Subaqua Sternal Rubs

Remind me never to do that again… For the first time in two months, I got back in the water today for some scuba diving. With the exams and other stuff I have to do, it will probably be the last time in Grenada. Too bad it couldn't have been a better experience.

The first (and only) dive was to the Bianca C, a 600-ft 1940's cruise liner that I have written about before. Since I've done the dive about 5 times previously. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled about doing it again… However, this time the Divemaster offered something different — he proposed going down to the stern of the ship and swimming under the props, which I had never done before. The only problem is that the props are in 170 feet of water. I knew the proposed dive would be pushing the limits of sport diving (limit is theoretically 130 feet), it was something I have wanted to do for a while, and since the Divemaster had done it numerous times and survived, I figured how dangerous could it be?

The dive started out calmly enough… Since I couldn't get my gear fixed, I ended up using a rental 1st/2nd stage. Gear was working fine, got to the dive site and did a negative entry followed by active swimming to get to the bottom as quickly as possible. The first thing I noticed was how cold it was compared to previously. The next thing I noticed was that we would need to swim a little bit into the current to get to the stern of the wreck. That's where I started running into trouble. What trouble, you ask? Well, since I am posting this, you must have figured out I didn't die doing it… But I was psychologically close… The first contributing factor was probably that my A/C has been totally out for the past 2 days, and I was unable to sleep more than 3 hours a night, so I was exhausted. Couple that with the swimming against the current and I think I just plain over-exerted myself. Then I started loosing rational thought and my breathing rate went through the roof. Yup, I was totally narc'ed on the nitrogen. I thought I could bring it under control, but at 152 feet, I just panicked and decided I needed to end the dive. For the first 30 feet or so, I violated my ascent rate indicator, but as I got less narc'ed I ended up slowing down to the point where the last 100 feet were nice and slow, complete with 2 safety stops (at 30 and 15 feet).

I seemed to be alright, with the exception of some nausea (and vomiting over the side of the boat), and some left-sided parasthesia (numbness/tingling). These are classic signs and symptoms of hypocapnia. Ok, ok, so I was hyperventilating, I just wanted to make it sound better. In 11 years of diving with almost 200 dives logged, this has never happened to me before. Hopefully it never happens again.

Alright, time to try and go eat something without throwing up…

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