Chaparra 6-19-15

Last week I intended to dive the 56 mile wreck and I basically made the wrong decision and did not go.  Of course I missed flat seas, great visibility, and a plethora of wildlife.  I deeply regretted not going.  Therefore, when I saw calm seas predicted for today, I took the day off of work and went diving.  I went out on the Dina Dee out of Barnegat Inlet and it ended up being a beautiful day.

There were a few divers on board that wanted to spear fish so, we were destined for the Yellow Flag which is always good for flounder.  Upon arrival, a fishing boat was already occupying the wreck so we diverted to the Chaparra.  It has been a very long time since I have dove the Chaparra, could be as long as 15 years...  The Chaparra is a freighter that was sunk on October 27, 1918 when it struck a mine laid by a U-boat.  The wreck lies on its port side and is broken up quite a bit and it sits in 80 feet of water.  Capt. Roger drew me a quick map of the wreck so that I could see how I can easily swim from piece to piece.

My buddy for my first dive was Kyle Chud and our plan was for me to shoot photos and he was going to spear fish.  The upper 40' of the water column consisted of that pea soup green water that has such horrible viz but, on the bottom there was a good 25' of viz.  We were anchored into the extreme stern of the wreck so when we got on the bottom Kyle tied off his wreck reel and we were off.  Of course one of my strobes was not firing so my pictures were not coming out that great but, there was a ton of sea bass down there and I enjoyed watching them flea from Kyle.  He was  trying to spear them and they all would swim right to me...  I floated in and around the boilers and then onto the higher pieces of wreckage.  I forgot what a nice wreck this was.. I actually looked back in my log book and I dove this wreck on July 7,1991 and I wrote that the wreck was covered in huge starfish and that the water was so clear that you could see way into the insides of the wreck.    Well there are a few starfish on the wreck today but, they were few and far between, and were not large at all.  After about 30 minutes I brought Kyle back to the anchor and sent him up and I remained down another 10 minutes taking photos in the stern.  The water temp on the bottom was about 52 degrees and on my hang it was 58 degrees.  I had my heated vest on so I was toasty the entire dive.

These days as I age, I typically only do one dive.  However, the conditions were great so I chose to do a second dive today.  I went in a little after Kyle and his Dad, John and more or less swam along the edge of the wreck and ventured a few times out in the sand to find some flounder to photograph.  I did not find any flounder in the sand but ended up finding one near the boilers.  I harassed him for a while trying to get real close to him for a close up shot.  I did not spot any lobsters although other divers did find some.  In addition to the abundant sea bass were tau tog, ling cod, cunners, and ocean pouts.. definitely a wreck for fish.

We had a new diver, Brian, from Lake George on the boat for his first ocean dive and he did great.  I think he is hooked!  Thanks to Capt. Roger and Mate Gary for such a great day of diving.  I could get used to these Friday dives all summer!!

Tolten 6-6-15

Well I have been kept at the dock the past two weekends while the wind blew and blew.  However, it gave me some free time to go fishing and enjoy the sandbar with my friends..

My favorite sandbar, many great days here.

I thought for sure that today was going to be an addition to the string of blow-out weekends but, was happy that Capt. Dan  of the Independence II decided to persevere and try to at least dive something inshore.  My son Matt, whom is an avid semi-pro surfer has been telling me all week how crystal clear the water is and I was hoping that the clear water was around today for my dive.  As everyone knows...I am the optimist so I brought my camera along for good luck...

We were all pleasantly surprised that NOAA was wrong again with their forecast, instead of the predicted NE 3'-5' going to 4'-6' seas we had some 1'-2' rollers that eventually laid down as the day went on.  After following the SailFlow App for the past two years, it seems to be a much better predictor of wind and seas and was accurate for today's weather .  Captain Dan headed to the planned destination of the Tolten.  I always liked this Chilean freighter that sits in 95' of water and today I would not be disappointed.  The Tolten was a World War II casualty and was torpedoed by a German  U-boat on March 13, 1942.

The catch from the Tolten!

The surface visibility looked great and I almost did not take in my camera but, Sue said...its the days you leave it on the boat that you are blessed with good viz for photos.  So, I quickly put it together and brought it with me which was a great decision because we had a good 20-30' of viz.  The ocean is starting to warm up too, we had 54 degrees on the bottom and 59 degrees on my hang.

