Derek’s Dive Domain

The day dawns with another nice sunny day, but oh boy did that hide what was to come. We trundle off down to Torviscas and set everything up at the dive bunker as normal, and then we head out to todays dive site at San Juan. However, on arrival we find that all is not well and there is quite a large surf breaking over the rocks on the shoreline, and entry would be almost impossible. So Michael calls the dive at this location, and we head off back to the scene of our first days diving at Mar Azul, on the location of the old tuna factory. We have the site to ourselves, the campers of the weekend have returned home, so we park right at the top of the steps and get ourselves ready. Although its such a lovely warm clear still day, the sea is still a bit bumpy, so we are aware that we just need to be a little more careful on this dive than on our previous visit. We step in and after OK checks, we descend and start the dive. I’m buddying up with Paul and Kirstie today, as Gareth has finished his diving for the holiday and is now doing the touristy thing with his good lady. We head out in a different direction than on our previous visit, but end up at the same location as our first dive bottoming out at 29 metres. We spend a pleasant 10-15 minutes having a look around down here, and then we start to head back. No sooner have we turned to start the swim back, than I notice that there is a little surging to be felt, right down at 29 metres. Its nothing serious though, I was just surprised to feel it so deep. As we slowly ascend up the slope, the surging increases, and when we stop at about 10 metres (and I use the term stop loosely here) we are moving about 6-10 metres in each direction and getting very close to being battered on some rocks as we are swept about.
At this point I’m beginning to wonder what is going on as I’ve never experienced anything like this before, although I am not unduly concerned as no one looks too worried, so I get used to going with the flow and only finning when the surge is taking me where I want to go and not fighting the return surge. We ascend up to 5 metres to do our safety stop, and its clear that conditions are deteriorating rapidly, as the viz has turned to ratspoo, and we are being thrown around quite interestingly. The safety stop is carried out at between 3 and 7 metres, depending on how much the sea is pounding above our heads, we just have to do the best we can at this point, and all you can hear is everyones computers screaming “Slow, what the hell are you doing???” every time the swell take us. I see Michael signal to Kate and Sue that he is going to surface early, and I *know* something is up because Michael always stays with us until the last diver is out of the water, its his style. Finally the safety stop is completed, and I attach myself to Sue and Kate, as Paul and Kirstie have completed their safety stop before me and surfaced, and I surface with the ladies, and rejoin Paul and Kirstie on the surface. We are greeting by the most amazing sight. The relatively calm sea has been replaced by a raging foaming monster, which is crashing on the rocks by the exit point, and foaming in the calmer areas. I know straight away that it is going to be fun getting out, and as soon as I head towards the steps where we got in, I am proved right, as its a case of making a little progress and then immediately losing it again as we are pushed back out by the power of the sea. After trying for two or three minutes to make the original entry point, I realised that it wasn’t going to happen, and rejoined Paul and Kirstie as my efforts had moved me a few yards nearer to the shore than they were. We were not in any immediate danger as we were in a small area of water which wasn’t really moving, and although we couldn’t get to the steps, we were not being swept any further out. I scanned the horizon for other exit points, either proper ones or temporary ones, and decided that if all else failed, there was a nice rocky overhang that we could probably quite easily get to and sit on the rock for a rest, or until a plan was developed. This gave me quite a bit of comfort as it seemed like a backup plan. It wasn’t to be needed, but it was close in the end. Kate and Sue had given up on the original steps, and had made for the taller steps around the corner of the pier. As we were thrown about in the waves, we watched Michael jump back in and assist them over to the ladder and they slowly climbed out. Kate then got our attention and shouted that we should try doing the same and head for those steps, to which I gave her the in water OK, and the three of us started to head this way. Progress was agonisingly slow, but we were making progress now. It was a case of finning hard, making some headway, and then hold position by finning slower and taking a break. Fortunately I had plenty of air so could still breathe from my regulator, which was making it easier. I got to the corner of the pier, and managed to grab a hold of the rocks, and then hauled myself along the pier wall going from rock to rock as the surge allowed. Finally I made it to the ladder, and thankfully grabbed hold of it. Michael helped me remove my fins and I passed them up and was able to climb the ladder. Michael asked me if I could move his kit from the other steps as his camera etc was in big danger of being swept away by the increasingly violent waves, so as he swam out to help Paul and Kirstie with their final approach, I headed around to the other side and moved all his gear to safety. When I got back around, Kirstie was out of the water and Paul and Michael were just heading up the steps, so everyone was now safe. Exhausted, but safe. Needless to say, the second planned dive of the day was canned, and we headed later to a bar for a much needed beer.

A couple of pics of the dive site at Mar Azul just after we got out. A few minutes later and it had deteriorated much further than this!
Looking around, apart from the water it was still the gorgeous sunny, hot blue sky day that it had been when we had stepped into the water, yet the sea conditions had turned to somthing that we would laugh at as we watched the waves spray over a pier in the UK. There was no reason for the conditions to have turned that we could see initially. Chatting to Michael after the event, and it transpires that the likely cause would have been a mini sea-quake somewhere hundreds of miles away, and like a smaller version of the Tsunami at Christmas 2004, this would have been the ripple effect hitting its first piece of land in its path. As we stood there, all talking excitedly about the events of the past half an hour, we watched the conditions deteriorate even more, as the spray from the waves pounding the rocks below was hitting Michael stood on top of the cliff, about 40 feet above. The ladder that we had used as our exit point was now submerged from time to time with the waves covering it completely.

What a day. What a dive! This is supposed to be holiday warm water diving, not UK style (and worse!)

As an footnote to the day, Michael reported on YD a few days later that the ladder we had used to get out of the water, had been ripped off during the conditions shortly after we had left the site, and was now lying on the seabed in two pieces!

Dive 10 (67) 29.5 metres, total dive time 32 minutes