RMS Rhone (night)

RMS Rhone, Salt Island, BVI			N 18° 22.1', W 64° 32.1'
Dive Number 119		Buddies Martin, Fernando	Surface temp 28°C	Starting pressure 3100psi
Depth 71ft	Visibility excellent	Time 36m	Water temp 28°C	Ending pressure 1100psi
Notes:	Our divemaster Pete says that the full moon makes for interesting currents and dives, which he claims was one of the interesting factors for this dive to have been ... well, the way it was. Our group of ten divers plus Emily (our divemaster) rode over to the dive site by dark, and attached our moorings. Jason and I entered the water on opposite sides of the dinghy. Thinking we'd swim to the line together, I swam toward him only to realize that we were quickly getting swept away from the line by a strong current. I thought Jason expressed concern about getting swept away, so I asked him to inflate his BCD and grabbed his tank stem and kicked hard, dragging him back to the boat (he clarified afterwards that he never asked for help). Nevertheless, he said he didn't want to go down, so I asked Martin if I could join him and Fernando, which he thought would be fine. Before descending the line, Emily asked if either of us had seen Charlie, who was supposed to have buddied up with her. We hadn't. The few of us descended the line together, where she found a total of eight divers and quickly wrote a single word message on her slate: "CHARLIE?". None of us had seen him, so she advised us to continue without her, and she ascended. In the effort to descend, Fernando has already used all but 1500 of his air, but he, Martin and I stayed together and toured the bow a little bit. Emily had warned us that a large grouper had adapted to divers, and used their lights to hunt for food. This turned out to be true - the grouper was probably 20 inches in length, and we all tried to dissuade it as best we could. Even at the bottom, the current was relatively strong, and so while there were lots of things to see, I was feeling more preoccupied with ensuring that the count of people returning to the boat was the same eight of us that Emily had left when she had gone up to find Charlie. Near the end of the dive, we encountered a small octopus (from which Martin got a little squeeze on his finger reminiscent of an octopine encounter a year earlier). We also encountered Emily again, which thankfully meant that Charlie had been located and recovered. The ascent was comical with all divers being blown like streamers on the line, and many of us reading our gauges and computers by the light of the diver above us since we had to hold the line so firmly with the other hand. After surfacing, we learned that Charlie had indeed been swept away by the strong current, and had to be retrieved by Pete, while Jason waited alone in darkness aboard the lone dinghy tied to the mooring line. I think that five labels for this post may be a record (tropical, night, wreck, deep, rescue)