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 Dear diary... |
Day 5
Digs
Today began well, unusually I managed to sleep in till 8.30, as the normal procession of men hitting the heads didn't materialise.
For once it was dry, calm, and wind and mist free, so I was looking forward with some excitement to the second dive of the Tech Nitrox course.
Planned dive was the Markgraf, anticipated depth at 46M, and last night had involved some serious planning efforts. First thing was a pre dive briefing with John Thornton, to which one member of the team was a touch late. Having agreed our somewhat un-orthodox plan, with stops at 29,20,14 and 5 metres, we all kitted up ready to hit the water.
The non course members were dropped on a different shot to the rest of us. My buddy and I were the first students in, and we headed off down the shot, into pretty black water. My first cock up was to make myself far too negative. By the time we were 20M off the wreck the line was horizontal. We reached the bottom of the shot (at 43M) and as agreed I reeled off. The shot was actually on the sandy sea bed, but we hit off in the right direction and found the wreck about 5m up flow. Following a seriously conservative dive plan, we managed about 10 mins on the wreck before we turned round and headed for home. There followed a classically executed deco stop plan. We were on the spot with all stops and ascent times and arrived at the 20m stop dead on time. At this point we were due to switch to deco gas, but my stage failed, so we continued on the back gas plan. We arrived at the trapeze, to find Mike Souter and Steve C-T already there. No sign of the other pair or John T. Keith L completed the deco gas stop time on his deco gas and then switched to back gas, handing off his reg to me. All in all we completed the full back gas time, with Keith completing 13 mins on deco gas and myself 11 mins.
We headed up and signaled the boat to come in. As we boarded we were informed that we were the only pair from the students to make the wreck. As far as we were concerned, a dive totally within plan limits, despite the deco gas failure.
About an hour after surfacing I decided that the slightly odd feeling in my right arm had turned to tingling in the fingers. So I had a quick word with Keith, and then up to tell the skipper. We were only 10 mins from Stromness by this point, so it wasn't worth going on to O2. As soon as we hit port, Keith and I headed up to Stromness medical centre.
After a full neurological check up, the Doctor informed me I had a spinal bend. 15 mins later I had a needle in my arm and a bottle of saline dripping into me. About 10 mins later I was in the pot. At this point I was still convinced it was just a pinched nerve, however when the symptoms started to disappear at 18M, I had to admit every divers night mare.......on a planned and executed dive I had still managed to get bent. We had done everything by the book and I guess what I proved was that the old adage that "bends don't read deco tables" is absolutely true.
I spent 4 1/4 hours in the pot, and as you should be able to see I am now fully functional (well as fully as ever I am). I'm grounded for 28 days, and require a check over by a HSE diving doctor before I hit the water again.
As a by point, I spent my 200th dive in the pot reading Beano, Womans Own and Fiesta (thanks for the variety SCT).
My thanks to the rest of the UKRS team for their support and concern, the Stromness medical staff and John T......Don't worry guys, I'll be back underwater as soon as I am cleared to go.