Don't Hide Your Diving Mistakes: Undercurrent 07/2024

Don't Hide Your Diving Mistakes

let others learn from them

from the July, 2024 issue of Undercurrent

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We all make mistakes, but admitting to a mistake is seen by some - maybe men more so than women - as a weakness, especially when there's a diving accident.

In the early 1980s, my dive club was out in the English Channel diving a deep-water reef, and the skipper of our vessel dropped a weighted line with a buoy to mark the site. The first divers in the water pulled themselves down the line, inadvertently dislodging it from the top of the reef. The weight dropped to the bottom at 165 feet, dragging the buoy with it. Most divers aborted the dive, ascended, and were recovered to the boat. But one inexperienced diver continued to pull herself down the line as it descended.

When we got in sight of daylight illuminating the surface, she panicked, broke free from my arms, and hurtled to the surface

Nobody in the boat was willing or prepared to go down and fetch the missing diver. Since I had yet to enter the water, it fell to me to go down and find her. And, thankfully, I did....

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