Almost became fish food this last Sunday during a boat dive

[fnfalman]

I with my dive partner to a boat dive to Catalina Island. It was a lovely day, the water temperature was a luke warm 57-F, air temp was around 80+F, not a cloud in the sky, the boat only had twenty people so we weren't all cramped up and all of the divers were certified (no students). There were three Dive Masters plus three instructors (I think that PADI instructors had to be dive master certified, but I'm not sure). Everything were great. Four of the dive chicks were quite young and yummy.

My partner and I did two great dives by ourselves playing in a grotto and in the kelp forests chasing lobsters and rock fishies. Everybody had a good time until one dude decided to dive without his hood because the water was fairly warm (57-F is warm by California standard) and got caught in a surge that slammed him against a rock and cut his head a bit. Nothing major, just a scrape. Then on the third dive, me and my homey went with the three cute babes. One of them recently got her cert so she was quite cherry still. We got separated in the nastiest kelp forest I've ever seen, but no need to panic because the other two chicks were with each other and weren't alone, and this inexperienced girl is with me and my partner. So we swam around a bit, took her down deep (she hadn't been past 30-something feet) to around 60-ft, burned up some air and then went up.

As we went up, I heard my BCD (bouyancy control device, aka inflatable vest for the non-divers) popped as though I overinflated it and the air escaped through the pressure relief valve. I thought that was weird because my BC was not close to being fully inflated. When we got to the surface, I couldn't pop up but bobbing at 6" below the surface. By this time my air is fairly low, maybe 500-psi left in the tank. I tried to inflate the BC but nothing happened. I then kicked up hard enough to yell out to my partner to come over to help me float. He couldn't keep me afloat so I ditched my weight pockets. I still couldn't float and started to really worry. He gave the emergency distress signal so the dive master and an instructor jumped in and swam to me (about 80-yards away from the boat). Meanwhile I was struggling to surface and my homey with his best intention trying to drag me back to the boat, yanked the damn breather from my mouth So that freaked me out for a bit, sucking down some water until i got my octopus (secondary breather) into my mouth. I figured that if the dive master were not to be able to reach me by the time my air runs out, I'd ditch my BCD and just float in my wet suit (we're talking about three or four thousand dollars worth of gears here). But I reallllly didn't want to ditch my gear. At least not while I'm still alive.

The dive master reached me and gave me a float board to hang on and told me that the corrugated hose separated from my BC's air bladder and that my air bladder is now full of water. By this time I was dead tired from treading water and he towed my ass back to the boat. No harm, no foul.

Last night I took my BC to the dive shop and the owner looked at it and said that usually the hose doesn't unscrew itself unless I fucked with it and I told him that I never touched that damn thing. We figured maybe when the manufacturer assembled the hose to the air bladder, they didn't screw it on correctly. There are two plastic connections with slots that have to mate up. But he replaced the gasket and got it screwed in nice and tight, we tested to make sure that it held air. So it's good to go. I had to buy some new weights and weight pockets, but he'll talk with the manufacturer to see if they would comp me for my loss.

It was exciting time, I tell you what.