Lessons for Life: Death in the Shallows

Thanks to Eric Douglas and Scuba Diving

Jolie kept hoping things would get better. She had been certified a year earlier, but had been in the water only once since then. Her first dive of the day had been shaky, but she got through it. She just couldn’t get the hang of her buoyancy, and felt like she was either banging off the bottom or floating to the surface. During the surface interval, her buddy told her she just needed practice and it would get better. She kept reminding herself to relax and breathe slowly and easily.

Visibility was poor on her second dive. She felt like she was looking down a tunnel and everything got dark. All she could think of was getting to the surface and breathing air. She was breathing faster and faster, but nothing seemed to be coming from the regulator. She spit it out and looked around wildly for her buddy.

THE DIVER

In her mid-20s, Jolie was in good shape and enjoyed being outside. She thought learning to dive sounded like fun, and she enjoyed the classes. She dreamed of diving somewhere warm and sunny in clear water, but she hadn’t been able to make a trip to the ocean yet. Her friends went to a local quarry regularly, but Jolie never got used to it. She didn’t like the heavy wetsuits, and while everyone said visibility wasn’t bad, it made her feel uncomfortable and closed-in. She had had problems with claustrophobia when younger, and the dark water brought those feelings back.

THE DIVE

Jolie was using some borrowed gear and had rented other pieces. She was reluctant to invest in equipment until she felt comfortable. When she got to the quarry, she realized that the low-pressure hose on her borrowed reg didn’t match the inflator connector on her rented BCD. She had learned how to orally inflate her BCD in her certification class, so her dive buddy convinced her to make the dives anyway. He reasoned that they were going to stay in the shallow end of the quarry where the open-water students practiced, a maximum depth of 10 feet. The one piece of equipment she forgot to bring was her weight belt. She ended up placing her weights in her BCD pockets.

Throughout the first dive, Jolie struggled with her buoyancy control. When she began letting air out of her BCD on the surface, she dropped quickly to the bottom. She orally inflated her BCD, and then found herself on the surface again. She felt like that was all she did the entire dive. She spent so much time working on her buoyancy that she never really looked around or had time to relax. The dive ended relatively quickly when she noticed she had breathed through her entire tank. Her buddy told her that was no problem, but asked her to try to relax and breathe more slowly on the second dive. He also told her to descend to the bottom and add in a little air into her BCD, not an entire breath every time.

THE ACCIDENT

Jolie’s panic began early in her -second dive. She was uncomfortable on the surface, trying to remember everything her buddy had told her and the lessons she had learned in class a year before. As soon as the water closed over her head, she began breathing quickly. Her buddy said later that it looked like a constant stream of air bubbles coming out of her regulator. She descended quickly and hit the rocky bottom on her knees. A group of students had just cleared the area and silt had been stirred up, reducing visibility to less than normal. Jolie stayed on her knees for a moment. She took the regulator out of her mouth and began scrambling for the disconnected inflator so she could add air into her BCD. She never found it. Her panic escalated. The only thought that reached her mind was that she needed to be on the -surface. Air.

Jolie’s buddy grabbed her alternate air-source regulator and tried to give it to her. When she refused it, he tried to give her his own, but she refused it as well. Without warning, she bolted for the surface. Resuscitation efforts on the beach and at a nearby hospital were unsuccessful.

ANALYSIS

This is a classic case of panic leading to a dive fatality. Jolie wasn’t thinking clearly in the water. She took out her regulator before she found her inflator hose. Just those few seconds without an air supply were enough to tip her over the edge.

There is very little you can do for someone in a panic state, aside from removing them from the situation and allowing them time to calm down. This is extremely difficult and dangerous underwater. But while the panic ultimately killed Jolie, the triggers on the dive caused the panic in the first place.

Jolie had latent problems with claustrophobia. Struggling with her buoyancy got her agitated to the point that she wasn’t thinking clearly. A root cause of this issue was the disconnected low-pressure inflator. She entered the water on the second dive with the same problems, now even more agitated.

An ascent from 10 feet was more than enough of a pressure change to cause a lung overexpansion injury and cause an arterial gas embolism, or AGE. This causes strokelike symptoms as a large air bubble is introduced to the brain, cutting off blood supply. It can also cause death rapidly. This is the reason scuba divers are trained to never hold their breath.

Lessons for Life

1 Don’t make dives you aren’t comfortable making. Don’t allow peer pressure to goad you into a dive you aren’t ready for.

2 If you feel panicked or have trouble catching your breath underwater, stop on the bottom or hold onto something stable and attempt to relax. Wait for your breathing to settle before you attempt to swim on. If that fails, abort the dive.

