This was in the Red Sea and not planned! We were dropped in at one end of the Elphinestone Reef which has a strong current running along its flanks.
The current hits the reef at one end and where we were dropped in we were dropped too far out from the reef.
As usual we dived straight down after rolling back from the Zodiac, only to find we were in a strong downward current at this point, which was pushing us deeper than we wanted.
I indicated to my buddy to fin upwards against the current, once I knew what was happening, but even though we did we were still pushed down to 65 metres. Our planned diving depth was about 35 metres! We both used up a lot of our air doing this, as we had to fin pretty hard to stop ourselves from going even deeper.
We were both on atmospheric air too, and at 60+ metres atmospheric air becomes toxic. We were lucky, others in our party were pushed beyond 70 metres. No one came to any harm fortunately, but it was a bit of a shock!
The depth around the Elphinestone Reef is 1,000 metres, so a long way down!
My deepest dive was to 65 metres.
This was in the Red Sea and not planned! We were dropped in at one end of the Elphinestone Reef which has a strong current running along its flanks.
The current hits the reef at one end and where we were dropped in we were dropped too far out from the reef.
As usual we dived straight down after rolling back from the Zodiac, only to find we were in a strong downward current at this point, which was pushing us deeper than we wanted.
I indicated to my buddy to fin upwards against the current, once I knew what was happening, but even though we did we were still pushed down to 65 metres. Our planned diving depth was about 35 metres! We both used up a lot of our air doing this, as we had to fin pretty hard to stop ourselves from going even deeper.
We were both on atmospheric air too, and at 60+ metres atmospheric air becomes toxic. We were lucky, others in our party were pushed beyond 70 metres. No one came to any harm fortunately, but it was a bit of a shock!
The depth around the Elphinestone Reef is 1,000 metres, so a long way down!
Learn from yesterday, live for today and hope for tomorrow...
About Russell Bowyer scuba diving expert in DUI dry suit before a scuba dive in the UK My name is Russell, and I'm the diver behind Scuba Diving Earth. I have…
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