420 Dive Log Australasia OCTOBER 2026

As Jim went deeper, he began to find breathing increasingly difficult. It felt like he had to suck the air from his regulator. Eventually, his regulator stopped working completely. He checked his SPG and saw the needle was pointing at zero. Incredibly, all the indications were that he had run out of air just a few minutes into the dive. He had nothing in his lungs and was now feeling a desperate urge to breathe, so he kicked hard and swam towards Michelle, slashing his hand across his throat urgently as he approached her and pointing at her octopus. She immediately deployed it and handed it to him when he arrived. Then, she held on to him as he took a couple of quick pulls on the regulator to fill his lungs, then continued to take long, slow breaths in an effort to get himself under control. Now he could breathe, but he was still confused. Instinctively, guided by habits formed during his technical diver training, Jim reached down behind his back with his left arm and pushed the bottom of his cylinder up, then reached behind his head with his right hand to check the status of his valve. He was surprised to find that, as he wrapped his fingers around the valve handle and twisted it back to check that it was open, not only did it move, but it moved a long way. Then it stopped. Jim checked his SPG again and saw that it was showing 180 Bar, so he switched back to his own regulator and took a tentative breath. Now, it was working perfectly. By Simon Pridmore I t was a perfect day for diving. Jim made a giant stride off the back of the boat and swam over to join his wife, Michelle. They exchanged signals and descended, heading for a collection of gorgonian fans on the reef wall at 30m, where their guide had promised to show them pygmy seahorses. No Turning Back

The emergency was over. Jim shrugged, gave Michelle an OK signal, and they continued their descent, down towards the pygmies. For the rest of the dive, as he swam along, Jim reflected on what had just happened. He was bewildered. Surely his valve must have been open when he started the dive; otherwise, he wouldn’t have had air to breathe during the first few minutes. He dismissed the possibility that Michelle might have crept up behind him and closed his valve as a prank. She would never do that. He then thought that perhaps there was something wrong with his regulator. But it was working perfectly at the beginning of the dive and again after he switched back to it. It was only later, when he sat down with Michelle and they ran through the possibilities, that they deduced what must have happened.

Jim remembered that a crew member who was not part of the dive team had been helping the divers

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DIVE LOG Australasia #420 October ‘ 26

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