I did not travel far from the tie-in, I just swam around and shot a ton of photos.  I believe we were in the bow section since there was a lot of relief to the structure.  The wreck was covered in fish and lobster pots from last year..they were strung all over the wreck along with the ropes stinging them together.  There were some sea bass and cunners but, I did not see any larger fish.  A diver spotted a cod in one of the fish traps and there was a lot of lobsters brought up now that the lobster season is open!!
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed today's dive and has us all excited for the upcoming dives of the summer.

One of the many fish pots abandoned on the wreck.

Not sure if many of you know this but, I paint watercolors for a hobby.   I enjoy diving on the Independence II so much, that I added the dive boat to the view outside of the window in my painting that I did last year.  I am working on some underwater paintings now of some ocean pouts and lobsters, boy are they difficult to paint!

The "guys" are trying to convince me to go and dive the 56 mile wreck next weekend, I am hesitating because of the cold water temps, I find it difficult to safely off gas when the water in the top 40' is still so cold.  I have never dove that wreck and really want to dive it so we will see in a few days what I decide to do...I am leaning towards going for it!

Lessons learned that saved my life...

We all hear about tragic scuba diving accidents that so deeply effects our small community of wreck divers.  We do not hear a lot about the scuba accidents that did not result in another death but, resulted in a life saved.  I have pondered for quite a while over whether or not to tell the story of my diving tragedy that took place over 2 years ago.  Part of me wanted to keep it private and yet it is so profoundly affecting me that I feel telling other divers may help me to get through this and possibly help to save another divers' life someday.

This tragedy started to unfold in 2012 when I started to do more frequent deeper dives and dives utilizing Trimix.  I was conducting dives according to the tables that I prepared for the particular mix and depth I was diving and I always added extra safety factors.  Safety factors included hanging longer at my last decompression stop even though my computer cleared me.  However, I would surface and within 1/2 hour I'd have a case of the skin bends which would go away after breathing on O2.  I know this is common among divers that routinely dive deep but, in my past this never occurred to me.  I started to think that diving on Trimix was what was leading to this repeated skin bends.  The addition of Helium (thus Trimix) would make me even colder than on air or nitrox so, I thought being so cold was preventing me from off-gassing particularly at the deeper and colder decompression stops.  Therefore, I purchased a Santi heated vest to help alleviate the cold and hopefully eliminate the skin bends.

In 2013 my deeper Trimix dives that I planned were cancelled due to weather so I never got to try out the heated vest while diving Trimix.  However, I started getting skin bends on shallower dives.  Some of the cases were in no decompression recreational dives that I even hung on O2 at 15' just for added safety.  This frightened me and it would not happen on every dive so I could not figure out why it was happening.  I took the worst hit on a dive that was only 65' deep and my bottom time was only 30 minutes on 28% Nitrox.  I even did a safety stop on O2 at 15' for about 15 minutes.  In this case the skin bends went from a rash to pain to tingling down my leg.  I breathed on O2 for a long time before the symptoms ceased.  I could not figure out what was causing this and now my original theory of breathing Trimix coupled with being cold went out the window.