3 Be properly equipped for the dives you are making. Making do with improper equipment is unsafe.

4 Seek additional training and experience in a situation supervised by a dive instructor.

Eric Douglas co-authored the book Scuba Diving Safety, and has written a series of dive-adventure novels and short stories. Check out his website, booksbyeric.com

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

Eunice aphroditois aka 'bobbit worm'

Eunice aphroditois :: apparently given the nickname by an underwater photographer two decades ago.

It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus with two sharp mandibles which snap shut like a pair of scissors

The ocean floor is home to many weird and terrifying predators, many of which could discourage anyone from ever setting foot into the sea again.

This creature is Eunice aphroditois - also known as the Bobbit worm, apparently after an underwater photographer decided two decades ago that its hunting methods were similar to the Bobbitt family incident of 1993.

That incident involved Lorena Bobbitt slicing nearly half her husband's member off. E. aphroditois is similar, according to a 2011 paper in Revista de Biologia Tropical, 'because either the widely open jaw pieces resemble scissors, or because the exposed portion resembles an erect penis.'

The nickname is inaccurate - Mrs Bobbitt inflicted the grievous injury on her husband using a knife rather than scissors - but it has stuck nevertheless.

And it is perhaps a close enough comparison to dissuade any man from skinny dipping in warm waters near the sea floor at depths of 30 to 130ft, where the long-living nocturnal worm is generally found.

The creature, which spends its life mostly buried beneath the sand of the sea-floor, sticks just a portion of its body up into the water where it has five antennae to sense its prey, usually smaller worms and fish.

Mammoth: A scientists poses with the 10ft-long E. aphroditois discovered in Japan's Seto Fishing Harbour in 2009.

It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus called a pharynx which can turn inside-out, like the fingers of a glove, and has sharp mandibles on the end which snap shut like scissors.

Unlucky creatures are sometimes sliced in two because of the speed and strength of the worm's attacks, and it can dish out nasty bites to any humans who stray too close.

One the prey is caught, the worm shoots back into its burrow to feed. When prey is scarce it also feeds seaweed and other sea plants, and will scavenge for morsels around the surface of its burrow.

Noted for its unusually large body size and length, E. aphroditois is found in warm waters all over the world.

Since the 19th century, marine biologists have recognised it has having one of the longest bodies among polychaetes - a class of segmented, mostly marine worms.

They average a length of about one metre, but specimens measuring as long as three metres have been discovered.

The creature, which spends its life mostly buried beneath the sand of the sea-floor, sticks just a portion of its body up into the water where it has five antennae to sense its prey, usually smaller worms and fish.

It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus called a pharynx which can turn inside-out, like the fingers of a glove, and has sharp mandibles on the end which snap shut like scissors.

Unlucky creatures are sometimes sliced in two because of the speed and strength of the worm's attacks, and it can dish out nasty bites to any humans who stray too close.

One the prey is caught, the worm shoots back into its burrow to feed. When prey is scarce it also feeds seaweed and other sea plants, and will scavenge for morsels around the surface of its burrow.

Noted for its unusually large body size and length, E. aphroditois is found in warm waters all over the world.

Since the 19th century, marine biologists have recognised it has having one of the longest bodies among polychaetes - a class of segmented, mostly marine worms.

They average a length of about one metre, but specimens measuring as long as three metres have been discovered.

A report by Hiro'omi Uchida, assistant director of the Kushimoto Marine Park Centre in Japan, describes one such mammoth worm found hiding in one of the floats of a mooring raft in Japan's Seto Fishing Habour in 2009.

'[I]it is uncertain when the individual first entered the mooring raft and fish corral during the 13 years the structure sat in the harbour,' he writes.

'It is also uncertain whether the worm arrived by larval settlement or at a semi-adult stage of development. Nonetheless, the individual surely had been living in its comfortable floating home for a quite a long time.'

At 9ft 10in long, about a pound in weight and with 673 segments, the worm they discovered was one of the largest specimens of E. aphroditois ever found.

That same year, a report in MailOnline Science detailed how a 4ft-long specimen was unearthed in a Newquay, Cornwall aquarium that was attacking coral and prize fish.

Workers at the attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and - in some cases - cut in half. After staking out the display for several weeks, the last resort was to completely dismantle it, rock by rock.

Matt Slater, the aquarium's curator, said: 'Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.

'That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.'

Staff believe the beast - which they nicknamed Barry - arrived by hitching a ride into the aquarium hiding inside a piece of coral when it was young and grew enormous over a number of years.

Mr Slater added: 'It really does look like something out of a horror movie.

Thanks to the Daily Mail

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

Life on a "liveaboard"

It’s eating, breathing and sleeping scuba diving, 24/7.

That’s life on a “liveaboard” boat that Fraser Debney experienced in the Bahamas recently. He had liked his first liveaboard trip so he decided to try it again this year.

