This is a dive that took place the first year I was certified. You know I already had 80! dives under my belt and a brand new Stress and Rescue certification and new equipment and don't you know that I was one of the best divers around town or so I thought. (Legend in my own mind).

With me were two very experienced Captains who knew their way around Lake Huron. We discovered that the loran was not working so the two expert pilots decided that we would find it, (at night) using the compass and sheer instinct.
(like looking for a needle in a haystack) after about an hour the loran started working again and we made a decision to dive on the Regina instead because it was closer. The Regina is a passenger ship that sunk in the great storm of 1913 and all hands were lost. It now sits upside down in 86' of water now it is an underwater graveyard. Little did I know that very soon this could possibly be my graveyard.

Let's Go Diving!
We pulled up to the mooring buoy and tied off. It was a beautiful summer night, it was warm the stars were shining we had very little breeze and less than 1 foot swells. We divided up into two teams, My regular dive buddy who I will call Ben and myself were one team, and the other two divers formed the other team.

Dive Plan
Same as always, jump in, look at a bunch of shit & when we get to around 2/3 of a tank come back. Simple!
(I mean really, I have done this 80 times already what could go wrong?)

The Dive
My buddy I and were the first team in the water. Just before we jumped in this is the comment I made "Do you think I need my line reel?" Here is the answer I got.

"How many times have you been on this wreck, how would you get lost?"

OK, No Problem
I left the line reel on the dive boat and I jumped in. The descent down was just like all the other ones except for one thing, It was pitch black, all I could see was about 20' in front of me in the beam of my dive light going down the bright yellow line. No Problem I had done several night dives before and this really didn't bother me. This was however my first night dive on this shipwreck.

So Far, So Good
When we got to the wreck everything was just the way I remember it. My buddy and I looked at each other and did a buddy check, we signaled to each other OK. Next my buddy pointed to himself, and then to me and pointed once left, and then once right. This was a very familiar sign to me it meant, "Do you want to lead, or do you want me to lead, and which way do you want to go." I pointed at him for him to lead then I pointed both ways and shrugged my shoulders. Ben knew what this meant right away, for him to lead and I didn't care which way we went.

So Far, Maybe Not So Good?
Here is my first mistake. Ben started leading the way and I started blindly following not paying attention as to which way we were going visually. (A compass is useless on an steel hull ship.) As we swam along I was immersed in looking at the damage done to this ship when it sank. Metal I-Beams are all twisted like spaghetti and large plates of steel are bent like paper. As we went along I started noticing that I had never seen the beams and stuff I was looking at. I started to shine the light above me and I noticed large plates of steel above my head. I dove a little further and still had stuff above my head. This is the thought that came to my mind. "I think that Ben has accidentally penetrated inside the ship and doesn't realize it", and "No he wouldn't do that with out the line reel and also without telling me first", and "He is too good of a diver to be lost." Next thought, "Maybe I should ask him if he is lost"?
(What a concept!)

So Far Getting Worse
I signaled Ben to stop, I looked straight at him and pointed one thumb in one direction, and the other in the opposite direction. (My intent of this was "which way out".) Ben's interpretation was different, to him it meant "which way do you want to go". He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head at me. I shined my light up a little higher so I could see Ben's face. This is what I saw, Ben wears contacts and with a mask on it makes his eyes look really wide opened and bulging, kind of a surprised look. Add darkness, some fear on my part and a spotlight it looks like the look of terror! He then turned around an started swimming away. You know I followed him because if he didn't know where he was, I most certainly had no idea which way to go. I noticed as we were swimming along that we were kind of following an I-Beam. (Great time to start paying attention!)

Are We There Yet?
Here are some of the thoughts that started going through my head. I looked at my air gauge and noted that I still had around 1200 lbs. left. Here is what I thought, "Man I have 1200 lbs. of air left, it's going to take forever to die" all I could keep thinking was that I would try to remain calm and when I get to 200 lbs. just make a final dash any which way. I could picture myself bouncing around like a pin ball machine trying to escape this shipwreck. I also had visions of of my fingers clawing through the tips of my gloves and my fingers bleeding trying to claw my way out. I was convinced that we were trapped in a shipwreck and we were going to die here. I kept thinking that I could be at home laying on my nice soft couch watching a good movie, but No I had to be some kind of hero and go shipwreck diving at 1:00 in the morning instead.
( Why is it that right when we think that we are going to die we have some of the most profound thoughts?)

Saved? fake Out!
All of a sudden I thought I saw some light in the distance, is it? Yes! the other dive team. They traveled right up to us staying a little bit to the left, and then they continued right on by. Being the good divers that they were, surly they were not lost. They were kind of going in the direction we had just come from, the same direction as the beam was going behind us. I kind of had a feeling that that was the way out but I wasn't sure. A new thought dawned on me, "What if for whatever reason would I do if my dive buddy died right now, why oh why did I ever blindly follow him?" At this point my buddy turned and started heading back down that beam. Yeah that's right you know I followed him. About 3 or 4 min later I thought I saw a light again, a little further and I could tell. It was the other dive team going back the way they came in the first place. I signaled to them which way and he shook his head like he didn't know and just kept swimming in the other direction. What went through my mind? "Oh Shit! he is lost too and we are all going to die down here."

As I was ascending the line I began to calm down. My male ego started kicking in and I was thinking "Don't ever let these guys know how scared you were because they won't want to go diving with you any more." It sounded like a good plan anyway.

The Boat!
As soon as I surfaced I guess my ego wasn't so important after all. because as I ripped my regulator out of my mouth I happily shouted "I TALKED TO GOD DOWN THERE!" All of my dive buddies kind of looked at me funny and said "What?" They had no idea that I was lost or that I was scared. After talking about the dive here is what really happened. The dive was down close to the mudline and the wreckage that I kept seeing was just some over hanging metal. We never penetrated the wreck and all three of the other divers knew where we were the whole time. After we laughed and joked about it for a while the leader of the other team said "Ready for another dive?" I was the only one that shouted out YES! They all thought that this was funny seeing I was so scared. When the other diver saw I was serious we both suited up and did another dive. This dive went way different because I didn't rely on the other diver, I did my own navigation.

Afterthoughts
When I got back on the boat I told the divers why I did the second dive. I figured if I was going to get back in the water I better hurry up before I had too much time to think about it. I learned a lot from that dive.

Do not ever count on anybody but yourself when diving.
Carry everything you need with you at all times.
If you are uncomfortable, End the dive!
Plan your dive, and dive your plan.
Never dive beyond the scope of your training.
Most important, Leave your big ass ego at home!