The recent flooding throughout Texas has caused the rivers to pump massive quantities of fresh water into the Gulf. This stirs up silt, turns the water from blue to green, and affects the wildlife that live in salt water. Since Little Sara is so close to shore (around 10 mi), it was in the mixing zone of the flow from the Rio Grande river.
As you probably know, you are more buoyant in salt water than in fresh. As you descend, the increasing pressure compresses the air trapped in your wetsuit, your buoyancy compensating device (an inflatable bladder a diver wears on their back), and even your lungs. This makes you less buoyant and you sink faster.
As I entered the water and began my descent, all was normal. You could see distinct lines in the water where salt water and fresh water were mixing. You see a similar effect when you pour alcohol into water: kind of an uneven swirling in the liquid. When I hit the fresh water layer, I sank faster. What's worse, beneath me, at about 50 ft and getting rapidly closer, was an opaque silt layer where it got very dark and visibility dropped to less than a foot.
When I entered the cold, dark zone, I was trying desperately to keep my buddy in sight, I looked at my gauges to check my depth. My dive computer was off, indicating failure. This device reads the depth and time and tells me how long I can safely stay under water without suffering "the bends." I tried to restart it, but it was dead. The deeper I got the faster I descended, and I was distracted by the computer and couldn't compensate for buoyancy changes fast enough.
Luckily, I carry a backup computer and I moved it around so I could read it, juggling the camera rig lashed to my right wrist. Remember, the whole time I'm concentrating on my gauges, I'm falling faster and faster to the bottom through dark, murky water. I finally hit a rig crossbar on the bottom at around 97 ft. I signaled to my buddy that I was having gauge problems and that we should ascend to where I could see my gauges.
I learned later that my buddy was looking for stonefish that often sit, camouflaged, on top of the crossbars and in the silt on the bottom. Stonefish have a poisonous spine on their back that can inflict very serious damage on an unsuspecting diver. Like one that drops suddenly onto their back. Fortunately, we didn't find any stonefish.
I wish that were all. During my second dive I was hovering at around 35 ft, just watching the fish and the other divers. I slowly rotated around and found myself face to face with one of the largest barracudas I've ever seen -- probably 8 ft long. Its jaws were open and it was looking intently at me. I now know the feeling of ones "blood running cold." For the first time, I was afraid of a marine creature. It's funny, because I have dived with barracuda many times, and have no real fear of them. Even sharks don't really scare me, but having a 'cuda this size focused on me was a VERY unsettling experience. I found out later that I had a shiny metal tag clipped to the shoulder of my gear. The lesson: Don't hang shiny things from your gear.
Oh, well, at least I learned a lot from these dives! I kept my cool and kept the dives safe, and I am now a little better diver than I was before this trip.
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