We came around the boulder on devil's with 8 minutes on my no deco time. After taking a few photos it dropped to 6 minutes and I headed over to see the Wolf Eels Rick had found under some rocks. They were hanging back inside their den and wouldn't come out with the lights like they normally would. I forgot to check my time and when I did I was down to 3 mintues and still needed to get to the main line. I motioned to Rick I was heading up to the line and began to ascend to try and gain time. That didn't work and the computer counted down to 1 minute. I was still following everyone to the line but the computer went into deco and I decided to start a free ascent. I had done these plenty of times before but not with my computer in full deco flashing my penalty time at me and giving me a 10 foot ceiling. I continued up and stopped at 18 feet; 6 minutes on the safety stop. This definitely put my heart rate up as this was the first time I've had this happen and the immediate feeling was that I wanted to go to the surface. I had plenty of air plus the back up tank so the rational part of my brain won out and I stayed where I was supposed to not going above 15 feet. Copious quantities of bubbles emerged from the depths below and I followed them hoping they would get me to the line. They didn't but eventually Ryan and his student showed up to keep me company.
My computer cleared the deco by this time and reverted back to the 3 minute normal safety stop without the 10 foot ceiling. I waited for Ryan to complete his safety stop figuring the extra time wouldn't hurt. I should have deployed my safety sausage to let the other group know where I was since I ascended prior to the line but we don't always think of these things when everything is happening quickly. Pam told me later I did everything right which made me feel better. She had taken me into deco using a simulation program on the computer during a previous trip and this definitely helped with understanding what was happening at the time.
 |
| Tube dwelling anemone |
Our first dive was on ShangriLa reef where we dropped in at 36 feet. We went over the wall to visit old man toothless then headed along the wall with the reef on our right. I was again looking in the cracks and crevices for small creatures such as the red dendronotids that showed up and everyone eventually went ahead. I continued down to 92 feet trying to get pictures of the and scallops scattered all over the seabed. The scallops were about 2 inches in diameter with a yellow shell and orange "lips" protruding when they were relaxed. These pulled in whenever I came close. I hadn't seen so many here before. I took my time coming back up the middle of the reef and eventually saw a number of divers lights flashing in the distance. They had found a GPO at the bottom of the line in a hole. We missed him when we first went down. The mantle was a beautiful rustic red fully displayed with its arms moving in a slow graceful dance.
We were out of the water for an hour and a half before the next dive on Devil's Boulder which was another deep dive to 90 feet or more. I checked my bottom time when we hit the bottom of the second line at the boulder but time can get away from you fast. Especially when things such as swimming anemones and wolf eels grab your attention. I looked at my no deco time, it was 8 minutes so I had time for some photos.
More underwater photos
I was on that dive, as well. I wondered why we did the shallower dive first, as the bottom time issues would have been less urgent doing Devil's Boulder first. Alyssa told me it was due to slack current issues at Shngri-La. I saw more GPOS and Wolf Eels that day than I have in the last year combined. I had never seen GPOS or Wolf Eels with eggs before.
ReplyDeleteNow, you have more confidence to deal with that situation again.