One particular day, day 6 of my trip, was one of those days where we should have stayed in. There were two divers signed up for a dive trip to Canyon Reef. Since there was a lot of space on the boat, two other people from the shop and I decide to join the dive. As soon as we get out of the bay were we dock, we start a roller coaster ride. We joke about how they should be paying extra since it was an amusement park also. We get to the buoy we think is the Canyon Reef buoy. However, the buoy was too close to shore. With the larger waves, the waves were breaking over the top of the buoy. At this point we probably should have turned back and canceled the dive for the day. Confused we wander up and down the coast for a little trying to find the right buoy. We finally settle on the next buoy up as the Canyon Reef buoy. The other one must be a fishing buoy that some island guy set up. So we tie up to the buoy and notice that once we drift back we are pretty close to breaking waves again. At this point we decide to cut our losses and head home. Mother Nature had a different plan.
Three waves come rolling in bigger then the other waves that we had seen on the ride out. Since they were bigger they broke earlier, right over the top of the boat. Wave one sent everyone into the back of the boat. Wave two we all bailed over the side. Wave three sent the boat to the bottom. Now we have the dive master, an instructor, two dive master candidates, the captain, and two customers stranded about 100 yards off shore with ten foot waves pushing them towards the coast aptly named the iron shore.
Lets take a moment to discuss this iron shore. It was not the typical sandy beach that you picture when you think of a tropical island. It was formed from volcanic flow leaving very sharp rock formations all along the coast. Not a friendly landing point. Fortunately, sort of, there was an inlet just up the way about 50 yards.
As the boat goes down, some of the gear pops to the surface. We find a couple of the shops SCUBA set ups and a few pairs of fins. I get one of my fins and a SCUBA set up to tow back with us. We try to save as much as we can from the wreck but do not want to get too close to the wreck because it was bouncing up and down still tied to the mooring ball. I am towing one fin and SCUBA gear while swimming into ten foot waves when one wave crashes over me. I dive through it just fine but the gear tangles up around my arm and I am dragged back toward the iron shore. Another wave is coming and I try to drop the gear not wanting to get any closer to the iron shore until I make the inlet. However, the gear holds on and I am pulled even closer to the iron shore. The second wave helps untangle the gear and I ditch it. At this point I don't care about anything but saving the other people and my self. We all make it to the inlet, except the instructor who has booties on and decides to climb out over the iron shore. The inlet was not as helpful as we hoped. It was only a couple inches deep at some points and the waves were crashing through tossing us when we got in the way. At one point I stop and brace myself for a wave. It does not help. My handles break off and I roll. I look in my hands once I come to a stop and of all the things to think after being tossed ten feet by a wave, "Oh great, now I am destroying coral too" is what passed through my mind.
We all make in to relative safety and decide to swim across the bay to a dock and hopefully a path we can follow back to a road and the back to the shop. We all climb out of the ocean and are greeted by some people who work at a neighboring dive shop. They come prepared with a first aid kit. There is only one injury. The dive master got a cut right above the knee. He got a band aid and then the second aid came out, cigarettes. Everyone was amazed when even after being on a sinking boat, I did not want a cigarette.
As we were on our way back to the shop, people from Ocean Connections show up to help us. They see that we are all taken care of and decide to go on a hunt to see what gear they can find. They recover all the shop gear, the gas cans, our oxygen kit, and the two way radio from the boat. At this point all that is missing is the boat itself, the gear of the instructor on the dive and my nearly brand new gear.
We got back to the shop and just sort of sat around stunned. It did not take long for liquor to show up to help with the shock. One of our divers who had been with us for a week was an ER doctor in New York and she heard about the incident and came to shop. She looked at the one injury and decided it needed stitches. The hospitals in Roatan are not that nice so we looked through our first aid kit and found sutures. He took a couple shots of rum and she stitched him up in our classroom. We leave the dive shop a while later and I am promised that we will search out my gear tomorrow and see what we can salvage from the wreck.
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