DIVING IN INVERLOCH, AUSTRALIA
This news from ex-NSC Divemaster Alan : Well I dived for the first time in Aussie waters on Monday 13th, It was a place called Inverloch south east of Melbourne and an hours drive from were I live in Traralgon. I arrived at the boat ramp at 7.30 already for the briefing at 7.45am by 8am we're still waiting for two divers who eventually turned up at 8.15am. 1 Open Water Diver and 1 AOW. After briefing & buddy checks it's off to the boat, 8 divers and the skipper.
We headed down the South coast to a dive site called 'Arched Rock' it takes 20 mins to get there. In we get and down to a max depth of 16m. With 20m viz I wished I had my camera! After 17minutes into the dive one diver signals she only had 60 bar left and she was going to surface. I carried on the dive with the others, dog sharks, sea grass, big cray fish and much more I will get a book on what all the fish etc are in aussie land.
Well after 64minutes my buddy & I made our ascent , did our safety stop then surfaced. We were the last on the boat apart from the Open Water Diver, who was in the water feeling sick. We got him on the boat and asked him about his dive and dive profile, cutting a long story short, he made a rapid ascent from 16m then realised he hadn't done a safety stop, so went back down to 5m and stayed there for 4 min before surfacing again still feeling sick.
Then started to get numbness in his fingers arms, he found it hard to move very hard to talk, so he was put on 100% oxygen while we shot back to port calling for an ambulance as we did so. On our arrival we had the ambulance, police and an air ambulance helicopter! Plus about 150 people! It appears the diver had been drinking the night before, he was asthmatic and suffers badly with sea sickness!! He refused to be air-lifted to Melbourne and was given care locally.
Well, Alan, that is one hell of a start to your Oz diving career! Things can only get better but it does illustrate well the need for good training, skills, planning and behaviour!