When a diver enters the water backwards off the side of the boat, it is a rather abrupt endeavor so when I did that with my iPhone in my pocket, the phone had an abrupt introduction to the sea and promptly sank to the bottom.
I didn’t know any of this in the moment. I didn’t know the phone was in my pocket and I certainly didn’t know it flew out of my pocket and sank.
Chino did. He saw it. He sees everything. He is more aware of the happenings in his surrounding environment than anyone I know. That’s what makes him a great dive master. He saw the phone sink 45 feet to the bottom of the ocean and promptly zipped down to retrieve it.
He picked it up out of the sand, came to the surface, handed it to Sarco on the boat. Sarco immediately rinsed it in the bucket of fresh water and set it out to dry.
After the dive, Chino asked me if I knew I’d left my phone in my pocket when I entered the water. “…Ah, no….” I responded. He filled me in on what had happened. My only response was, “Well, SHIT!”
When I got into the boat, I picked up the phone, turned it on and started taking pictures. Click, click– works like a champ!
That incident was a couple months ago. What’s good about it is I used to worry about my phone getting rained on/splashed on when out in the boat.
Not anymore!
