Leileiwa sinks, all divers and crew fine, (Garden Isle, Fiji
The second day of our dive vacation started out like the first, beautiful sunny and extremely calm seas. The ocean was so smooth it looked like glass.
First dive was started on a beautiful site with the sun shining, during the second half of the dive it started to cloud over. By the end of our surface interval it was raining substantially. By the end of the second dive, it was pouring, the seas had picked up and there were wind waves. We all managed to get back on the bouncing boat without hurting themselves.
The stern of the boat is normally quite low and water was washing onto it with each passing wave. The crew wanted to get off the mooring and head back, so some of us helped with gear on the back of the boat. Cameras were stowed in the wheel house. Some of the divers were asked to go onto the bow to distribute weight.
The captain was unable to start the boat, the engines and batteries had flooded. This left us with no communication to other boats or the dive shop. Cell phones were not working for whatever reason.
A small tin dingy usually came out to the larger boats after dives to take tanks back to the shop for filling so when the dive boats came back they only had to remove BC’s, regulators and fins.
Lucky for us this little boat had braved the weather and seas to come out to us. It was quickly decided that we were to abandon the dive vessel and get into the small tinny. We were given life jackets. We headed out on the tinny with 15 divers and two boat men. Thank goodness these local Fijians have a great sense of direction; because we could not see any land masses from all the rain and clouds and waves. Soon they knew for sure which way to go and we had a long slow ride back to the dive shop and resort. We were all wearing our suits and some of us hoods as the pelting rain would hurt if we took these off.
When we arrived back, the little boat went back out and we all showered and dressed and went to lunch. At the end of lunch we were told that the dive boat had sunk and the three dive masters on the boat had swam 1.5 hrs to a shore with a resort and were able to call and tell us they were ok.
When they arrived back they of course were exhausted. They stated that the dive boat had sunk within 15 minutes of us leaving it. It went down stern first. They were able to each grab fins; but only one had a mask. They had taken her off the mooring and had no idea how deep she was when it sunk.
The next day 4 divers and a boat man found the boat and each did two dives apiece to recover gear. First they brought back up all our cameras and some BC’s and regulators. This repeated for the next two days and they brought up everything they could find. There were some fins lost and never recovered; but everything lese was found and recovered.
Not one camera housing or Nikonos flooded, many housings had scratches and different colors of paint on them; but all were in fine shape. Everything sat on the bottom for a minimum of 20 hours in 120 feet. She settled on the bottom on her bottom in an area of much current.
Before she sunk, they had put as much gear as possible into the wheelhouse and closed the door.
The dive guides at Garden Isle are to be commended for their quick actions for our rescue and tenacity in recovering our gear in pretty nasty conditions.
Brandon, Tawake, Lui, Georgio, & Jimmy were all involved in our rescue and recovery of gear.
The first day we felt very lucky that we were all alive and had gotten back on a boat. The next day we felt lucky again that all cameras had been recovered without a drop of water inside them. The third day we felt lucky again as almost all of our gear was recovered and the fourth day we felt lucky again to have 99% of everything returned and our dive guides alive, albeit tired.
I would highly recommend diving with Aquatrek at Garden Isle Resort and all 15 of us will be returning in the near future.
If you would like more details please write to me directly terry@ulcs.com
PS. A S&S large dome cover was also found; must have been left from the Digital shootout two weeks before. If you lost one please contact me.
