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Mike is not his real name, though I'm not sure I should protect the identity of this Caribbean dive guide, who I heard about from my new Beachcomber Leak in Antigua.
My Leak takes advantage of business trips to follow his diving hobby in these waters. This spring he booked some diving with a local operator, aka Mike, who runs the business.
Mike did not take part in the first dives. He was feeling unwell and said he was taking pills that prevented him diving. But other dive leaders at the centre gave my Leak two first-class dives.
The next day Mike appeared recovered, if a little tired, and led a good dive in 23m and then a second dive that my Leak found excellent, and which included swimming with a dolphin and her calf.
It was only when Mike led his group back at the end of this dive to a sandy plateau at 9m that my Leak had a shock. He saw Mike slowly settle face-down in the sand and lie still. A few exhaust bubbles came from him, but he seemed as limp as a rag doll.
"I made eye contact and signalled OK?" says my Leak. "He stared back and nodded listlessly. I signalled again and this time I got a hand signal in confirmation. His eye contact was good but his breathing was very shallow.
"I looked away to confer with the other divers, who had gathered round in a circle. As I looked back I saw Mike unbuckle his BC and slip out of it. I grabbed it before it floated away, holding Mike's upper arm with my other hand. I thought the pills he had taken the day before were reacting in some strange way.
"Mike then took his reg out of his mouth and signalled with both hands a very lazy 'let it go, let it go'. He signalled to us to do a three-minute/5m safety stop and that he was going to swim around. He prised open my grip on him and swam slowly away.
My Leak continued his safety stop, watching Mike swim around in the 25m viz. Mike was aboard the boat by the time the others got back .
"All the divers demanded to know what he thought he was doing. He told us he was an accomplished freediver in his youth and liked to keep his hand in.
"The face-down antics on the sand were simply to lower his heart rate and slow his breathing before slipping the BC off."
My Caribbean Leak asked Beachcomber if he considered this appropriate behaviour for a dive guide on duty and leading other less-experienced holiday divers.
Beachcomber's full verdict is of course unprintable. Briefly, Mike should never be allowed to take any divers out again.
He clearly has no idea how close he could have come to killing a less experienced diver than my Leak, whom I have instructed to send a full report to the authorities who control diving in the area.
I hope this means you will never meet Mike or anyone like him on your travels.
A recent Sunday newspaper holiday review contained a top tip for warmwater divers. "The diving in Egypt would be as good as anywhere in the world if it weren't for the crowds," it ran. "So you have to know how to avoid them - which means the (hotel name withheld on reasonable grounds)... It has a faster boat than the other dive operations and that gets you out to the sites before the pack.
"So just as you are getting out of the water, you see the armada of other boats arriving. You'll see masses of turtles, eels, lion and crocodilefish and corals."
Does this mean the start of a Red Sea Grand Prix for dive boats? And is it really all down to speed? Beachcomber would be pretty miffed when, after rising before dawn and bombing out to the dive site on the fastest boat in the Red Sea, he arrived to see all those divers on the liveaboards anchored there overnight climbing out at the end of their morning dives.
Beachcomber is not a great one for sending birthday cards. It is nice to be remembered of course, particularly when you reach the Grand Old Man stage, which is when most people of that age suffer from convenient losses of memory.
Beachcomber has, however, sent an 80th birthday card to one of the greatest living Englishmen, one of the few who made British diving the huge success it is today.
But being Beachcomber, he asked for something in return - a small donation to the Diver Lifeboat Fund, no less.
I have to tell you that no reply has yet been received by any of my secretaries. Should I name a name, sir, or will your memory be returning very shortly?
Beachcomber is worried about PADI Instructor exams. Only last month I told of a candidate who learnt that he had failed, despite his otherwise high marks, because he could not describe how to tie a simple sheet bend.
This, of course, is a knot that divers are called on to tie on almost every dive on which the shotline snaps as the result of over-enthusiastic swinging of the lead, and has to be joined to the slightly thicker anchor rope.
Our wrathful candidate pointed out that he had never been taught knots on any PADI course. When he complained along those lines, he was threatened with having to take his Open Water Diver again as well.
PADI course directors have leapt to defend their exams. Candidates are given their assignments at the beginning of the instructor exam, so they should take the opportunity to get someone to show them how to tie the knot, or look it up in a manual, I was told. Look it up? That sounds dangerously like cheating to us veteran exam-takers.
Still, one PADI course director did suggest that I was wrong to demand five crisp cracklies from the failed sheet-bender, because he was only following the standards set by PADI.
He said I had fined the wrong person, and thought that whoever threatened him with having to take his Open Water again should pay double, as it was not only rude but not very professional.
So I will await the delivery to me of 10 crisp cracklies for the Diver Lifeboat Fund from the "rude and unprofessional" PADI examiner who seems to have got knotted into this affair.
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