Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

I dove as a safety diver with Instructor John’s Open Water class. *

In With: 2000 psi
Out With: 1200 psi
Max depth: 40 feet
Waves: 1-3 feet
Visibility: 5-10 feet at best
Water Temperature: Cold at 40 feet
Total Bottom Time: About 20 minutes
*The names of students have been changed.

This is the second dive of the day.

Pedro, Young Hottie, Green Horn and one of the new students made it out past the surf zone.

I submerged first; everyone else followed except Pedro and John.

We all waited for several minutes.

Finally I saw John dragging Pedro down; John motioned for everyone to follow.

John lead while dragging Pedro, the students followed while I took up the back.

We were 25 feet under.

John kept towing Pedro; some students crawled on the bottom.

John stopped to take a head count and let go of Pedro; Pedro started to swim to the surface.

John motioned to me to take the class while he chased Pedro.

Not knowing where we were, I took the class West and checked their air.

One student was down to 700 psi; Young Hottie was down to 2000 psi and breathing really hard – she later explained that she was trying to make her tank lighter by sucking the air out.

We turned East to head back and surfaced in 15 feet of water.

We all made it ashore; John helped Young Hottie ashore because she was exhausted.

John told me, “If Pedro pulls this shit in Catalina, I’m not certifying him.”

Veteran’s Park, Redondo Beach, CA

I dove as a safety diver with Instructor John’s Open Water class.*

In With: 2600 psi
Out With: 2000 psi
Max depth: 40 feet
Waves: 1-3 feet
Visibility: 5-10 feet
Water Temperature: Cold at 40 feet
Total Bottom Time: 15 minutes or so
*The names of students have been changed.

John canceled the July 31st trip to Catalina due to an illness.

Young Hottie, Green Horn, Pedro and three other students from another class were in attendance.

We did the traditional “get wet and feel the bottom” and skin dive routine.

Class moved fairly quickly.

On this dive, Pedro canceled the dive because he had “sand in the latches of his fins.”

John swam over and jokingly asked if I had sabotaged his fins.

I submerged first, everyone else followed except for one of the new students.

The student had some kind of a sinus problem; his eyes were as big as golf balls, so John sent him back in.

With everyone down, I took up the back, John lead.

New divers!

They breathe heavy, crawl on the bottom and bicycle kick; I must have done the same thing when I was learning.

One of the new students developed an ear problem – as he told me later – at forty feet and started to ascend; his buddy followed him, and I followed them.

He tried to submerge again, but couldn’t make it.

Rejoining John and his group at this point would have been a long shot.

We floated towards the stairs and started to exit just as the rest of our group was doing the same several yards away from us.

John accidentally dropped his weight belt helping Young Hottie out of the surf.