IRAP Administrator
08-04-2007, 12:57 PM
I was thinking this passage is just taking off, and I should have worn my drysuit. The line was spooling out beneath my hand, virgin cave lay ahead of me. We had already run one reel out and switched to a new spool. All of a sudden I noticed there was no resistance on the line. Uh oh.
I turned to look and all I saw was the frayed end of the line I was holding swaying in the water about 7 feet behind me. My partner was paralleling me checking the other wall for leads. Visibility was not bad, but short enough that I couldn't see the far end of the line.
Knowing it couldn't be more than 15-20 feet or so behind me, I quickly turned around 180 degrees and gave a few fin strokes back. It helps to have a wall within sight for reference. Sure enough, there it was waving at me. I took the two ends and secured them together. Meanwhile my partner had come over and seen me patching the line. We continued on until we ran out of line, turned the dive, and exited without further incident.
It brings up a couple of interesting questions, how far could it have snapped back? I could have swam back a good distance since we were taking regular bearings, and knew there weren't any side leads for quite a ways. A lost line search might not have done much good unless I went back beyond the last tie off. Although the line was frayed, it was in midwater that it broke, so it must have been an existing weak spot in the line that caused the break.
I turned to look and all I saw was the frayed end of the line I was holding swaying in the water about 7 feet behind me. My partner was paralleling me checking the other wall for leads. Visibility was not bad, but short enough that I couldn't see the far end of the line.
Knowing it couldn't be more than 15-20 feet or so behind me, I quickly turned around 180 degrees and gave a few fin strokes back. It helps to have a wall within sight for reference. Sure enough, there it was waving at me. I took the two ends and secured them together. Meanwhile my partner had come over and seen me patching the line. We continued on until we ran out of line, turned the dive, and exited without further incident.
It brings up a couple of interesting questions, how far could it have snapped back? I could have swam back a good distance since we were taking regular bearings, and knew there weren't any side leads for quite a ways. A lost line search might not have done much good unless I went back beyond the last tie off. Although the line was frayed, it was in midwater that it broke, so it must have been an existing weak spot in the line that caused the break.