Status Report Egypt 6.5

Noah built his ark before it started to rain. To wait till the water was up at his knees would have been a mistake.

I agree with Noah: It’s better to prepare for potentially dangerous situations and take necessary percussions to avoid the risks. Guiding divers means that you have to stay on top of everything. You have to make sure that every one is following the rules and practise the standards of safe diving because you’re supposed to get all guests back to shore in one piece and with a heartbeat. Especially important is this on dive sites like Brother Islands or Elphinstone. Sometimes guests imply that our rules are too austere or they debate that we should make exceptions in one way or another. I try to make our dives as safe as possible and therefore I don’t make exceptions. I tell the guests how important it is to, for example keep to our maximum depths, that it is necessary to surface under an SMB (Surface Marker Buoy) close to the reef and that they have to stay close together within the buddy teams.

This, I repeatedly stress and emphasise in every briefing and still some divers ignore the rules.

The other day I had a hard time making some of our guests keep close enough within their buddy teams and I talked to them after each dive, trying to make them understand why we have these rules and guidelines. It’s fairly easy: “In the Red Sea it’s easy to make an OK signal 10 meters away from each other. However in a potentially dangerous situation, 4 or even 3 metres can be too far away. Diving is not a forgiving sport and if you ignore the risks you might die.”

As faith would have it, I got some unexpected, as well as unwelcome, help to portrait the importance of avoiding buddy separation. During my briefing for the first dive on Elphinstone there was all of a sudden a racket going on next to our boat. Divers was popping up and shouting for help. Some divers were lying lifeless on the surface while others were performing rescue breaths. Zodiacs came up to them and brought them to one of the other big boats nearby and now there was full CPR going on with rescue breaths and heart compressions.

Finally the commotion calmed down and I could continue the briefing. We completed our dive, got back onto the boat and got in contact with Dr Whael at the decompression chamber in Marsa Alam Hyperbaric Clinic, who provided the information regarding the nature of the accident we had witnessed. When I, during the briefing for the second dive, got to the point to where I normally explain that I want the buddy teams to stay close together, I explained what had happened earlier. “You all noticed the action we had next to the boat this morning” I said. “There was a group of four girls, whereof one lost her regulator at a depth of 18 metres. She started sinking and her friends caught her on 33 metres. When she reached the surface was already dead.” I looked around at all my guests to make sure that everybody had got the message so far and continued: “Since she was unresponsive they wanted to get her to the surface as quickly as possible, so they all ascended to fast and on the way up one more lost consciousness, probably due to a lung over-expansion injury.” I finished with a simple question: “How far do you think the girl who died was from her buddy, close enough or too far away?” Everybody agreed on that she had most likely been too far away from her buddy. “So, which distance is too far away in this case?” I asked. Everybody agreed that 4 metres, maybe even 3 metres would probably be too far away. To be close enough you would probably have to be maximum 2 metres away from each other, preferably even closer. I rounded up with pointing out that when I ask of them to stay close together within the buddy teams; I do so for a reason.

We kitted up, got into the Zodiacs and travelled the short distance to the point just south of the reef where we rolled in. When we got down to a depth of 11 meters I noticed that one of the divers is sinking rapidly on his back, with a completely empty BCD. I got the attention of his buddy, signalling “look at your buddy!” and the guy looks and waves to his sinking friend to come closer! Fast as a bat out of hell I shoot after the uncontrolled sinking man and manage to catch him around 20 metres. I get the inflator out of his hand and establish neutral buoyancy. Furious I signal to the other guide to take the rest of my group away from me before I loose my temper and get my knife out. The rest of the dive I swam with the man who’s life I most likely just saved thinking about how to put this to the buddy who’s life I’m likely to end next time I see him.

Fortunately I tend to cool of quite quickly, and back on the boat I take the man aside and explain in a peaceful way that I’m on the borderline to take him of the dive-roster and only allow him to snorkel for the rest of the week. I say that if he wants to continue diving, he and the buddy (who is happily unaware of how close it was) will have to be next to me and hand in hand until I say otherwise. This was accepted.

After the action we had next to the boat and the very clear way in which I explained the importance of buddy contact in the briefing, this man still was letting his friend sink uncontrolled towards a bottom he would not have hit until at least 200 metres below him. People never cease to astonish me.

