Story Time

My cat has been missing since Friday. I miss him and I’m very worried that he isn’t coming home this time, he has never left for this long before. 🙁

The story is unrelated to my cat.

I went scuba diving for the first time in a few years on Monday. So me and my partner get all our gear on and swim out in the lake a little bit. My octopus (second air regulator for emergencies) was leaking air so I was a little worried but it quickly stopped after I fiddled with it a bit. My partner had new gear and wasn’t sure they had enough weights to dove properly. So we’re at the surface and he says he thinks he can get down, then says, “are you ready” and dives under. I still just have my snorkel in at this point so I was not ready. I quickly switch to my regulator and start trying to go down, I was on the surface for a bit letting the air out of my bc but finally get under after he’s been down for about 2 minutes. He’s nowhere to be seen. I swim back and forth in the area for a bit, maybe 10 minutes or so, before I decided he must have went off diving not worried about staying together. That was my first mistake. I broke the first rule of having a dive buddy. We also didn’t bring a dive buoy which you are supposed to have. I should have surfaced then and caught back up with my partner but I was so excited to be underwater again I got distracted by a fish and found the buoyancy course and before long it was 30 minutes in. I was half way through my air supply and 35 ft under, not too deep but enough for a free dive. So the dive area at this lake is a no boating zone and a boat goes screaming right over me, that’s scary shit, I would prefer not to get hit by a boat. This worries me that I have somehow gotten out of the dive area and need to find where I am. I try to find my way back to the buoyancy course staying low in case any more boats drive over, I don’t find it because my sense of direction is shit and it’s even harder underwater with 20’ visibility. So I used my compass and just went westward following the incline to hopefully find shore. As soon as I pop my head up I see the ranger boat, someone shouts at me to get out of the water. At this point I’m wondering what is going on, I see my partner on shore about 50 yards away, so I’m relieved he is okay. As it turns out he is pissed the fuck off and was afraid I had issues and was trapped underwater with limited air supply. He called in the rescue team to come find me. Oof. They evacuated the beaches where we were and they were looking for 25 minutes trying to spot my bubbles but I apparently breathe lightly so they were very small. He called some of my family and told them he was worried and the clock was ticking, and there were all kinds of dive teams coming in to find me. Yep, very embarrassing. Needless to say, future dives I will make sure I resurface if I lose my partner for more than a minute. At least my dive was nice while it lasted, and I always feel so refreshed after a good dive, it feels like you can breathe deeper and stand taller. Of course this time I shrunk under all the stares. Lol. Just thought I would share.