On April 13, Fraser and some of his friends left port in Nassau Bahamas aboard a Blackbeard Cruises (http://www.blackbeard-cruises.com/) liveaboard ship for a seven-day adventure. It would confirm his first impression of the experience. He loved it. The dive boat becomes your home and restaurant for a week and you don’t return to port until the trip is done.

“It would be our shark dive,” Fraser replies when asked for his favourite experience on the trip.

It takes place at a wreck site, and a good wreck dive on its own merits. But it is also a wreck dive with a difference. Using a rope, the boat’s crew suspends a glob of waste food about 20 feet above the divers. Looking up from the wreck the divers get a close-up look at the reef sharks, which range in size from four to six feet. Fraser acknowledges that many people object to attracting sharks like this but says it is good for tourism.

“These sharks were not aggressive and I don’t believe they generally are.”
That day they saw at least 20 sharks, as well as Nassau groupers and a lot of tropical fish, “all swimming around in the same area eating the scraps as the sharks chomped on the chum. Curiously, the sharks don’t bother them (the other fish).”

James Bond Grotto in the Bahamas, where the Thunderball movie was shot, was another favourite “because of the vast expanse of things to see. That movie is underwater battles. It is almost like a small cave. There were a couple of octopus, a lot of old and interesting elk horn coral growing out of the ground and various tropical fish that made the cave their own. It has an access and exit point.”

The boat itself is about 65 feet in length and on this trip accommodated 19 divers and a crew of six. Instead of cabins there are open bunk areas. Each serves as the sleeping quarters for four to six divers. “For anyone expecting 5-star it is not 5-star. It is camping on the water with the diving as a bonus. The diving is fantastic. As long as you are comfortable being in a trailer (atmosphere) and having to be organized, the space you have is adequate. If you spread your stuff all over it is not for you.

“All the entities of a dive shop are on the boat. You don’t touch your gear. They fill up the tanks on the spot. It was interesting for me,” says Fraser. “The food was fantastic. The meals were like homemade.”

Meanwhile, the boat is travelling from one dive site to another. While bad weather limited them to a couple of dives on the first two days, generally they made four or five dives a day. When moored at the end of the day they would do night dives before moving on to the next site in the morning.

The week-long experience costs $939. It includes everything to do with your diving, food and drinks, including a beer keg in the gallery, along with wine and rum punch.
“Your first alcoholic drink is your last dive (of the day). They’re very strict. If you have a drink at 10 a.m. you don’t dive at all.”

It’s not a loud and late night, either. Tired by the busy day of diving, most people are in bed by 8 p.m.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Diving Doc: Preventing and Treating Coral Scrapes

Scuba diving is traditionally a look, don't touch kind of sport. But even careful divers can inadvertently run into trouble. By far the most common diving injury is the common scrape, usually from coral.

Irritations often occur as a result of a brush with coral or sponges. Coral scrapes can be painful and sometimes difficult to heal because the living organisms in the coral can get into the wound and cause infections. Contact with a sponge can leave irritating fibers in the skin, producing an itching rash that can range from mild to severe, possibly with pain and blistering.

Even if you're careful, it's likely you'll come into contact with coral someday. If and when, here's what to do:

1. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Makes sure your body is covered, even if just by a dive skin, and wear gloves where allowed.

2. Regularly irrigate a scrape with copious amounts of vinegar over a period of about 30 minutes.

3. Apply triple-antibiotic to the wound twice a day for a couple of days.

4. Scrapes can become infected even with proper initial care. Watch for hotness to the touch, redness or red streaks around the site, swelling, discharge of pus, or fever. If you see them, contact a doctor.

5. Fragments of coral sometimes become lodged beneath the skin and the body mounts a prolonged allergic reaction to them. In some cases, debridement is required to resolve the reaction.

Even in the absence of embedded coral remnants, it is not unusual for a marked hypersensitivity response to a coral injury to continue for three to four weeks before significantly improving. Sometimes the lesion will resolve, then return.

If a scrape doesn't substantially resolve within a month, or gets worse, you should consult a dermatologist.

Editor's Note: Even innocent injuries can turn deadly if you have an allergic or severe reaction. After any accident, watch for severe swelling, dizziness, blurred vision, breathing difficulties, weakness, muscle pain, cold sweat and a rapid heartbeat. If any occur, call 911 (or DAN's emergency hotline 919-684-4DAN if no emergency services are available) immediately. Injectible epinephrine can help calm allergic reactions. CPR may be necessary until help arrives.

DocVikingo has been scuba certified for more than 35 years and has dived all over the world. He is a practising doctor in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area and has held faculty positions at several major hospitals, including Johns Hopkins. With an interest in diving medicine, he serves as administrator at Scuba Clinic Online.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Thirteen Things You Didn't Know About Scuba Diving Gear - But Should

Thanks to Darryl Carson and Sport Diver

Divers have an intimate connection to our equipment. But the history, evolution and hidden inner workings of many integral pieces of our collective kit might be a mystery to many of us. Check out these 13 curious details, historical head-scratchers and surprising facts, including why dive watches glow and what the heck is the “Bends-O-Matic?”

