Barrens Hut 08-02-14
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Barrens Hut 08-02-14
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The Split 10-01-15

 

  At the surface interval at Gibbon with the other boats we were told how good it was at Barrens Hut so we headed there. We missed The Split with the anchor but it held on some rocks opposite the 2nd cave.  There was a current so we put out a pull line on one side. Wayne went in first, then Leo, then Fiona and I was last.

Getting down was no big deal and at the bottom it was cold but the viz was great.  The anchor was secure, the lift bag floating above it and the green flashing light was very clear and easy to see.

We seemed to split into 2 groups, Fiona with Wayne and Leo with me. We swam through the 2nd cave and found a very large cuttle on the other side.  The usual bastard trumpeters were there too.  Off to the chimney and I went into the cave and up the chimney.  I saw Leo coming up behind me when I headed up the chimney but he did not come up so I swam around back down to the cave.  Then I saw Wayne and Fiona headed to the chimney so I waited at the exit to see if I could get some pics of them coming out.  And I did.

Then we headed back to the 2nd cave, more pics of the cuttle and then out of the cave on the deep side.  Leo signalled that he was heading back to the anchor.  From where we were it was less than 10m and in good viz.  About 5 mins later I headed to the anchor.  Meeting Wayne there we could not see Leo.  I thought he might have gone past so Wayne went further north to see if he could see Leo.  He couldn't se Leo so we assumed he had ascended.

We ascended but part way up the anchor caught and so the drop line ended up near horizontal with 3 of us hanging onto it and barely staying below 5m.  Wayne broke his safety stop and got back onto the boat.  Leo was not there.  Fiona and I finished our safety stop, unaware that Leo was not in the boat.  Once in the boat we got the anchor up as fas as we could, while looking down current for Leo.  No sign at all.  We started to head south which was the direction of the current.  In the distance we saw a fishing boat pull up and one of then dive into the water.  This was odd so he headed there fast.  As we got closer we saw Leo hanging onto the back of the boat.  He was exhausted, he looked very grey.

He had no air in his BCD and no safety sausage up, so very hard for him.  He had twins which are much heaver and hard to keep positively buoyant without air in the BCD.

We managed to get him back onto our boat, get his gear off him and g

 

This site was last updated 12/02/14