On my drive trip to Papua New Guinea I had a horrifying life threatening incident where a fellow diver and me were lost at sea. It all started on a normal regular dive where the ship`s dive guide usually jumps into the sea before others to check for water current ,direction , the depth , the reef underneath and of anything dangerous. So after determining all these factor it was decided to drop us divers at a spot taking into consideration the speed and direction of the current. Like wind on land there is always a current in the sea due to various weather conditions and other factors . They vary in speed and direction in an unpredictable way due to under sea dynamics. The dive boat usually moves ahead of the divers after dropping them so that when the divers surface they are in visual range to be picked up by the boats. In the sea there are currents at different level at different speeds as well. This is impossible to determine unless some one dives and experiences that.
So my dive buddy and me were dropped off and we went under to enjoy the beautiful seascape unfolding below. We did experience the current but were not concerned as enjoying the dive was more important ,more over all of us were experienced divers. The usual dive time is about 45 min keeping some air in our tanks for emergency is always the norm, we don’t surface with an empty tank always. In diving the most important golden rule is to never dive alone , because if any thing happens, it is impossible to communicate the emergency underwater. The only thing left is to bang on the tank and to make a noise to attract the nearest diver for help. I have had my fare share of emergencies like the high pressure hose bursting , this is the hose that brings air to the mouthpiece from the air tank behind. Well I was 100ft deep and it was impossible to go to the surface with one breath . More over ascending too fast can induce life threatening baro trauma as well. Fortunately due to following the rules there was a dive buddy nearby who immediately assisted by lending his air source.
Well coming back to the dive… we surfaced and found to our shock that there was no boat or any vessel visible up to the horizon on all directions. Just small islands far away and the ocean around. There is usually a tender boat to pick divers up or the mother ship which is always in sight . This was not the case now. That induced panic as we realized we were alone and were lost. Then it dawned on us that we were in the grip of a strong undersea current that had carried us in the opposite direction. We were in this situation and had no other course of action to save our selves apart from waiting for rescue. The sun was beating down mercilessly and in spite of being in the water neck deep, de hydration started to creep in compounded by panic. Being immersed in salt water for a long time always dehydrates you.
Mean while Panic set into the dive boat as they realized the two of us were lost at sea. An SOS was sent out on channel 16 on the maritime radio that 2 divers were lost at sea. Channel 16 is an international emergency radio frequency channel solely reserved for emergencies only . So every ship boat or land station is on a high state of alert when an emergency is declared. They in turn relay the emergency to look out for the lost divers given the approximate last known position. It is very difficult to spot a diver on the surface of the sea as only the head is exposed above water which is around the size of a football. Now trying to detect a small object floating at sea compounded by waves is extremely difficult standing on a boat. Further to my horror I discovered we were drifting into the open ocean as the islands that were in front of us far away now appeared to be on the right of us indicating the surface current was taking us to the left!!.
In this ocean ,salt water crocodiles are abundant . They are huge unlike land dwelling ones. They hunt at sea and on land and are perfectly adaptable for the salty conditions of sea water, They swim from island to island as well. The sea has sharks as well , especially the tiger sharks which are dangerous. Again we learnt that a small islander boy was taken by a croc some months ago. Many divers have lost their lives in these situations and even their bodies were not recovered presumably eaten by sharks or a croc or died of dehydration . We were lost at sea for 4 hrs , dehydrated with no hope . More over it was clear that if we were not rescued before dusk, the chances of survival in the open ocean was next to zero.
Fortunately as fate would will, a fisherman from a nearby island far in the horizon, on a small canoe had apparently spotted us bobbing in the sea with no one around . The island people know that divers and boats frequent here. We waved frantically to him to attract his attention , but his response was to wave back in a friendly gesture not knowing our predicament !! This waving business went on for some time till he realized some thing was amiss and started rowing his small canoe towards us against a strong current. He eventually reached us and we climbed aboard that small canoe thanking our stars with all our dive and camera gear, the canoe nearly tipped over due to our frenzy to climb aboard! From there it was a good 1 hr row back to a small island where he lived in. I had the presence of mind to shoot some pics of our rescuer lest some thing happened to us so that some one may see who and what happened at that time.!
But another fear crept in. The natives had practiced cannibalism till 50 years ago! And the locals do acknowledge that. In remote areas deep in the rain forest in Papua new guinea there are tribes that had practiced cannibalism and the skulls of victims were usually displayed in front of their huts!. Violence was a way of life in the very recent past. But this fear proved unwanted as the kind hearted savior took us to his hut and offered us some fruits ! we soon discovered he was totally deaf and dumb !He then immediately proceeded to get onto his canoe to go to a near by island that had an European fishing processing plant. He went there and conveyed the rescue of the divers. They in turn had contacted by radio our dive ship giving our position. The dive ship arrived with every passenger and crew red in the face “all of them were europeans” looking aghast. We profusely thanked the savior through sign language and the captain of the boat rewarded him with provisions from the ship to last him a month and departed. There was a debrief on what had happened to know the exact cause of this incident with every one eager to know what had gone wrong.
There is a saying that to over come fear, the best course of action is to face that fear again . True to that saying we dived in again the next morning!.