Blackbeard's Recap 5 - Oops

Day 5 was an interesting day.

The first dive we did was Morgan's Peak and it got a bit sporty.

It has a shallow area and a wall dive, and of course our dive team went for the wall dive.

We dropped on down the wall and started exploring.

 We found a very large crab on the way down to 94 feet.

Some fish and interesting coral down there.

We then started getting close to our No-Deco-Limit and I signaled for us to ascend somewhat to keep within the proper NDL range and let everyone know the air situation. I signaled that we should turn the dive and head back to the upline then, but Jay kept us moving along the wall instead of cutting back immediately, planning to do a rectangular path. That didn't quite work out as he intended.

Unfortunately he made the wrong turn at Albuquerque and we were starting to get low on air and ended up ascending and doing our safety stop kinda far from the boat as he didn't quite close the rectangle he was trying to make.

So we surfaced a pretty darn good distance from the boat, which was still in sight, and signaled we were ok, and we inflated a marker buoy so they would be able to see us.

We then tried swimming to the boat.  No dice. The current was against us and the surface was pretty choppy and all we were getting was tired for our efforts.  We were also down to around 500 psi each so descending and trying to swim to the boat against the current was also not a great option.

So we signaled we needed a pickup, and the dingy came to get us and we got to ride back to the boat in style.  Not a preferred technique, but it gave the deckhand something to do, and was a safe means of getting back.  After that dive, the three of us did a debrief and affirmed some better safety procedures to adopt for all future dives.

Unfortunately, at some point after we doffed our gear in the water and got it in the dingy, something had to have hit my primary second stage of my regulator. This apparently hit it just right to mess it up and cause it to do a slow almost silent leak. This would bite me later.

So safely aboard, we headed to the Island of the Iguanas to enjoy a surface interval.

These iguanas are cute and will eat right out of your hand, if you don't mind them biting your hand, as such stick feeding is the way to go:

 Lots of fun, and they move real fast when they want to.

Then we got set to dive the Washing Machine, which I had been very much looking forward to doing.

I then discovered the issue with my regulator and we could not get it fixed in time for me to make the Washing Machine dive.  This dive is a cool drift dive where the current tumbles you about. We ended up swapping out the entire hose so I was good for subsequent dives but I missed that one.

On the upside, it turned out the Washing Machine had been set to the gentle cycle so I didn't miss much at all.  Next time.

We headed back to the Exumas and soon arrived at the Pablo Escobar Plane site - the place I did my first dive with Blackbeard's. Our dive master euphemistically noted the plane had been carrying a cargo of "soccer balls" , and while most had been recovered by the authorities, if we happened to find a "soccer ball" during the dive it needed to be turned over ASAP.

It was a great relaxing dive,  at 22 feet for an hour.

Some nice big fish were hanging around the plane wreck.

No sharks were seen, so we likely won't see a Cocaine Shark movie anytime soon.  This is good as a shark hyped up on cocaine is a rather scary thought.

It's a fun wreck to dive.

Then for the night dive, my buddies declared themselves too cold to dive, so I went out with Megan.  Megan is  a newer diver who was getting her Advanced Open Water certification done on the boat. 

She was a good dive buddy, needs to work on her trim a bit.

The wreck at night was pretty cool to see, with a big fish hiding underneath it.

Megan was getting cold, so we turned the dive and ended it after 31 minutes. Still, a nice fun dive and neat to see the plane wreck at night.

We got out, hung up our gear, and warmed up with some adult beverages.

Day 5 had some challenges, but it was still a darn good day.