"Looks like the weather is going to hold for us for the entire day," I commented as we drove to the boat. Only yesterday the weather center in Alaska called for gale 45 knot winds and driving rain.
We quickly ready the boat and shove off. We idle through the harbor systems on radar and blind navigation.
Big Sodium crab lights light the harbor behind us. More dive boats heading out.
"Hey Samantha, are you there?" came a familiar voice over the radio. Scott on his boat, the Gracie K, is calling us on my boat, the Samantha.
"Hey, good morning, where are you guys?" I asked back.
"Just coming under the bridge," Scott replied.
"That is your sodium's lighting up the harbor behind me. I am just ahead of you, leaving the break water," I inform him.
We chat and plan for the next half hour as we travel to our dive location. Daylight slowly gathers the darkness and stuffs it into its pockets for the next ten or so hours.
We arrive at our dive location at about 7:00 a.m. and Mike quickly readies the boat as I crawl into my dive suit.
Mike fires the dive hookah compressor and warms it up, as well as the 9.9 kicker outboard motor, and the hauler motor. All systems are running great.
Mike counts the time down, as I donned my bailout bottle, weight belt, dive bag with cucumber bags, hood, gloves, and mask. He grabs a screw driver and pushes the valve on the air hose to clean out my air line. Nothing!
"Oh no," Mike yells over the roar of the engines, "this air hose is plugged"
"Shouldn't be," I yelled back, "I cleared all the lines this past week."
Mike takes the air line apart and cleans a big chunk of rust out of the fitting. Typical Alaska. It seems to only take overnight for things to rust, corrode, or salt up in this drippy atmosphere.
Air line cleared up, I slid into the black, ice cold water. I gave Mike a thumbs up and he replied so I release the air out of my dry suit and slide towards the inky bottom.
Clearing my ears at every ten feet, and watching my computer as I entered the depths, I feel the burn of the cold water as it enters my wet suit hood and gloves. I never seem to get used to how cold this water really is.
I see cucumbers (worms) before I reach the bottom and am getting my first bag ready. I quickly start picking all the worms in sight.
I suck hard on my regulator. It is like I am not getting my full flow of air. I glance at my computer, I'm in 32 feet of water. My air is shutting of quickly.
I grab one last worm and then my regulator shuts of completely. I race for the surface with no air.
I break surface and wave for mike. He spots me and slowly starts backing the boat to me. I have no air so I spit the regulator out, but am not buoyant enough to float. I am kicking hard to keep my lips above the surface, and shaking my air hose above the surface to get Mike to pull me in by it. He does not know what my signal is and keeps slowly backing the boat towards me.
Mike gets to me and helps me up on the back of the boat. I'm panting like I've ran a marathon, and tasting salt from the water I've drank trying to keep my head above surface.
"No air," I shout to Mike, waving my regulator towards him.
Mike shuts down the noisy compressor so we can hear each other, as I get out of my fins and climb onto the back of the boat.
We spend the next half hour taking my regulator apart to find one tiny piece of rust under the air release valve. We wash it out with fresh water and run a bunch of air through it before calling it "cured".
We are racing a great morning low tide. As the day progresses the tide will be coming in, and will be at a huge 11 foot high by noon. With our diving, we need as little water over our heads as possible. By law, we cannot go into decompression diving. At low tide I can go to fifty feet for a good while. That same water by noon is 61 feet deep and gives me no time at all.
I get my fins back on and slide back into the ocean. I race back to the bottom breathing big gulps of great feeling air. I really like to be breathing under water. The other option is just not that appealing!
I swim past the spot I have just picked and look deeper. Everywhere I look I see cucumbers! I am grabbing them by the handful. I jam the bag full and sent the cork to the surface. I look at my dive computer. Six minutes! That can't be. I look again. Sure enough, it says six minutes. On fairly good picking I feel good to get a full bag in twenty minutes. Six minutes is unbelievable. I watch the bag head towards the surface and quickly have another one off my belt and jamming it full.
To be continued...
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