Oh Shit.

Ever have those moments that can only be classified as “oh shit!” moments? I definitely had one today. Jeff and I were running the show, which was pretty cool. It was one of the first times that it was only us without Laz or Astrid which basically means that I’m done “training” because Jeff can now rely on me to get things up and running without instruction.

So there I was. 09:24 and Jeff is diving with two customers and I’m in a similar area but doing some mapping. I’m just having this thought process of what a lovely, calm day it is; only two customers, beautiful weather…hell, I should be able to be off work by 14:00! And just as that thought process was happening I start to get dragged by the line that attaches me to the boat.

What the?

I thought maybe it was a big swell or something and so continued on only to be violently dragged back a second time. Now I knew something was wrong I just didn’t know what. So I begin making my way back to the boat…not too fast, figuring out in my head what my safety stop time should be when I get to the boat…and all of a sudden I saw the boat. And I saw the sand below it. Moving. Fast. The mooring line we were attached to had broken.

“Oh. Shit.”

By this time we were caught up in the current and moving fast. I had to swim hard back to the boat and threw my gear down. We have two lines, one at 20ft the other at 40ft, down, weighted at about 25lbs each that are used as safety stop lines for customers. I had to haul those up, which, for the record is not an easy job, as well as the broken mooring line, and was madly trying to take landmarks at the same time to know how fast and in what direction we were drifting.

At this point, I will admit, I was getting a little panicky. It’s a big ocean and there were still three divers under the surface with no idea what was going on. I remembered Jeff having a phone and hurriedly tried to find it but once I had, wanted to through it overboard. I couldn’t figure the stupid thing out! I finally got it and at this point had turned on the engines and was slowly making my way back in the direction from which I thought I had drifted. Luciana got on the phone with me and then once she realized what was going on she started to get panicky as well!

They ended up sending out another boat to come help me find the dive site meanwhile I drove along, searching for either the divers on the surface or their bubbles. As the other boat arrived on scene I spotted Jeff about 200m away and drove over. We set up a makeshift anchor so the divers could safely climb back onboard.

Everything turned out okay; everyone is back, no equipment was lost or damaged but it was definitely an extremely stressful situation, although also a big learning experience. It’s a good thing I have been an eager beaver with everything, especially driving the boat! Lu and Jeff thanked me profusely and we decided it has been an epic first ten days between the funeral, the mooring line and everything else that has happened.

I sure can’t say that life here is boring!