Posted by finfan on January 20, 2003 at 17:40:56:
In Reply to: Re: need a better story.... posted by Ken Kurtis on January 20, 2003 at 15:24:04:
how about this reason... several years ago aboard a charter my buddy against my desire to string a line went into a cave at Santa Cruz that had built up silt at the entrance (the kind that you basicaly go up over the front mound and then the entrance is out of sight). We got seperated because as it silted up, I never followed him beyond were I could see light at the entrance. I stayed close to the entrance shining my light for a couple hundred pounds in the hope he would see it, but with 800 PSI I surfaced only to see the boat a good 1/4 mile away. I went back down and followed the rightside of the cave wall only to find him completly disoriented and almost out of air. I pulled him out only to have him run out of air before we got back to the opening and me to run out buddy breathing with him some 20 feet from the surface. To this day he knows he was only a few short moments from not coming out of that cave.
Now - you probably could say I was wrong for going in with such a small amount left, but I knew I would have no time to get the DM's or boats attention and since I was so far away they would never have heard me call for new tanks.
But, I'm glad I wasn't weighing my decision to go back on in on whether or not I would run out and not get to dive again that day. Truth be told, I would probably to this day would use every bit of air in my tank at least attempting to find him until I knew it was useless. He was too shaken up to dive again that day, so we certainly didn't test your theory about diving again, but I made 3 more dives without incident. Sounds like under your rule, I'm out of the water because of circumstances beyond my control. I can assure you the dude I pulled out is glad I didn't hesitate making the decision to come back in because I was worried I couldn't dive again if I ran out of air.
I would never argue with you that going in without the line when we had it with us was probably the dumbest thing I have ever seen this guy do in the 10 plus years I had been diving with him. But you should know, this guy still dives and probably dives one to two weekends per month. I don't believe he has ever done the same thing again.