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My best air share episode occurred many years ago while I was on a January Term project in college. The year was 1976, and we were doing research on the marine geology of the reefs systems of Tobago. In this particular incident, my buddy and I were assigned to enter into an area which would appear from the air to be about 8 times the size of a football field, with giant 25 to 35 foot rollers breaking in what looked like sets a surfer could dream about surfing continuously around in a huge circle--non-stop. Of course, this would not have been possible, and anyone caught in the breakers would be torn to shreds by the coral and the massive impact of the waves. The inner area was fed by three major oceanic currents, and was said to contain marine life in volumes unheard of by any other standards. An ex Navy diver and a native had made it through channels in the coral the year before, so we had been offered the chance to attempt this. The depth was approx 60 feet, with the churn coming down to about 12 feet off of the bottom. My buddy and I would swim hard between the huge surges, then grab on to large brain coral boulders or similar heavy anchorage, as each successive surge washed through. We followed channels in the bottom that gave us the most head room and protection from the surge, and avoided areas which were exposed the the actual churning directly. It took us approximately 10 minutes to cover the 250 yards ?? or so I believe the churning area covered. Once inside the huge circle of waves, the 100 foot visibility of the water was of little value, as schools of fish were so thick that we had little more than 15 feet we could see in any direction, except for sporadic parting of the schools which gave us some scope for the size of this inner sanctum. After about three minutes of this, I checked my buddy's pressure guage(he had one, I had only a J-valve with reserve), and was astonished to see he was down to about 500 psi (from the original 2400 psi in our steel 72's). We looked at each other in shock for a moment, realizing that he would definitely run out of air on the return trip through the churn, and it had been difficult enough for each of us when we both had air coming in. No boat could get to us in the inner area, and an ascent in the breakers would be fatal. We began our rush back through the surge without the careful deliberate manner we had entered. After a few minutes, we stopped waiting for surge to pass (the hanging onto boulders stuff) and began careening through the channels pushed by the surge behind us. About half way through, my buddy sucked his tank dry, as we knew he would. He grabbed the back of my tank with one hand, and I handed him my reg, for him to control with his other. It became my job to navigate the coral channels and fend off the bad collisions from the surge, and his job was to hang on and keep passing the reg at good intervals. We had never discussed anything like this before this dive---what we did just seemed the only way to each of us, as it occurred. And this was at a time when all divers had "real" buddy breathing skills and no one had alternate seconds. It was also a time when BC's were rarely seen on the better divers. At any rate, the two of us swam at full pace, and somehow managed to avoid any catastophic collisions with the coral from the surge (I can't begin to tell you how powerful waves can be until you feel the surge of 25 to 35 foot breakers). Visibility below the churn (about 12 feet over the head in most places, but sometimes closer to 6 feet) was very good--maybe 100 feet. Finally we were able to see the end of the churn in the distance, maybe 40 feet away. At about this moment, my buddy got the last full breath, I got about a half a breath, and we both began a free swim horizontally along untill we passed the churn, and then headed up for our emergency ascents. I remember the surge pushed us out, I remember heading up sharlpy once out, and swimming at high speed for the surface. I was exhaling and needing air at the same time. As I was about ten feet from the surface, everything began dimming, but then I broke the surface, spit out my reg and breathed. Both of us were so weak we could only breathe and just barely stay on the surface without sinking. After several minutes, we regained our strength, and began discussing how our report for this dive would read. From this day on I would never worry about handing my reg to another diver in an out of air situation. Dan Volker SOUTH FLORIDA DIVE JOURNAL "The Internet magazine for Underwater Photography and mpeg Video" http://www.florida.net/scuba/dive 407-683-3592
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