First Day in the Harbour
Today we’re finally going to start diving in the harbour. The water is cold, really cold. And the instructors have already prepared us for the fact that there will be next to no visibility. I’m really excited, this should be fun.
Our job today is to check the mooring system in the dock basin next to the school.
I’m trying to remember the drawing in the book. “The boat’s mooring line connects to a chain, what was that called again? Oh well, as long as I find it, it’ll all be ok.” All of that then leads to the main mooring chain, attached to deadweights and running along the middle of the basin. We’re supposed to check all chains and lines for each boat on the right hand side.
We’ll go down one line, find the main chain, follow it until we find the next mooring and follow it up to the boat. After signalling the “OK” to the instructors on the pier and the surface we go down along the same line again, find the next one and repeat the whole thing until we reach the buoy where instructor Toffy is waiting, alongside the buddy-team posted as safety divers.
Ronan and I are paired up again, but there’s nine of us, so one one of the buddy-teams will consist of three divers. Since the two of us have the most experience scuba diving, John who has the least is paired with us.
“Ok, this changes things”, I think to myself. In a two-person team, one diver has the buoy that signals their position while the other one keeps his hand securely and without fail on the line or chain. In zero-visibility water it’s the only way of knowing where you’re going. With their free hands the divers keep a firm hold of each other. But what now? I’m missing a hand…
Ok, I will take the buoy, Ronan will keep a hold of the line, I will keep a hold of Ronan and John will hold on to me.
“Prepare! Ready? Water!” we jump in and swim to the first boat. It’s really cold. My new wet semi-dry suit is the warmest I could find, but I can still feel the chill of the 17°C water.
Everyone ok? Ok, let’s go. We descend along the first mooring line. Again we check, everyone ok? Good, a little bit further down. So far I can still see the other two divers, about half a meter away from me, all of us keeping a hold of each other. 
But as we descend further the visibility quickly reduces to next to nothing. I’m trying to ask Ronan if he’s ok and put my hand right in front of his mask, on his mask actually. No chance, he can’t see a thing. I can’t help but laugh, this is actually really funny. Recreational diving is all about clear waters and lots of colorful fish. Here, I literally can’t see the hand in front of my face and even if there are any fish around, there is absolutely no chance I would see them. The same goes for the chain we’re supposed to find for that matter. I hope Ronan won’t let go of the rope.
The two of us quickly figure out a way to communicate by squeezing each others arms or hands, but I’m not sure John understands what we’re trying to do. I try and show him and “OK” sign while squeezing his hand twice but I have no idea if he could even see what I was doing.We descend further along the line, hit the first chain and finally find the main mooring chain. Awesome! I’m quite excited.
A 90° turn to the right and we begin looking for the next mooring off to the right.
Suddenly I feel John’s hand slipping from my arm, so I quickly grab his hand while tucking the rest of the wound up buoy line under my arm. He’s a little further behind me than I thought and reach behind to push his hand onto my leg. “Hold on to this tightly!” I think to myself, hoping he can somehow read my mind, or at least understand what I’m trying to say. The buoy starts slipping out from under my arm and I’m reaching in both directions now as Ronan keeps moving along the chain. And all of a sudden it happens. I can’t feel John’s hand. “Ronan! STOP!” I pull his hand hard. We stop and I turn around, blindly extending my arm into the mirky water in front of me. Nothing, I can feel nothing! Where is he? Where the hell is he? We go back a bit along the chain. Nothing! Holy F*$K! We’ve lost him! I turn and look at Ronan, my face about 5cm from his in order to see. “Up!” I signal him “OK! Up”. Following protocol when losing a fellow diver, we slowly ascend to the surface. I look around. No bubbles! Where is he?
“What’s going on?” Toffy is immediately right next to us. “We’ve lost John” I say, still looking around anxiously for bubbles. “No way! Really?? Don’t mess with me!!! How could this happen???” I’m really getting worried now.
“He’s not lost!” I hear Cesar’s angry voice from the pier. “He’s up here with me!” he yells over to us, looking furious “And the two of you royally F*&Ked UP!!!”. He’s right to be angry, this shouldn’t have happened, least of all to me. I feel horrible. But more than that I’m utterly relieved to know that John is ok. Apparently he had trouble with his kit, his bottle slipped and he let go of me.
Luckily we’re only training in about 3m of water, with instructors all around us. Cesar was there right away to help him onto the pier. Still, I get out of the water feeling incredibly guilty and very humbled. This can never happen again!
After cleaning and packing up all our kit, Cesar takes the time to explain to me what I did wrong. We should have put John in the middle, that way we would have avoided losing sight of him should he run into any issues an inexperienced diver may encounter.
Time for a lunch break and then it’s back into the classroom.
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A Big Book
After we discuss today’s exercises in the water and go over what we should have done better, Tato goes straight into theory.
We were each given a giant book to read, study and internalize. Physiology, Physics, Engineering, are all part of Commercial Diving. It occurs to me that describing the heart and its left and right ventricle, the lungs and their gas exchange process or the neurotoxicity of Nitrogen in detail in Spanish might be a bit of a challenge for the exam. I can see a lot of studying ahead of me.
After a bit of physiology, we get a quick lesson in wet-suit maintenance before we’re done for the day.
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