Went diving this afternoon, it was an interesting one and entertaining and challenging. I was diving with an Open Circuit (OC) diver, and his instructor/guide. Our profile was 240 feet for 20 minutes, after deco we would have been underwater for 83 minutes. Since we had an OC diver, we swam out to the main wall on the surface. Current was pretty strong on the surface, but not unmanagable. When we descended, Oh MAN O MAN! The current was ripping! We could barely move against it. We aborted the dive after a very few minutes. Max depth 118 feet. We swam back to the top of the wall, and clawed our way across the sand flats. Current was so strong it took us an hour to make it across. Normally it takes 10 minutes. the OC guy switched from his bottom mix to his deco gas because the bottom mix doesn’t have a lot of O2 for a strenuous swim. I signaled him to stay close to me because I knew his gas wouldn’t last long enough. When he signaled he had 500 PSI left in his 40 cubic foot tank of 36% We traded bottles and I gave him my 63 cubic foot bailout bottle of 38% O2. Since I’m on a rebreather, my bailout gas is normally not needed, which is why I wasn’t using it. My bailout bottle was jam packed with gas, 3200 PSI in a tank made for 3000 PSI. When we got out he was down to 500 PSI again and it was a cool dive.
Then we were hanging out cleaning our equipment when we hear a whistle. We see a diver, out clinging to a bouy, No wait, there’s 4 divers, 3 not on the buoy! A dive shop employee took an underwater scooter out and promptly disappeared. We see a kayak from some adjacent condos go out and go to the divers, then around the bend, pretty soon the only one left is the guy hanging on the buoy. So the instructor/guide gives me 2 dive shop scooters, and I scooted out there, gave him one and we scootered back. At the condos, I see people calling for us to come there, but I yelled to them we’re going back to the dive shop on the scooters. I thought one of the people was the rescue diver from the dive shop, but it wasn’t. When we get back to the dive shop, the guy I went out to get wants to know where the other divers are. I said I thought that was them on the shore, he says it wasn’t . He asks if I have a boat. I tell him I actually don’t work for the dive shop. Then a girl from his dive group comes walking up the street. Aparently she made it to the condos, but the kayak with two people is missing, the rescue diver is missing and two divers are still missing. That’s 5 people missing! We tell the instructor/guide to call 911.
A few minutes later we see the kayak come back. Then we find out the kayak took the people ashore down around the bend on a beach and that everybody is accounted for. All is well that ends well.