Incident in Point Lobos
August 2003

Report

I went diving to Point Lobos with three friends recently.  An incident happened during the dive, so I thought I would report it here for future references and in an attempt to learn lessons from it.  Nobody was harmed nor in any immediate danger, but this dive was certainly educational for all of us.

Our first dive was in Cannery Point, just off the exit ramp.  The kelp is very thick these days in Point Lobos (growing about two feet every day, a ranger told us, which makes this summer one of the most prolific for kelp) so after swimming on the surface for half the distance, we decided to dive and spent most of our time at the bottom of Cannery Point, delighting at the view of the kelp forest and the rich sea life there.  We went down to 55 feet maximum and the dive lasted for about 45 minutes.

For the second dive (60 feet, 40 minutes), we decided to go further along the point, and in order to do that, we kicked hard through Cannery Point (which we had just explored), then took a left and ended up south of the Cannery Point Wall.  We had decided on a half point of 20 minutes / 1500 PSI, whichever came first, especially since one of us had a leaky regulator and we didn't want to take the risk of having to do too much kelp crawling on the way back.  When one of us reached 1500 PSI, we turned around, following the reciprocate course we had calculated before we left.

Unfortunately, we made a mistake in our bearing and after ten minutes, realized that we were still pretty much at the same location.  Mark and I had over 1000 PSI, which was enough to dive under the very thick forest back to the canal, allowing us then to surface and swim back to the ramp, but the other two divers were at 700 and 400 PSI.  Diving was not an option, and the only choice left was to do some -- very daunting -- kelp crawling for a distance of about a couple of hundred yards.

Mark and I first dove for a few minutes and then surfaced again to take our bearing but also to check on our unfortunate buddies who were most likely not having a very pleasant time.  They had made some progress but they were clearly not going very fast, and one of them was getting tired quick.  We were still within earshot and we heard them ask for help to people on the cliff.  Powerless, my buddy and myself decided to start kelp crawling as well, even though we still had enough air to submerge and reach the canal, and probably even the ramp (more on this decision below).

Ten minutes later, we reached the ramp as a double seater kayak was being sent toward our friends.  We climbed the cliff to observe the events.  Our two friends were sitting on rocks north of the point, waiting to be rescued.  The kayak reached them and started towing them, after loading up as much stuff as possible on board (weight belts and one tank).  Still, the progress was very slow and it would have taken a while, so the arrival of a Zodiac from the emergency response team put an end to the incident, although even they had some trouble to break through the kelp initially.

Back on the shore, as we were debriefing and talking with the rescue team and the rangers, they unanimously agreed that calling for help was the right decision, even though my friends felt a bit guilty for doing that instead of trying to get out of the kelp by themselves.

Before I move to an analysis of what happened, I'd like to make something very clear, which I will repeat over and over below:  calling for help was the RIGHT THING TO DO.

Analysis

• First of all, let's take a look at what caused the incident in the first place:  poor navigation.  We are all guilty, all four of us.  Even though we had decided on two leaders, it's every buddy pair's responsibility to double check the bearing and not hesitate to surface if there is the slightest doubt.  That being said, it wasn't immediately clear to us we were going the wrong way, and the penalty for a mis-navigation is usually not very heavy as long as you are diving along a shore wall.
  
  We had the wall on our right side at all time (which turned out to be one of the isolated promontories north of the point) so there never was an urging reason to surface.  In hindsight, I believe we should have surfaced at midpoint anyway because of the potential for kelp to become a liability, but it's easy to say this afterwards.
   
• After Mark and I surfaced, I decided to try to crawl over the kelp instead of diving again and head to the ramp.  The reason why I made this decision was that I'd rather save the air for an emergency situation.  We were nowhere near that point:  both of us were in good shape, not tired at all, and I thought it would be a better idea to crawl for a little while as long as we can and see how far we can go without submerging, thus saving our 1000 PSI for the case where we would get stuck and/or too tired.  At which point I would have suggested resting for a little while, then dive to 10-15 feet and head back to the ramp.
   
• The rocks where our friends were sitting was about fifty yards from the shore, so another option for them if help was not available was to swim there, dump their gear on the rocky shore and climb their way up (which happened to be a gentle slope, so this wouldn't have been a problem).
   
