Читать книгу Deeper into the Darkness онлайн

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Gary moved onto the lift platform first, as I held onto the grab line strung along the side of the vessel, waiting my turn. Once he was standing on the submerged platform, in water up to his chest, he marshalled all his cylinders, reels, torches and kit to avoid a snag before giving a nod of his head to crewman Ross Dowrie. The diver lift rose up from the water until the platform was at deck level, where Ross helped Gary and his 85kg of kit over the deck, and got him carefully seated on the kitting-up bench.

With Gary safely aboard, the process was repeated for me, and I was also soon on deck, being assisted to sit down in my heavy kit by Ross, who quickly whipped off my bailout cylinders, closed the valves and stowed them upright in the cylinder racks.

Once I was safely seated on the bench, I remained fully rigged and breathing from my rebreather, relaxing and breathing almost pure O2 through the rebreather for 3–4 minutes. I had learned the hard way after a bad exercise-induced bend in the North Channel off Ireland, that it’s best to sit still and simply do nothing after a deep technical dive.