Blew off work to go diving AGAIN…..
Raggs Reef on the Banana boat
Shawn BKC Kevin and Kev’s Girl
Mission to find a place for the Plaque and chisel it out flat
Nice day, water was 75, unusually warm for January. Never realized how shallow the inlet is. Kev says 3 feet at low tide. SHADY !!!! Hug 15 feet of the S side and go mostly strait out. Extremely shady w/ ground swells.
Vis was 30 feet. Out going tide and a south current so the 15 foot murky layer was on top.
The reef did not settle much since the last time I saw it in October, and I was relieved to see that. Some softies are starting to grow and the fish are all over it. Big school of aj’s, nice grouper, lots of trigs and a huge school of juvie striped grunts. Happened to see some cool tropical while we were working but as I was on a mission I didn’t stop to investigate thing too much (PS, remember to stop and smell the roses)
Anchored the boat and could see fish swimming on the reef. AJ’s and gray trigs.
Shawn broke a fin while getting ready so he dove w/ only one fin. Maybe a good thing since his knee hurt so bad he could barely dive anyway…. However, always the trooper, he dove as usual in a great deal of pain for the sake of the cause.
Geared up and blew negative to the mark. Went to the tall rock in center but it did not have a flat side facing East. Found a perfect rock out by itself outside on the SE side just past the main group. It’s quite big and faces due E. Perfect.
Started chiseling and found the rock to be harder than I expected. So we started up the pneumatic chisel, only to find that it is EXTREEMLY LOUD under water. It sorta scrambles your brain from the inside out. We banged away for about an hour and stopped at 500 psi to go up. We did pretty well and I think we could finish it out on one more dive maybe a week or two ahead of the 17th. Shawn took the empty bottle and I have the bag of tools. We headed towards the anchor line and for some stupid reason we started heading up b 4 we hit the anchor line…
The tools were heavy and I had trouble w/ my buoyancy. I had tools in my R hand. My gauges and my inflator in my L hand. As we hit the murky layer at the deco zone I quickly lost Shawn as I was fumbling w/ my buoyancy. It took me a minute to figure it out. I wanted to go up, but after squaring away I thought better of it. I faced into the current and kicked for 5 minutes. I had no idea where the boat was or where Shawn was.
I hung for almost 5 mins. I forgot to set the gas mix on my comp so it was telling me to stay down and deco. I came up about 250 yards down current of the boat and had quite the swim back to the boat. I was just about to empty my tank when I hit the boat…..
Found out that Shawn was too buoyant w the empty tank and blew right to the surface…. W no deco. We waited for 15 – 20 mins to see if he would get bent but he was ok. 1 hour on 35% was no big deal (sorta) so he was cool. It was a shady dive as usual and one I will remember. It always sounds so easy but it is a whole other story when it has to be done. We seem to prove this time and time again on these dives….
I am quite sure that not many other divers could do the things we have done. Not sure weather we are good, lucky, or stupid, but never the less we always make it back in ok. Thanks Shawn!!! I am very grateful for the diving team we have.
The rest of the days events will only be known to those who were on the boat that day
Brian