During one of our trips to foreign dive sites we meet sometimes brilliant people.
This tale will take you to the year 2003 in Northern Spain to a little fishing village called L’Estartit not to far from
I want you to meet my diving buddy Patrice; he was a bit of a weird Frenchmen, old tatty shoes, blue jeans, very colorful knitted sweater, an even more colorful scarf around his neck and wearing a pink cap. He must have been in his mid forties, bold on his forehead and long curly brown hear, nearsighted minus 11 on both eyes. He looked funny, but he also was very funny, and full of life. We had some incredible laughs together.
Risking Traffic
One day we needed to go to the shops for some groceries and he offered me a ride in his old banger. Driving through L’Estartit on the main road you will find huge ditches in the road to drain the water running from the mountains when it rains. Every time I warned him there was one coming up in front of us, he looked at me, while testing his shock absorbers. We flew from left to right, and I was hanging on to anything I could put my hands on
Then the look on his face changed in “oohw, this is what you meant “. When I warned him for the roundabout (big roundabout, with an even larger statue in the center), he missed the statue by an inch, and the roundabout completely.
First Dry Suit Dive
First time we met was the day before, on a dive boat. At the end of the day I heared he tested his dry suit for the very first time. Never in the pool, straight down to 22 meters. The dive was a disaster, from the tails he told us. I don’t have to explain which risks he took on a test dive like that.
Taking the Plunge
My own buddy did not feel well that day, when I turned up at the jetty on the sunny morning of my second diving day. Patrice was already waiting for me, waiving when my car was close enough for him to recognize it. He noticed I was using a dry suit, and asked me to team up with him to show him some tricks of the trade. We agreed on half an hour in shallow water, and then progressively take it a bit deeper on his second dry suit dive.
While I was kitting up I started explaining some techniques. Here I noticed that his eyesight was even worse then I thought. His nose was on my pressure dump valve to recognize what I was doing to it. You might be laughing but remember I went to the shops with this guy driving through a busy tourist area. He convinced me, he was an
experienced three star diver with CMAS and I did not have to worry a thing. I was not convinced, but more then aware.
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Let’s Go Diving
The boat moored in one of the little bays around one of the islands of the Isles Mides. I’m all dressed up and ready to go. Hanging back on a bench and enjoying the morning sunshine. During my kitting up I always watch my buddy kit up. This for two reasons, one - to see if he is competent with his equipment, and two - I can help him when he needs me. I could see that Patrice was very competent in handling his dive kit. He had a bit of a struggle to get into the dry suit, but he managed to pull the seals over hands and head. I helped him with the zip. He tested the suit by putting lots of air in it, all was working fine I saw him putting on his weight belt, and going for his fins. He could not reach his fins (to much air in the suit), he cleared the weight belt and drops it behind him while he was still sitting on the bench. I stood up and walked to the back of the boat. The captain would let us as the most experienced divers go in last, and was taking care of some new students while I watched. The captain shouted to a group of Germans beginners, GO GO GO! I look at my friend Patrice, he responded to the captain’s voice, dropped his fins. Straitened himself, walked past me and jumped into the water. I was too stunned to stop him.
What was going through this guys mind, at that moment?
Like Bob the Buoy
The moment he hit the water, all the air in his suit was around his neck, and without his fins or weight belt he had no change of going anywhere. He looked like a big mooring ball with a funny smiling face. This facial expression, I will never forget. I threw a float with a line at him and pulled him back to the boat.
When he climbed the ladder, we could not resist to laugh with him. Tears we’re rolling down our cheeks. Even the captain, who never spared a laugh, walked away with a large grin from behind his moustache.
I will spare you the rest of the dive details, but I abandoned the dive after 25 minutes.
Later over a beer, he explained that his eyesight did not allow him to oversee the whole picture and he responded to the captain, as he thought it was time to go.
See the big picture?
Buddy check starts when you walk onto the boat, until you enter the water together.
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