[cdavis]

I remember the day started out well enough. I was warming up to go for a personal depth record and I hitting 50 feet with no real effort. On our last trip I made 70 feet and I was certain I could hit 80 at least this trip. Unfortunantly my ears started acting up and it got to the point where I couldn't even act as safety diver because meeting Ted at 30 feet was becomming too difficult. I decided to pull out, take some sudafed, give my ears a rest and hope things got better. I told dad(connor) that I was getting out and he needed to take over safey diving for Ted. I had gotten into the boat and taken most of my gear off. I noticed that Ted had been down an unusually long time. I wasn't terribly bothered by that because I had seen some of the footage of Ted diving in Cozumel and I knew that he had a lot more bottom time than I do. Even so I watched him come up with dad. When ted broke the surface he seemed fine, for all of about half a second then he suddenly slumped sideways in the water. Ted began making the most amazing noises I'm not really sure I can give a good description but it was a bit like hearing someone forcing air through closed lips while Darth Vader gargles in the background. I feel my mind divide into three parts as time seems to slow. On the surface my mind is in lifeguard mode (I've had some training).."ok guy's in trouble get him to the boat...clear the airways...etc." the second part of my mind is quietly panicing in the corner "omg dead guy on the first day of the trip!" The third part of my mind is observing the situation and really wishing there was time to grab a camera because THIS is REALLY worth recording. While all this is going on in my head dad's holding Ted up and moving him toward the boat. At one point dad thought he was comming around "come on ted wake up..your coming round..come on ted" And as he's saying this I'm looking at ted thinking "uh...i don't think he is"...THEN dad gets over to the boat and I get my first view of ted's face and at that point I decided "no he REALLY isn't coming around" Ted's face was something to remember and as dad already said the best comparison is a greyish-tanish version of the creature from the black lagoon (which by the way ted does not normally resemble) I also realized that Ted still has his mask on. My lifeguard training has me reaching for it even before dad tells me to get it off him. Very shortly after I manage to get it off (I'm leaning over the side of the boat at this point) Teds face completely changes and suddenly "oh...Ted's back" it happened in less than a second...one minute it was the creature the next it was Ted. I still wish I'd had time to grab a camera

Frank