reports solely good news next time. Until then, take care, dive safely, and remember to check your air before you get into the water! Do as I say, not as I do!!!
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Hi Dave,
Good trip, it sounds like. I hope you can pull off a few more. Ever considered cancellation fees? If you are left with the pieces and have all the risk, I think that such a fee is not uncalled for.
Bad air is no fun indeed. Better check the tank before you start the dive.
that was an awesome story, up until the bad air incident. Bad air as you know can be really dangerous. Im glad nothing happened to you. I wonder what inside of us makes us want to push aside good training and press on when these incidents occur. I know I have done it, I went out for a night dive about 4 months ago, and because of my TDY schedule, i hadnt dove in a while. So i get out with a group of people.. one group is an ADVANCED cert class doing their night dive with Darlene, and then i ventured off with a couple of other people. On decent, i noticed at 10 feet i had some sinus squeeze issues.. but decided to do the ol’ “down 10 feet up 5 feet” until i got descended to about 30 feet then it just went away.. i was good until about half way into the dive.. when my right nostril clogged. It was a good dive(just saw a blue ring octo and a normal octopus) so i figured, oh well.. let me finish the dive then i see what went wrong.. when i get to the top I sniffed and spit and it was all blood, had a pain in my right neck.. and my right set of top molars felt like they wanted to crack.. I actually had my last ENT appoitment today after my second cat scan showed im good to go.. I plan to start diving again and go for my Divemaster next summer but lesson learned.. if i would a just called ‘knock it off” in the beginning.. i probably wouldnt have had to miss diving this whole summer..
Hey Felon Monk. Thank you so much for dropping in and taking the time to leave a comment on my blog. Sinus reverse blocks like that can be nasty. I had one about 18 months back in one of my teeth. I’d recently been to the dentist and they hadn’t filled a filling completely. Air got inside under pressure and then expanded as I ascended. Not nice.
This is turning into a Jaws-esque scene of relating horror stories to each other and I don’t want to scare prospective divers away so I’ll leave it at that! Please visit again though. Your comments are very much appreciated:)