Here you go the Bobdonny...a winter warmer for you all hope you find it amusing!
Lost at sea for 30 minutes with no land or boats in sight doesn’t sound dramatic but when it’s you in a Shark Ally with a mate with no legs as a buddy it focuses your attention …….well in the only way it can as divers are a notoriously sadistic breed.
There are some times in life when you can but only laugh and laugh till tears run and fill your mask…...21st May 2009 is one of them if my memory serves me well. After 12 or so divers came to the end of a stunning, very fast, wall drift dive on the lookout for sharks the plan was to cross the channel rising to shelter in the ebb of the reef, then to be picked up by our dive boat.
As we all deployed our SMB s, for some reason my buddies reel unwound and became tangled resulting in us surfacing before crossing the channel. The others stayed low exiting from the current safely, apparently looking at a sleeping shark in a cave!
My buddy and I zoomed away in to the Deeperblue, with no seabed, land or boats as reference; it’s surprising how far you travel in a short time.
I’m sure the words `dive bitch ` were spluttered in my direction as we inflated our BCDs to max. Holding our SMBs down so they stood up we aimed to draw attention.
Minutes passed as I gazed down in to the blue depths below, hearing only dum dum dum dum (jaws) wondering, how much more my legs and fins dangled like bait into the depths below than my buddies. My dive buddy had lost both his legs in a very bad car crash some twenty years earlier but has devised an odd looking artificial leg\ fin set up; he had 2-3000 dives under his belt as to my novice 130.
The very hot, high sun blinded us as we bobbed under the water to cool our heads, looking around for any movement above or below. Would my skinny little legs be more attractive to sharks than my buddies’ artificial carbon fibre limbs? If I lifted my legs up maybe the sharks would bite him first finding his limbs tasty and crunchy leaving my little spider legs intact.
After baking for eternity, eyes tight shut, a rumbling through the water refocused my thoughts; we could feel a boat coming our way! As a boat, not ours pulled up next to us and reversed, screams and jabbering ran wild from the bridge to the deck hands. ; How very decent.
Throwing SMBs on to the very large bathing platform I thrust my buddies’ backside up only to see a look of horror on the young boys face, as if he was dragging a dead fish on board. The stunned look on their faces was priceless!
Within seconds we were motoring off with cups of strong lemon drinks being thrust in to our hands, what service, so surreal.
Our hosts were trying to get our boat name from us, but talking no Egyptian we all gave up it may have been the Laura, but amazingly 10 minutes later we were stopped ,backed up to our boat a quick dip in and out and we were reunited with our buddies. Who didn’t seem to notice our absence!
Never leave your buddy you don’t want to miss out on the fun.
My buddy still dives far more than I, as I have moved into spearing now without all the heavy restrictive kit; he has set up `Fleet dive’ in Spain’s Costa Brava near the Medas Islands. I can highly recommend for any free divers / scuba divers/family’s. A picture a few minutes before we crossed the channel, the reel line already unwinding for some reason .Showing my dive buddy's leg set up.
Lost at sea for 30 minutes with no land or boats in sight doesn’t sound dramatic but when it’s you in a Shark Ally with a mate with no legs as a buddy it focuses your attention …….well in the only way it can as divers are a notoriously sadistic breed.
There are some times in life when you can but only laugh and laugh till tears run and fill your mask…...21st May 2009 is one of them if my memory serves me well. After 12 or so divers came to the end of a stunning, very fast, wall drift dive on the lookout for sharks the plan was to cross the channel rising to shelter in the ebb of the reef, then to be picked up by our dive boat.
As we all deployed our SMB s, for some reason my buddies reel unwound and became tangled resulting in us surfacing before crossing the channel. The others stayed low exiting from the current safely, apparently looking at a sleeping shark in a cave!
My buddy and I zoomed away in to the Deeperblue, with no seabed, land or boats as reference; it’s surprising how far you travel in a short time.
I’m sure the words `dive bitch ` were spluttered in my direction as we inflated our BCDs to max. Holding our SMBs down so they stood up we aimed to draw attention.
Minutes passed as I gazed down in to the blue depths below, hearing only dum dum dum dum (jaws) wondering, how much more my legs and fins dangled like bait into the depths below than my buddies. My dive buddy had lost both his legs in a very bad car crash some twenty years earlier but has devised an odd looking artificial leg\ fin set up; he had 2-3000 dives under his belt as to my novice 130.
The very hot, high sun blinded us as we bobbed under the water to cool our heads, looking around for any movement above or below. Would my skinny little legs be more attractive to sharks than my buddies’ artificial carbon fibre limbs? If I lifted my legs up maybe the sharks would bite him first finding his limbs tasty and crunchy leaving my little spider legs intact.
After baking for eternity, eyes tight shut, a rumbling through the water refocused my thoughts; we could feel a boat coming our way! As a boat, not ours pulled up next to us and reversed, screams and jabbering ran wild from the bridge to the deck hands. ; How very decent.
Throwing SMBs on to the very large bathing platform I thrust my buddies’ backside up only to see a look of horror on the young boys face, as if he was dragging a dead fish on board. The stunned look on their faces was priceless!
Within seconds we were motoring off with cups of strong lemon drinks being thrust in to our hands, what service, so surreal.
Our hosts were trying to get our boat name from us, but talking no Egyptian we all gave up it may have been the Laura, but amazingly 10 minutes later we were stopped ,backed up to our boat a quick dip in and out and we were reunited with our buddies. Who didn’t seem to notice our absence!
Never leave your buddy you don’t want to miss out on the fun.
My buddy still dives far more than I, as I have moved into spearing now without all the heavy restrictive kit; he has set up `Fleet dive’ in Spain’s Costa Brava near the Medas Islands. I can highly recommend for any free divers / scuba divers/family’s. A picture a few minutes before we crossed the channel, the reel line already unwinding for some reason .Showing my dive buddy's leg set up.
