Take Two

After our horrendous day of driving yesterday we were looking forward to a couple of good dives. And good diving we did not find. The people came to pick us up a bit late, but no big deal. After all, we're on Spanish time here. The owner, Rock, picked us up and transported us to the boat. We noticed that the tanks were Nitrox tanks which you have to have special certification and training to use. He told us that there was just regular air in it (21% oxygen) but I thought that was sketchy. Those tanks have to be handled and filled differently and you can't mix and match, or you're not supposed to. So strike one for Crocodive Caribe.

I'll try and keep this as PC as possible... the captain in training brought along a how shall we say - lady friend - to accompany him. Ask us in person if you want to know more about this. Let's just say that was strike two.

We got to the first dive site and off we went on our first official dive without a guide, just us. The visibility was totally horrible and once we got to about 60 feet and found the wall we were supposed to find, we started following it. But we were both perplexed. We kept asking each other "What are we supposed to be seeing?" becuase there just wasn't anything to see. We saw a few coral and literally like 3 fish. Not an exciting dive for sure especially compared to the Pacific side and Cano Island. But we got to practice all our skills by ourself and even did some underwater aerobatics. When we came up to the surface we were a little far away from the boat but no big deal. The second dive was a different story...

We took a short rest, ate a snack, and geared up for dive #2. Since we were pretty frustrated by this point we decided to go ahead and go down early as we had not gone as deep at the other divers on dive 1, thus didn't have to have as long of a surface interval. This dive was much shallower so our air could last longer, almost an hour. We were warned of the current being very strong and one of the currents that will push you forward fast, then pull you back a few feet, again and again. So we were told just to explore and not push against the current, but signal for the captain (in training) when we surfaced and he'll come pick us up. Got the picture? OK, here comes the real story: We dove for roughly 50 minutes, ascended safely, and looked for the boat. We saw it about 2 football fields away, a pretty far distance. We signaled to the captain and could not see his response, which means he didn't see us. He should have been able to if he had not been distracted by strike two (see above). There should only ever be one person on the bridge and there probably wasn't. We don't get into that here though. So we blew our whistles, no response. We waited a few because it looked like he was picking up the other divers, whistled, gestured, and all that again. We finally pulled out our sausages (long bright yellow inflatable sticks) so he could see us. Still no response. We were on the surface approximately an HOUR which is a long long time when the boat is supposed to pick you up within ten minutes, watching our boat stop and talk to another boat, drive in the totally wrong direction, then back west which was still the wrong direction. Meanwhile we are drifting south with the current, a totally unavoidable thing, and they are searching the same area with no regard for the current (north and west of us). They signaled another dive boat and the other dive boat searched for us down current and eventually picked us up. It seems like not a difficult thing, following the current. The other dive boat seemed to figure this out but ours didn't. When the rescue boat brought us to the boat the owner, Rock, was just about to get back in to search for us underwater. Just FYI, that's not a good sign. There's no way you can stay underwater for over 2 hours with 3000psi.

Several problems: the captain was not certified and distracted, and the owners have been diving and living here less than a year and just don't know the reefs/currents well enough. There's more, but in short I say this captain in training failed his test. We're still processing all of this and I'm shaking a little as I'm typing this. We are very thankful for Philip, our divemaster in the Keys who was really great about going over emergency and panic situations with us. He gets an extra gold star. And a hug when we see him next.

After a late lunch we walked around the exciting village of Puerto Viejo and discovered a local sloth that came down from the tree above to say hi. Tomorrow the plan is to do nothing in hopes of surviving.

 

We are extremely thankful for proper training, for each other keeping us calm, and for God for sending that dive boat along. Without them we would have been out there for several more hours. No doubt the dummies from Crocodive Caribe would have still been searching in the wrong area, instead of doing the proper rescue pattern.