The only time I thought I was screwed was when we capsized our diveboat and had to get rescued at sea, at night.
We headed for a quick night dive on an artificial reef off called the Yukon, it used to be a Canadian Naval Ship.
Conditions were ok 2-3 ft swells at decent intervals. We geared up and did about a 70 min dive on the shipwreck. Once back to the upline we noticed the swell had picked up considerably and we noticed the bilge pumps were not working even though the switch was on. The boat was taking on water from the cross swells pretty fast.
We had everyone move to the front of the boat to offset the wieght of the water, but as the boat turned east, a wave came in the swim step, and we were instantly waist deep and the motors were completly submerged.
At this point, I was thinking that everything thing would just work out. Until the captain picked up the radio and issued a “may day” distress call.
Less than 2 minutes after the call, the boat flipped, throwing us and all the gear in the water.
One diver was in the cuddy cabin getting life vest, he was trapped when the boat flipped and had to swim out after the boat settled. The rest of us were pitched clear of the boat and were lucky the the tanks didn’t hit anyone. The boat didn’t sink but floated a little above the water, so we held on to it for or the other debris from the boat.
Floating in the water, after midnight, reality hit me like a truck.
“Did we really just sink a boat, at night, two miles off the coast?”
We waited in the water a good 30 minutes before the lifeguard arrived. (This area, the lifeguard/coast guard are almost the same thing.) Had we not gotten the distress call out, we would have been in the water all night.
Anyway, attached is the report from the paper. They got a couple of facts wrong, as it was two miles and we were in the water for about 30 mins but it was oh shit, I’m screwed moment. It was the only time I feared for my life.
The boat was totalled and we ended up finding all of our gear over the next week, which is amazing since it was in 100 feet of water.