Bruce Iliff's Blog

Posted by Bruce Iliff

I have many stories of my times as a scuba divemaster. The following is one I found satisfying in that it used all the skills I had learnt in theory and in the ocean of hard knocks, and had a good outcome.

This occurred on a dive trip to Flinders Reef out from Brisbane, Australia. I was the divemaster and the skipper Barrie was in charge of the boat.

There were about ten divers on the boat for a two dive day. On our second dive, I ended up with an older couple who were quite inexperienced. As we were the last in the water, we were also the last to finish our dive.

We ascended, but there was a bit of a current, some choppy waves and we got separated. I stayed with the man while the woman drifted off. I chose to stay with him, as he was starting to panic and obviously tiring.

The skipper Barrie picked up the last of the divers and headed over to us as we were being swept off across the Pacific. As we drifted, and I worked on keeping the man calm, I waved to Barrie to pick up the woman first. All it took was a quick signal in her direction and Barrie immediately knew what I meant.

I wanted her collected first as she was alone and could be on the verge of panic. I knew I had my situation under control, but had no idea what she was going through, so wanted her picked up quickly.

He collected her, with the other divers keeping an eye on us. It was starting to get a bit difficult to keep in eye contact as we had drifted around the side of the reef and were in some large swells. The boat disappeared from view whenever we dropped into a trough.

Once Barrie had the woman on board, he motored over and picked us up. It was all handled simply and easily, but had the potential to escalate into something much worse if things got out of hand.

The main thing from this experience was the rapport between Barrie and myself. In my article “What Is A Scuba Divemaster” I write about divemaster having a “sixth sense”. In this situation, there was a type of psychic communication between Barrie and I. We had done quite a number of trips on the same boat to the same dive site so worked well as a team. He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking when I signaled to get the woman first. She was alone and had the potential to panic, whereas I had the man under control.

Posted by Bruce Iliff

For a scuba diver, being left behind at a dive site is an extremely frightening experience. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon event, and probably happens more times than what is reported in the media. The ones we hear about are when the divers die or spend many hours drifting in the water.

But it is so easy to happen. Many people have difficulty believing this the situation can occur. In my article Missing Scuba Diver At Sea I explore some of the reasons behind this scenario.

I have had the experience a number of times, both as a recreational diver, and while working as a divemaster.

The worst time for me was on my honeymoon. My wife and I were staying on Dunk Island and went out for a dive to Beaver Reef, one of the many reefs on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The set-up was a day trip on a large boat with around 100 people to big pontoon permanently anchored on the reef.

My wife and I were then taken a short distance away on a small boat to a dive site. The divemaster tied the dive boat to a buoy and we entered the water with another couple. The dive plan was to explore the reef around the buoy anchor.

We split from the other dive pair and did our own thing, keeping an eye on the buoy anchor all the time. I heard the sound of boat motors throughout the dive, but didn’t think anything of it as there were boats buzzing around on the surface taking divers and snorklers on their activities.

At the end of our dive we ascended and the boat was gone! I could see the pontoon and it was just a short swim away, but it was quite disconcerting to have no boat at the end of the dive.

We simply waited at the buoy, and in about ten minutes the divemaster came back and picked us up. The other dive couple had surfaced earlier and he taken them back to the pontoon.

This had a good ending, but could have easily turned bad. The divemaster could have forgotten us, we knew no-one else on the day trip and there was no way they could do a successful head count on the main boat.

We could have swum to the pontoon, but the entire episode once more reinforced the fact that scuba diver is a dangerous sport and safety vigilance by everyone concerned is extremely important.

Posted by Bruce Iliff

In relation to my article on planning a scuba dive, I once had a dive that reminds me of the need to seek local knowledge when planning a scuba dive.

I was on a dive trip to the Isle of Pines in New Caledonia with about ten other divers. We were on a boat dive on a reef and my buddy and I were last off the dive boat. The other divers had geared up and were into the water soon after the dive boat stopped.

Just before I rolled over the side, I asked the divemaster what was around. He said go to the left, the opposite way to the rest of the party. We followed his instructions and had a huge blowhole all to ourselves. We didn’t see one other diver as we swam through it again and again.

On return to the boat, the rest of the diving party complained that it was just an ordinary dive site, while we were ecstatic over our dive. Even today many of them still believe we were joking about the blowhole!

You might ask about the divemaster’s responsibility in this story. By rights he should have informed the entire party about the best site, but while he was busy securing the boat and putting out safety lines the majority of the party was gearing up and getting into the water.

In many cases the onus is on the diver to find out the best place to dive. Ask the divemaster, pick his or her brain; they have dived the site before and would be willing to impart their knowledge. Just make sure they have finished their divemaster duties first.

Posted by Bruce Iliff