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Any Divers here? Long Swim!

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posted on Oct, 2 2016 @ 08:38 AM
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a reply to: verschickter

He "told" her (major language barriers) he needed to go back to the dock. He'd mentioned something about this earlier, but we couldn't really understand what he was saying. It sounded like he'd take us out, but might need to go back to the dock (for some reason), but if he did he'd come back for us. This was a fishing boat, not a dive boat. It was the only boat running at that time of night. All the rest had either gone home, or were out fishing. He was fixing a net when we ran into him the first time.

As for the wife, he apparently told her "must go back to island". After he tied up he took off somewhere. She waited around for a while, but he never reappeared. He just left. After that she didn't really know what to do. There weren't a whole lot of boats there to begin with, and those which were there were all just tied up for the night. No one was around. It wasn't like there was another boat around she could hire.

Out where we were I pretty much knew the score when he didn't show back up. It was him or nothing, and 'nothing' was the final answer. I hadn't really worried about it at first because it seemed like it would be an easy enough swim. I hadn't counted on the wind and the tide running between the two islands. I'd checked the tide tables before hand, and the tide was actually coming "in". I figured this would make it easier, not harder. What I hadn't realized was that when the tide came "in" it actually accelerated between Tioman and the smaller island offshore...and worse, ran "away" (out) from Tioman toward the larger S. China Sea. "In" meant 'in to coastal peninsular Malaysia', not 'in to Tioman island'. When this realization hit me (i.e. when we were swimming and not getting closer, but further away) it was too late. By then it was "swim or become bait". I chose swim.

When we finally got back I dragged Henry out of the surf and pretty much collapsed on the beach and tried to catch my breath. Laying there I fell asleep. When the little gal from Norway ripped open the Velcro on my BCD and unzipped it (probably to see if I was even alive) I woke up instantly. We were a couple miles down the beach from where the marina was. After I collected my thoughts (and drank the coffee) I headed off down the beach to find Joyce. I could barely walk because my legs were so tired, and trudging through the sand made it even worse, so it was kind of slow going. I did manage to find her though (I knew I would eventually...it was an island). Needless to say she was pretty exasperated by that point.

I guess it all ended well though. As for finding mr. boat man and whoopin' his backside, I was too tired for that. I was just glad we made it back.



posted on Oct, 2 2016 @ 08:46 AM
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Just a side note about tides and diving in that part of the world. It was really important to always check the tides there. A lot of the dive spots were full of staghorn coral, and it was just below the surface. If you got to diving in one of these places with the tide going out you could easily get trapped. There wouldn't be enough water to swim over the top of the coral, and it would be between you and the shore. It was everywhere, and there was no way you could walk on it (it'd cut you to ribbons). So, while I had checked the tides with this in mind, I hadn't thought all the way through the 'what if we had to swim back' scenario.



posted on Oct, 3 2016 @ 08:50 AM
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a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I once did a nightdive with two other people, when we were on a diving trip in the south red sea for a week. The staff checked the current and it was flowing as expected, based on that we planed our dive. I decided not to lead and was the buddy of another guy. I opted for my short and soft twinjet fins because there were some cave parts I´d like to visit. So we were into the dive and reached our return point, starting around 210 Bar and when we returned I still had around 135 left. It was a slight profile with maximum depth of 26m. So we returned but went around 12-15m to do some DECO as well, while gently returning back. At the edge of the reef, suddenly the current had turned and we were barely moving foreward, much worser, the current seemed to turn away and we were stuck paddling on the spot like crazy. We tried different depts but the surface current was even stronger so we were stuck at around 10m trying to keep a low profile to the current and get to the reef diagonal to the current.

Bad thing I chose my soft twinjet, I had it the worst. One of the other divers was a "freshmen" with around 50 dives logged, I know because he barely had the minimum for this trip at that was 50..We reached the reef and saw the anchor rope of a boad, all the while he had sucked his bottle to the end and was now hanging on my second breather for the last few meters. I heard my computer beep annoyingly and saw that I, too was reaching 40 bar, the minimum I always set to protect the bottle. The other one too was struggling hard and I remembered my small nylon rope I had in the pocket of the jacket and let it into the current towards him and we pulled him to the anchor rope so we were hanging there.

I still had my signalgun (it´s more a stick with a revolver magazine on top with four shells) and we all had ENOS transmitters but we were very close to actually use them. We went up around 5m to do the rest of the decompression time but I already figured we pumped so much through our muscles that the CO² bubbles would be gone by now.

Do you use a dive computer or a good old watch and barometer? I still have a barometer for reserve but it´s a nice feature in terms of information how much minutes left and of course log function for the computer. That´s where I have the details from.
edit on 3-10-2016 by verschickter because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 3 2016 @ 09:11 AM
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a reply to: verschickter

Dive computer on my octopus and a watch for backup.

edit...BTW, it's not CO2 that you should be worried about, but rather N.


edit on 10/3/2016 by Flyingclaydisk because: (no reason given)



posted on Oct, 3 2016 @ 01:03 PM
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a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Is the gas mix nitrox popular where you roam?



posted on Oct, 3 2016 @ 08:15 PM
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a reply to: verschickter

Nitrox is a shallow dive gas. It's mainly to keep you in the 30' foot range for longer. We use different gas.



posted on Oct, 4 2016 @ 01:13 AM
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a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
That´s not true. Nitrox/EAN is not just for shallow dives, in fact it does not make any sense to mix nitrox when you just could use your normal pressurized air in the 10m range. You can use it for dives down to 35m without problems. What mix do you use?
edit on 4-10-2016 by verschickter because: (no reason given)



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