Nova Tech: Northern Virginia's Technical Diving Community

Dive Reports > 7/21/2002. Eureka. Todd Clagett

All,

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this report written, but I have been busy and I am not "hiding" anything as one idiot has suggested.

This Sunday we went out on a charter boat to one of my favorite wrecks, the Eureka. Allyson, Dave Dalton, Dave JR., and I drove down together and spent Saturday night on the boat. We heard it was going to be crowded so we were glad to already have bunks for the 4 to 5 hour trip out to the Eureka. I won't bore everyone with the regular details but get right to the good stuff.

The first dive went off without a hitch, but we did notice a bit of a current and decided to just deco on back gas for the second dive (the bottom is at about 118' if you dig a hole).

We have really started doing the pre-dive gear check that GUE teaches in the fundamentals course and it has already saved some people some minor discomfort by identifying things prior to getting in the water. It's a great way to ensure you and your buddy are squared away before getting in the water. I was leading the drill for me and Allyson and I didn't hear her say "check" after checking her backup while looking at her SPG. I turned and said, did you check it? She said yes, but I asked her to do it again while I was watching. She checked the valve open, and breathed another 3 breaths off of the back up while looking at the SPG. She swears that the SPG was steady for all three inhalations.

During the first dive I came across some crates of bottles that were part of the ships cargo when she went down in the 1880's, but I didn't bring a bag so we decided to save the recovery for the second dive. I told the Dalton's about the find and asked them to join in filling some bags with antique bottles. We all 4 rallied at the anchor on the bottom and I took them to the spot, which only seemed to be about 25 or 30' from the anchor (it may have been even closer to the anchor). I started digging using the Gavin scooter so it was not attached to me. I would lay the scooter in the sand and then hand out bottles to be put in the bags by the other divers. My wife had also put her scooter in the sand and I used it occasionally to dig as well.

It was 17 min into the planned 30 min bottom time and we had already filled both bags with bottles. I signaled to everyone that I wanted to look around and be a tourist for a bit since we still had so much time left. Just after I signaled that I wanted to look around, Allyson gave me a light signal and I got right up in her face and gave her the OK sign. She shook her head no and went to her back up regulator. She then took the back up reg out of her mouth and she instantly had my primary regulator in her mouth. Thank god we had been practicing this drill non stop, it was natural and easy with everyone remaining pretty calm. I donated the reg without thinking about it and then it sort of hit me that this was no drill. I remember looking over at my wife breathing my long hose and I thought of my daughter. I also realized that most of the other people who frequent this dive boat would most likely have screwed the whole thing up. I am referring to the ones who resent GUE and anyone who actually strives to dive safer and smarter.

During our little maneuver we had drifted about 15 feet away from where we were digging and I signaled Dalton Senior. He looked at me with a look that said "You aren't supposed to be doing that drill this deep". It was almost a what the hell are you doing look! I signaled him to take care of our scooters and that we were ascending. I looked at Allyson and looked carefully at her eyes. She was very calm, so I decided to purge her primary to see if gas came out (she showed me her pressure gage after I showed her mine when I donated. She still had 1700psi and it seemed like a lot of time had elapsed. Some gas came out of the primary when I purged it so I then purged the backup reg and nothing came out at all. I then reached back and turned her left post on. I couldn't believe it was off.

Obviously a mistake had been made somewhere. Maybe she turned it off when in the boat by accident I don't know, but I witnessed her checking it at least once and she swears that she had done it once before too (the check includes taking 3 long breaths off of the reg). I have a theory about what happened but I'll let JT stew over that one for a while. Either way, a mistake was made and it was time to deal with it. The reason we train this way is so that it's all natural and part of our muscle memory when something happens whether it be gear or human error.

Later Allyson said the reg became hard to breath and wet ( and her backup was somehow turned off). I think maybe some of the crap I was blowing with the scooter got caught in her second stage. We had our heads in the hole where I was digging and it could have easily happened. It has happened to me before, but I just shook the reg in the water.

So now Allyson's backup reg was working and I think we both preferred her to be on her own gas for the ascent. There was some current and the seas were 3 to 4 ft. Nothing major, but we didn't need any more "situations" at this point. She went back on her backup reg and I changed my mind about letting the Daltons take our scooters for us. I signaled and they immediately brought the scooters to us. This is where I lost some environmental awareness. I was so focused on Allyson that I lost track of the anchor line (turned out it was right behind me). I signaled to Dalton that I was turned around and didn't know where the line was now, he looked at me funny and pointed at it only about 30 feet away (the vis was at least 70 ft). So with me feeling silly we started to swim over to the line to begin our ascent. Allyson signaled for me to look at my fins and now I had my wreck reel caught in my fins. What else could happen? I unhooked the reel from my butt D-ring (flame away) and dropped it into the sand. The line fell off of my fins and we just left it. We started our ascent.....finally. 10 minutes had elapsed since she had asked me for gas.

I looked down to see the Daltons gather their own scooter and then my wreck reel. Allyson and I concentrated on each other during the ascent and did our light deco. I noticed throughout the ascent that the Dalton's were conspicuously absent. I was concerned that they had gotten off of the line.

Allyson boarded the boat before me, but I quickly followed. I asked the mate if he saw a lift bag as soon as I got on board and he said there was one off of the stern. I informed him that it was the Daltons and that he should get the Zodiac to pick them up. He looked at me like I was an idiot, so I asked him how long the bag was there. He said about 10 min. I asked if he had informed the captain. He said no. I started yelling at him and we exchanged words. By this time Allyson was out of her gear and went to the pilot house to WAKE UP the captain. That's right I said wake up the captain (argue that one JT). I guess the captain was a little tired from his solo dive to 118 feet and needed a nap. Is it normal practice for the only qualified captain on board to do a dive 67 miles out in the Ocean with a boat full of divers? Is it normal practice for him to sleep while divers are doing decompression? I guess the mate was scared to wake him up.

The rest of the boat actually seemed to be making fun of me for yelling at the mate and his stupidity, but obviously nobody seemed very concerned with safety. The captain asked me to bounce down and pull the hook and I said no, I just surfaced. I wouldn't do it alone anyway. The right thing to do would have been to sacrifice the anchor or tie a ball to it and go get the team in the water. They were very far away at this point and nobody knew if they were alright. Nobody else on the boat seemed very concerned, I think they were just following JT's example of making fun instead of helping. I ended up pulling in lines and the only person who lended a hand was Tom Adams. Thanks Tom! The rest of the boat made jokes and snide comments. Just the kind of people I want around in case I make a mistake and need help.

The rest of the story is in Dalton's report. We never tried to cover up anything, Dalton agreed to post his point of view and I agreed to post mine. I was busy the last couple of nights and didn't have time.

Lessons learned
1. Mistakes will be made, you must be ready with all contingency plans. I never claimed to be perfect, that's why I practice so much.
2. The boat and crew were obviously not concerned with my safety or anybody else's. They said the hell with me, so to hell with them. I will never dive with this boat again.
3. As usual I wish I had a nickel for every time I said, "Trey was right again".
4. You will have to use these skills eventually and if you can't perform them easily you should practice in shallow water until they are perfected. This is dangerous enough.
5. DIR doesn't mean you will never make a mistake, but it sure helps out when you do make a mistake. My wife was very cool under pressure.

Todd Clagett