travel blog - pulling a murray

ok,
if you read one of the previous diving blogs
you might already have cleverly guessed
what pulling a murray means...
in any case
here are the details

it was dive 6
a night dive
on the day we decided to see if a few of us die-core divers
could manage to pull off
7 dives in a day
with a total bottom time of at least 7 hours
and with minimum depths of 50 feet on each dive
with the die-cores
those being nick, murray and myself
were erin and mikayla
who were both on their fifth dives of the day
the previous dusk dive had gone quite well
with hector dropping us off on coco view wall
and us navigating our way back to the gazebo
now in full dark
we started with the same drop point
but attempted to navigate across to the other wall
newman´s wall
to play on the for a while
before heading in
after all,
we had an hour to kill
murray was in the lead
practicing his navigation
and when we came to our exit point
off coco view wall
he pointed out into the darkness
and started swimming
i had taken a bearing on the gazebo
just to be safe
i could see murray´s unwavering light
swim off at an incredibly focused speed
as the two girls stayed together
with nick trailing dark
(this was something that a bunch of us had gotten used to doing
diving dark
just because it´s so cool to dive in the shadows
and be silent and unseen
hehehe)
i was trailing off to the side in the dark as well
making sure the girls didn´t stray too far off the wall
as i saw murray shoot off into the darkness
i turned my light on and tried to flash him down
i noticed he was going in a straight line forward
but also angling sharply down
i´ve seen that happen before
especially when one is diving totally on instruments
realizing that i couldn´t easily catch him
without going deep myself
i started banging my light against my tank
after flashing at nick and the girls to stop and stay level
but murray didn´t respond
i had drifted down a bit by now myself
thinking quickly
i spun back towards nick
and grabbed him
i could see the momentary flash of confusion in his eyes
but i didn´t pause
i spun around behind
and attempted to smash my tank against his
...but i missed
and i could feel him struggling very slightly in confusion
the second bash connected though
and as the ringing clanged out into the ocean depth
i felt nick relax completely which made my job easier
later i realized
he was adjusting the buoyancy for both of us
as i tried to keep an eye on murray´s fast disappearing light
and keep up the banging
now,
why was i worried?
and why didn´t i go after him when i knew i could likely catch him eventually?
well,
it was our 6th dive of the day
we had done a couple dives to over 100 or 120 feet earlier in the day
and deco times were being very closely monitored by ourselves
but most importantly
i was on nitrox
and so was murray
and with the singleminded way he was moving
i thought first maybe he descended too deep
and started narcing out due to the fatigue of doing 6 dives
and if that were the case
he would continue to descend unknowingly
i also knew i had a 32% mixture in my tank
while he had a 28% mixture
which meant that i stood a greater chance of toxing out before he did
even if i did catch him
i knew the bottom of the wall hit 140 feet
and the ocean slid off even deeper
i had 1 newbie diver and 2 barely advanced divers with me still
and i also had the only other compass left
i swam back to them
and signalled that we were to go up slowly
at that point
mikayla
disoriented in the dark
and the disappearance of murray into the inky ocean depths
lost control of her buoyance
and from 40 feet or so
started shooting up like a rocket
abandoning my controlled ascent
i shot up after her
and managed to snag her leg
and started pulling her down
out of the bubbling half light and darkness
another hand shot out
and stabilized her on the other side
that would be erin
what a friend eh?
by then we were 6 feet below the surface
and as we popped to the surface
we found the weather had taken a turn for the worse
a wind had picked up
and it was raining
the last 6 feet of water was freezing cold from the rain water
and the waves made it hard to get a bearing on where we were
the rain slashed into our faces
making it even tougher to see
nick surfaced shortly after
having completed a controlled ascent
good for him!
i made sure everyone was floating without kicking
and tried to if murray had surfaced
there was no sign of him
and as my light swept back and forth
across the dark stormy ocean
i wanted to scream out ¨MOTHERF*CK!!!¨
but restrained myself
that took an incredible amount of control
realizing there was nothing else i could do about him
he was either safe
or toxed-narced out and gone
i turned to the group
and told them
we´re getting back under the surface
and we´re heading straight back to the gazebo
-there was a phone there-
make sure your lights are on
and STAY together
we sunk back below the tossing surface
when i noticed erin´s light begin to dim
and promptly fade out
yeah,
the batteries on the light she borrowed
ran out
i turned to nick
and made sure that he knew to stick with her
and she with him
signalled mikayla to stay close with me
and all of us together
at a depth of about 12 feet
the ocean was calm again
and amazingly warmer
we started swimming back to the gazebo
many thoughts passed through my head
and in my heart
i dreaded the thought
of organizing a search
for murray´s body
and wanted to curse again
the darkness and silence went on for a while
when all of a sudden
i noticed a blur of light
coming out of the darkness
could it be...?
was it possible?
i started flashing my light back and forth
to get the attention of the blurry light
and sure enough
murray soon appeared out of the gloom
murray had come back
the relief i felt
was balanced with the emotion of wanting to bash him in the head
and hug him at the same time
i grabbed his computer quickly
after looking him in the eyes
and asking if he was ok, to which he promptly responded that he was
searching for his max depth
and looking at his tank pressure
i couldn´t figure out how to use his computer
but everything else seemed ok
and then
we headed back for the gazebo
enough excitement for one night
maybe we wouldn´t make 7 dives...
but when we hit the edge of the pier at 45 minutes
the three diecores all agreed that we would stay under for at least another 15 minutes
and started to putz around
the girls stayed with us
and in the dark
we found an old gnarled lobster
a baby octopus
some really weird shit
and actually had a really good end to the dive
by the time we surfaced
i knew i had one more in me
...
so murray´s max depth for that dive?
well,
he says he hit 106 feet
personally,
i think he went deeper
none of us actually looked back at the log
to see what it was
maybe it´s because we didn´t want to think any more
on what could have happened

all´s well that ends well, eh?