This brings me to my tragedy that took place on October 5, 2013.  I was diving on the Immaculata which is in 95' of water and I planned to do a safe no decompression dive. I do not usually utilize a wreck reel but, when I arrived on the bottom it was pretty silted up so I opted to use the reel to get away from the anchor line and into clearer waters.  The dive was calm and uneventful.   I recalled looking at my computer and having 4 minutes left before I was required to decompress.  I was reeling in my wreck reel heading towards the anchor line.  There was only 5-10' of viz on this portion of the wreck due to divers digging for bottles.  All of a sudden this feeling came over me and I was started to lose consciousness, everything went black.  I recalled that I was aware that I was still breathing and that I was 95' underwater.  I realized that I was in the process of losing my life while diving.  I tried to keep breathing and prayed to an angel and asked that I not die here, not yet, and not here on this wreck.  I still had my wreck reel in my hand but, I could not reel it in.  My arms felt heavy and I could not move them.  I was able to kick my fins a little and hold onto the reel line and guide myself blindly towards the anchor line.  I was still breathing and unable to see and my heart was starting to pound out of my chest.  I was aware that panic was setting in...  My body then started to convulse.  I kept praying and I looked up and saw a faint light in the distance and it turned out to be the strobe on the anchor line.  I focused on that light because everything else was still blackness and I somehow got myself to the anchor line. Once I made it to the anchor line, my vision returned but I was extremely dizzy.  As a result of holding my wreck reel line as I tried to make it to the anchor, I was now all tangled in the wreck reel line.  I told myself to calm down I will get out of this. I looked for other divers to help but no one was nearby.  Somehow, I do not know exactly how, I got my fins untangled all the while my heart was still beating strongly.  I sat for a moment knowing that I needed to get my heart rate to slow down prior to my ascent.  I looked at my wreck reel and what a mess, I tried to straighten it out so that other divers did not get tangled in it and then I remembered what my old instructor always said, "no piece of equipment is worth dying over".  I dropped my reel, grabbed the anchor line, and left it on the bottom.  As I started to ascend and the feeling of losing consciousness came over me again.  I wanted to just make it to the boat.  I tried to go as slow as possible.  I recall losing consciousness again around 60' but, it was only briefly.  Once I reached 20' I was now in decompression.  I had to hang.  I somehow switched to O2 and started my decompression.  I kept hoping another diver would come along so I could have them hang with me in case I lost consciousness.  I spotted another diver coming up from the bottom but he was hanging at around 50' and I could not get his attention.  I was not thinking clearly and did not think of shaking the anchor line to get his attention. I also was aware that he had a lot of deco too.  Once my deco was done, I was feeling better and I tried to hang longer for added safety due to what transpired on the bottom.  I hung an extra 16 minutes and I decided to surface.  Up on the boat I felt ok and I had no symptoms of DCS or anything else.  I was however scared to death.  I obviously did not do my 2nd dive and I kept what happened to me on the bottom a secret.  I was trying to be strong and not completely break down emotionally over what had just happened to me.  I was so scared that I simply did no how to handle this and in hindsight I should have spoken up and told someone.

The next day I made an appointment to go see Dr. Alfred Bove and try to figure out why I have been getting skin bends and why I went unconscious on the bottom.  I have thought long and hard about this and I should have died on that wreck.  I do believe some angel or other spiritual being saved me that day.  There simply is no explanation for how I got to the anchor line.  I could not see and could not move my arms but somehow followed my wreck reel line and got to the anchor line.  This is what causes me so much angst to this day...how did I make it to the anchor line???

Dr. Bove tested me for a PFO but, he did say that if I was positive for one, he would advise me to continue to dive but to add a lot more safety factor and to dive more conservatively. I tested negative for the PFO. Therefore,  I went through a battery of other tests to figure out why I am having so many complications while diving.  It was determined that low blood pressure was the culprit for my problems.  The low blood pressure was resulting from some of the medications that I take.  I now need to dive much more conservatively and to monitor my blood pressure on a regular basis.  I know that I cannot dive when my blood pressure drops.  Dr. Bove explained how when your blood pressure is very low and you exercise it will cause it to drop even lower which is why he believes I lost consciousness.  Likewise, the low blood pressure effects circulation and was preventing me from off-gassing properly, thus the skin bends.  In other words, I am getting older even if my mind still thinks I am 20 years old.

I have contemplated what would have happened if I had another diver nearby for assistance.  One of the most important lessons I have learned over the years in diving is to be self reliant.  In knowing myself and my personality, I think having another diver there to try and communicate and ask for help would have raised my level of panic even further and wasted valuable seconds.  I believe that knowing I had to rely on myself helped me to continue to breathe and focus on getting safely to the surface.  If I was not an experienced diver, this plan of mine would most likely have failed.  I have concluded that the instructor that taught me the lesson to be self reliant resulted in me saving my life.  This instructor is Gene Peterson.  I owe him my life.  There are so many skills that he taught me over the years that never seemed that important at the time until this day when I did exactly as he taught and I am still here to talk about it.  We have been estranged for quite some time and I hope that some day I can thank him in person.

One of the reasons it took me so long to write this story of my tragedy is I wanted to make sure that low blood pressure was the only reason this happened.  I dove through the 2014 and 2015 seasons and have not felt like I was going to lose consciousness.  I have had a few minor skin bends and my answer to that is I need to hang longer at 15' for every dive, even no decompression dives.  It is working!!!  I have also changed in that I try to dive with a buddy or at least stay close to other divers on the bottom but, the truth is as I stated before, I am not sure being near a diver or with a buddy would have helped in this situation or even if it happened again. I should interject here that on all deep dives I always have a buddy and one that is aware of my potential problems prior to entering the water.

I hope that the worst is over and that I can continue to dive for many more years.  It is a reminder that everyone must monitor their health, the slightest change can cause big issues under water.  I already knew that each dive truly is a gift but now, I cherish each one even more!  Be Safe everyone!