At the first dive on the Island of Little Brother, one of my divers lost his fin while rolling in from the Zodiac. The rest of the group made a negative entry, as was agreed, and swam down to regroup on the depth we had agreed on during the briefing. I had emphasized the importance of a fast descent due to the strong current. “If anyone has any problems that make the descent impossible, or even slows it down, you abort the dive instantly and swim back to the Zodiac. Do not try to rejoin the group!” had been my exact words. Maybe that was a bit vague or unclear because this diver, after bobbing around on the surface and being taken away by the current over the top of the reef, decides to try to rejoin the group on the other side. He comes sliding down the side of the reef, scraping soft corals of the sloping reef like a bulldozer and ends up in the back of my head. He looks at his pressure gage and signals that he’s got 70 bar left… We’re at a depth of 25 metres. I now have to rearrange the group and signal to the new guide-trainee to take over and lead the divers along the wall. Then I take the idiot up to the safety stop level and send my surface marker buoy up to signal to the Zodiac that it’s time for pick up. I see the reef disappearing in the distance and try to keep it in visual range but the current is so strong that my SMB is dragged below the surface. Hmmm… decisions decisions… Either we will be without surface marker or we will be flushed out to the open sea right into the reflections of the rising sun where no one would see us. The safety stop is cancelled and we ascend under the SMB. As we break the surface I glance at my computer. The dive lasted 17 minutes.

On the way back to the boat in the Zodiac I tell the diver that we’ll talk about this later. Right now I’m too angry. We get back to the boat and he starts to explain: “I got some problems with my fin…” I turn and look at him and interrupt him by putting my hand up: “I don’t want to hear any excuses from you. I know exactly what happened and I have to say that you are an extremely dangerous diver who just put not only yourself and me, but the whole group at a great risk.” He is now hushed and his eyes are not meet mine. I continue: “During the briefing I told you all what to do if you had problems descending and you did the exact opposite!

Then you descent with not even half of your air supply left and forced me to change the dive plan, leaving the rest of the group with one guide only!” To further more paint a picture of how I felt I finished my speech with: “If we would had been swept away by the current and they would have had to send a search party out for us, that would have taken at least 10 hours and in that case I would have swam away from you, because I don’t want to spend 10 hours with you.” He got the message. I banned him from diving the next dive. The dive after that I sent him in the other group telling him to prove that he should not be taken of the dive roster and put on the snorkel roster for the remaining time of the trip. According to my college he behaved very well on that dive.

Some people think that our safety rules are too strict and that I’m a pain in the arse when I never make any exceptions from them. Well… Some people were also laughing at Noah when he started to build his Ark on dry land miles away from the sea. Noah and I have that in common: We like to be prepared to prevent and avoid the risks of potentially dangerous situations. I’m surprised that some people disagree with this way of thinking when it’s actually their life we’re trying to keep safe. I find it even more surprising that people neither listen to, nor follow the safety rules even after seeing dead divers popping up next to the boat during the safety briefing as a perfect image of what might happen if they don’t. Still, on the third dive of the second day on Little Brother one diver left his buddy on 18 metres and went down on his own to 33.6 metres following a shark he wanted to film. This man was not allowed to dive more during this trip.

And now over to something more positive: “Myth Busters ‘R Us”

There are myths and there are myths. Some myths are widely recognised as long-established truths and facts because “I’ve got an uncle who met a guy who said that it’s true” badabim badaboom, it’s a truth. There are other myths that are well long-established myths because; “I’ve got an uncle who met a guy who said that it’s only a myth” badabim badaboom, it’s a myth. Hollywood is continuously providing us with building-material for both kinds. Like: If you fire a bullet into the petrol tank of a car it will explode. Or: If you’re a prostitute on Sunset boulevard you might be picked up by a millionaire with car problems who falls in love with you, and you’re sorted. Or: Dolphins are nice, friendly and intelligent creatures while sharks are mean vicious killing machines. Nothing of this is of course true, possibly with the exception that the prostitute probably would be sorted if the millionaire in fact did fall in love with her.

When it comes to Sharks and dolphins there are hundreds, if not thousands of long-established truths and facts that would be good to bust once and for all. Everybody probably heard stories about how friendly dolphins have been saving people lost at sea from sharks and that you never find sharks and dolphins next to each other. Well, I just dived with a pod of dolphins and oceanic white tipped sharks mixed in a big group so that myth is busted from now on!

Here is another one for you: Dolphins are gay sharks! Myth or Truth?

It has been an eventful week and I’ve got material for at least five status reports. Some of it positive and some of it negative, but in the end of the day all experiences gives exactly that; Experience! For me it also ads motivation to continue maintaining a high safety level on the dives I’m leading and not make any exceptions from the safety rules. Maybe some of it will appear in later issues, but I think this will have to be enough at this time.

May the force be with you…

You can run out of air… and die.
You can go to deep… and die.
You can ascend to fast… and die.
You can slouch on your couch… and die.
Get off the couch!!!

Anders – Samaka
Diver / Philosopher/Dirty Old Man

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