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Published by SCUBA Times Fog Index Factor 7.061,110 Words Precisely

Some time ago three experienced Washington men mysteriously lost their lives diving in shallow water, in an unobstructed area of flat sand and mud. The bodies were never recovered.Two months later I had occasion to run my company's salvage tug directly over the spot where they'd been last seen. As we passed over the area, our sonar gradually etched a picture of an undersea plateau, with a steep cliff wall on its west side. Intrigued, I returned with a crew a few weeks later. The tug was anchored on top of the plateau, a few hundred yards east of the westend dropoff. The hooks set hard against a strong running tide, even though the slack was predicted for that time.Accustomed to working in hard currents, we shook out a long, weighted line that would lay along the bottom with the current, providing a route back to the boat. We dawned SCUBA gear, and went over the side. Immediately it was obvious that we had underestimated the current. As we were whisked along, I asked my two crewmen if they wanted to abandon the dive; they agreed to continue. We plummeted down, located the safety line and clamped on with our hands. The current on the bottom was staggering, running at five to six knots. As we hung there like cut bait, larger pebbles, sticks, and small, heavy logs began to tumble past us, knocking us in the heads, or tearing at our gear.We had entered the water a few minutes before forecast slack, and I elected to wait it out until the current slowed enough that we could get on with the dive. I signaled the men to stay put, to hang on, everything was O.K..Five minutes passed. Five more.My hands ached beyond belief, and the current was increasing! I strained to look down the rope at the others, in time to see one of them slip off and go spiraling away as if he had dropped from the ledge of a skyscraper. Instantly I let go and slapped the other man as I fell past, and in a minute we joined up like skydivers. I glanced at my depth gauge: 55 feet. The current was too strong to continue the dive; I signaled for all to ascend. We inflated our suits and waited.There was the pleasant sensation of ascension; the bubbles went the direction they were supposed to; there was a definite flow of water from head to foot. I flipped my fins absently, rising slowly upwards. At some point I was aware of a thermocline, or a plankton layer; it became darker. Perhaps there was a cloud overhead, outside. I shot a bit more air to my suit. I saw the others doing the same. The neck seal was tight around my throat quite alot of air in there already, apparently.We waited.I finned a little harder.I checked my depth again: 95 feet.I shook the gauge, reached my hand around to knock it sharply against the boot of my tank, then looked at it again: 100 feet. Then one of the other men caught my attention and showed me his gauge; it read 110 feet. I signaled the others to inflate their suits as much as possible, but after ten or fifteen seconds, it was obvious that even though we were ascending through the relative water, we were going down like rocks. Soon we would pass into unconsciousness in the depths.We were on the west side of the plateau; my foggy brain could reason that much. I snatched another glance at my depth, and the illuminated dial was pegged against the 230 foot stop.We had to get out of that current.East. That seemed the only possible solution.I held my compass up in front of the others, and tried to point towards the letter designator "E", but there was little comprehension. Our brains were cloudy. In one last-ditch effort I snatched off a glove, and pointed to the "E" more precisely with my index finger. At that I swam away. It was now every man for himself. I swam horizontally, hoping to reach the west wall. There I thought I might have a chance getting ahold of some outcropping or boulder, and hanging on until the current subsided. At that depth the brain didn't stop to consider that my air would have never lasted through the change of the tides. I swam on and on, oblivious to the ramming, pounding, shaking thing inside my chest. I was sure I would die anyway at 230 feet it really doesn't matter from what. They would never find the body never found the others. I rasped and heaved; I sucked at that tank..... I wondered when death would begin. Would it be Oxygen poisoning? Was I so narced that I wouldn't even know? Was I dying even then? But my wits began to return; I looked at my depth gauge. It read 130 feet. I thought for a moment that it had been crushed by the pressure, but the narcosis was rapidly fading. I swam on for the light above, finally to arrive on a choppy sound, alive and laughing. I felt like I was fresh out of Hell. My crewmen surfaced soon after, and shortly our tug picked us up. Once aboard, we were all run through a standard treatment, with no ill effects whatever. We had been at depth only a few minutes, and we'd been lucky.Later we returned to the plateau, and conducted current tests, recording a fastest surface current of 9.9 knots. The highest velocity previously predicted by government publications anywhere in the area was less than three.We have concluded that the presence of the plateau itself creates a venturi effect, which may accelerate the currents associated with rising or falling tides along particular points of its west wall to velocities near twenty knots during certain tide cycles and in isolated locales. Think of the phenomenon like the top of an airplane wing.In such a current, a dry suit full of air, or even a full B.C. together with rigorous upward swimming efforts will not be nearly enough to make way against the current. Just as it's often possible to walk behind a waterfall, we found shelter from the main part of the descending current close against the wall, and were able to surface in an area of lesser currents. That saved our lives.We feel the three previous divers were significantly "narced", didn't understand what was happening to them until they exceeded their maximum depth capabilities, and probably died of Oxygen poisoning around 300 feet, assuming, of course, that they were still getting air at all.Descending currents are somewhat an insidious phenomenon, that can sneak up and snuff out even an experienced, competent diver, unless they are thought of and planned for, before the dive.
Currents demand respect.