• I think our friends did the right thing to call for help for the following reasons:
  
  1) There have been a few deaths this year in this location, probably due to the excessive thickness of this kelp this summer (one of the accidents happened just forty feet from the shore, a rescue person told us)  While it is rare, it is not impossible to drown in ten feet of water when there is so much kelp. 
  
  2) If calling for help is one of your options, use it.  Don't even think twice.  The rescuers will need you in full shape when they reach you.  There is no point in exhausting yourself while nearing a panic state, which is exactly when accidents happen.
   
• Since they had respectively 700 and 400 PSI left, they might have attempted to buddy breathe their way back.  Well, NO.  Buddy breathing in the kelp is a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  Keep in mind that kelp -- especially excessive kelp -- adds a huge danger factor to the equation.  Add to this the fact that a buddy-breathing pair is awkward to navigate through a kelp forest, so the risk of entanglement increases, and the last thing you want to do when you are low on air is taking the risk to get entangled.
   
• One of the two stranded people noticed at the beginning of the dive that his regulator was slighly leaking.  After the incident, we talked about this and wondered if we should have called off the dive.  First of all, I'll go on record by saying that "canceling a dive is never a bad idea".
  
  Well, that's the theory.  In practice, this decision is sometimes hard to make, either because you have been driving for a while to get there, or because you are impatient, or who knows what other reason.  So in the real world, you have to use your judgment.
  
  In this particular case, I think that maintaining the dive was an acceptable decision.  A leaky regulator is pretty much the same as someone who sucks up a lot of air.  They are probably going to run low on air before everyone else and the way to tackle this problem is to decide a turning point based on both a time and a PSI reading, whichever comes first.
  
  When you have defective equipment, you need to be extra zealous when checking your gauges.  Air pressure should of course be your focus and more importantly, you should try to analyze how much faster than normal your gauge is dropping.

Lessons learned

Anything can go wrong.  Always.  Even on simple dives like the one we attempted.  If you think about it, you can't really think of better conditions:  great visibility (20-30 feet), warm day, glass-like cove, hardly any surge at all, and four responsible individuals more worried about the health of their buddy than their own amusement.

Well, things can still go wrong.  Or at least, not quite as you expected.

How could we have avoided this?

First of all, before diving, it would have helped to review the things that could possibly go wrong.  I don't remember being taught this in class, but it's a very worthwhile exercise.  In this case, I think that "getting stranded and low on air in the kelp" is a bad-case scenario that would have come to our minds pretty quickly.  Had we thought about that, we would probably have been more stringent in determining our reciprocate course, meaning:  we would have surfaced and taken our bearing visually, instead of using the compass and then being misled by the wall.

If you find yourself in a similar situation and that the conditions are good (no swell, no wind), you should try to get close to the shore, where shallower depths allow for lighter kelp coverage.  But don't get anywhere near rocks when there is swell.  If you feel it where you are, it will get worse near the rocks.

I think the most important thing I learned was that you should use help when it is available.  Keep in mind that "help is a luxury".  You don't have that luxury all the time, but when you have it, it is your duty to use it.  You will probably wonder if it's worth disturbing the peace, or how much it might cost you, or all kinds of crazy thoughts.  Try to compare this to losing your life.  Or you friend's.

There are two factors that make the risk of an accident rise exponentially:  exhaustion and panic.  They are both connected:  if you start getting tired, you will panic.  If you start panicking, your body will react in excessive ways that will make you reach your physical limits in no time.  This feedback loop can lead to death.  Don't even take the slightest chance to have one of these two factors rise if you can avoid it.  If you can't avoid it...  well, it's a different story that I don't feel qualified to write about.

Conclusion

This was a very healthy experience for all of us.  First of all, it was the first time the four of us dove together and I think we did an excellent job at keeping together.  Even though it was a gorgeous day sporting a 20-30 feet visibility, the four of us were always in visual contact.  During both dives (40 + 45 minutes).  I think this is a remarkable achievement and we ended up the day with the impression that we were all very safety-conscious.  The happy ending of our little incident confirmed that we made the right decisions throughout the days.  Maybe not the best decisions, but the right ones.

Hopefully, we are all better divers for it.

Cedric, August 6th, 2003

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