Smmcdonald
United States
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Nº179
Date: 2022-09-01 - 12:13
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Max Depth: 14.6m Duration: 35mins
Dive Location
- Temp: Surf 32°C Bottom 29°C
- Dive type : Recreational, Wreck
- Visibility: Good Water: Salt
Specific gear used
- Weights: 1.8 kg
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Dive Profile
- 1. Air
- 10L Aluminium 218 → 41 bar
- Average depth: 3.8m
Data provided by EOL.org
Species Identified
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After a quick lunch break at the dive shop, we boarded Q II and headed back out for our afternoon dives beginning with a dip on the Benwood. While the diving up to this point had been good, I felt a bit off. I had been draining my AL80's pretty quickly, and I felt more tired than usual. I figured a familiar wreck dive out of the current would do me some good.
When we arrived, the skies had gotten a bit more cloudy and several squals were popping up around us. We were surprised to see a fisherman in a sit-on-top kayak moored to one of the lines on the Benwood. The conditions at the dive site itself was fine, but he had paddled out in rather rough seas, with storms all around, five miles offshore! I made a mental note to watch out for hooks and lines around midship, and backrolled in with the group.
The visibility wasn't quite as good here as it was further north, but still fair (40 to 50 feet or so) and there was very little current. We were tied off port side near the bow, so I finned down and over to the anchor which was exposed after hurricane Irma a few years back. After a quick look, I headed back to the bow and down the port side of the wreck.
The always-present school of grunts and porgies were hanging near the bow, and I watched while Jen took the opportunity to swim through the small school, which divided and regrouped as she passed through. A short time into the dive I witnessed something I have never seen on the Benwood: a large nurse shark was swimming in circles over the wreck. I approached slowly, thinking she would dart away, but instead was greeted with a very close encounter as she crossed through the beams and outside of the wreck right in front of me! After watching the shark for awhile, I continued on to the stern before circling back toward the bow. I was quickly becoming tired and a bit light-headed. My air was getting low, too, so I signaled to Jen that I was going to return to the surface. Feeling a little frustrated, I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. Soon I was a few feet from the surface when I looked up and noticed the boat was much smaller than it should have been. I realized I had come up on the wrong line and was surfacing right behind the kayak! At this point I was more amused than frustrated, and finned over to the next mooring line to Q II. The squalls were getting closer, and the kayaker/fisherman was heading back inshore. (Hopefully, he made it.)
I had used up most of my air in 35 minutes on a 30-foot dive. That's the worst SAC rate I can remember having since I started diving. At this point I was thinking my illness a couple of years ago was making a bigger impact than I had realized. Then again, I have been diving since, with much better results, so I'm not sure what to think. By this point, I was second-guessing a deep dive on the Spiegel Grove.