One of the earliest “dive computers”, the SOS Decompression Meter, was completely mechanical and simulated the process of gas absorption in the body. Its sketchy performance earned it the nickname “Bends-O-Matic.”

The first decompression tables, and the basis for modern dive computer algorithms, were published in 1908 by John Haldane. They were based on simulated dives using a hyperbaric chamber. The test divers were English goats.

Depth ratings for extreme deep dive watches have exceeded the known depth of the oceans. The Sinn UX is rated to 12,000 meters, more than 1000 meters deeper than the Marianas Trench.

Tritium, a radioactive material safely used in tiny quantities to make illuminated markings in many dive watches, is also used as a “booster” in multi-stage hydrogen bombs.

The rhythmic, mechanical breathing of Star Wars’ Darth Vader is iconic. It’s the amplified sound of a scuba regulator.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan invented the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus in 1943. It was based on a diaphragm regulator design first developed more than a hundred years before.

Last year, Allen Sherrod, a dive instructor from Florida, spent 48 hours and 13 minutes breathing from a regulator while submerged off Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida. It was a world record time for a saltwater dive.

Many warm-water divers use their octopus as a defense against stinging jellyfish. A brief purge beneath an oncoming assailant will gently lift it out of the diver’s way.

An ancient bas-relief dating back to 900 B.C. shows Assyrian divers using animal skins filled with air, which they carried with them to increase the length of their dives.

Before the standard power inflator came along, horse collar BCs incorporated small CO2 canisters to provide emergency inflation when needed, just like many personal floatation devices do today.

The popular backplate-and-wing BC design came as a cave diving innovation and improvement over “belly bags,” which uncomfortably sandwiched divers between an air bladder and a pair of heavy steel tanks.

No welding is used in making a typical aluminum scuba tank. Instead, a 32-lb. aluminum slug, 7-inches across, is pressed into shape by 2,500 lbs. of pressure in just 20 seconds.

Everyone knows LED lights are more efficient than incandescent models. But how efficient? Tests have shown burn times may average 30 times longer using identical battery power.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Sea Star Time-lapse Eating Mussel

Enjoy!!!

Echinoderms: Sea Star Time-lapse: Eating Mussel from Shape of Life on Vimeo.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Wearing Contact Lenses When Scuba Diving

Avid divers know what an amazing feeling it is to submerge into a world so different from our own. The underwater paradise is the only real frontier left to explore on the planet and even in frequently visited locations, like the Red Sea or Bunaken, you’ll have the opportunity to experience something unique, see fantastically colored fish and impossibly shaped coral reefs.

However, when you are scuba diving, you rely heavily on your sense of sight to take in all the beauty. This means that if live with a vision defect, such as nearsightedness or astigmatism, you will need prescription goggles or, if your wallet doesn’t stretch that far, a pair of contact lenses. So, there is no reason not to get the best experience every time you’re down in the water.

Using Contact Lenses when Diving

It is possible to wear glasses when scuba diving but it’s not the optimal choice when you’re also wearing a diving mask. What we would recommend is to wear contacts while diving. There are a couple of things to consider when you wear lenses underwater.
■If you experience mild discomfort, perhaps feel as if the lenses tighten a bit while you’re down, simply use lubricating eye drops before and after each session. This should relieve some of the irritation.
■Another thing to think about when diving with contact lenses is that you should blink as much as possible. In doing so you’ll prevent bubbles from forming underneath your lenses – these bubbles are in no way harmful to your eyes but they can cause minor discomfort and blur your vision.
■Also, when you clear your mask of water, remember to close your eyes so that you don’t lose your contact lenses!

Which Lenses to Wear

As most contact lens wearers know, there are two types of lenses; hard contacts and soft contacts. When diving, it is recommended to wear soft contacts, due to the fact that soft contacts contain a percentage of salt water which helps prevent them from floating off your eyes if they are open when you flood your mask. Hard contacts (gas-permeable) are more likely to simply disappear off your eye into the water, and it’s next to impossible to find a lost lens under water due to their inherent translucency. This is why you should always wear disposable lenses when doing water activities, since an eventual loss is not that great.

More to Think About

You shouldn’t worry about wearing contact lenses when scuba diving – it is perfectly safe. But, eye care experts suggest the following tips to keep in mind when using lenses
■When using contacts it’s important to ascend slower than normal.
■Wear soft contact lenses.
■Rinse lenses between dives to get the salt water out.
■Bring an extra pair if a problem should occur.
■Let your diving buddy know you’re wearing contacts so that he or she can retrieve your mask if you should lose it.

Other than this there is really nothing special to think about when hitting the water –simply dive right in!

Thanks to Scuba Diving

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com