AD 2017 Q3

FROM THE SAFETY STOP
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The South Pass of Fakarava offers a
spectacular opportunity to view gray
reef sharks, but close encounters
require divers to wait patiently as deep
as 80 feet. This can lead to significant
nitrogen loading in the body’s tissues.
DAN WAS THERE FOR US
Text and photos by Stephen Frink
It was an amazing day of diving. We were off
South Fakarava in the Tuamotus (see Page
72) and had hit the current exactly right. The
tide was coming in for the second and third
dives of the day, and the visibility exceeded
120 feet. We saw large Napoleon wrasse and
massive schools of bigeye, and the grouper were starting
to build up on the reef in anticipation of a spawning
event later that month. But the star
of the show was the famed “wall of
sharks.” That’s what divers come to
Fakarava to see, and there it was —
a parade of gray reef sharks cruising
the reef line at 80 to 90 feet.
The sharks like to cruise the
edge of the drop-off; to get near
them you need to pick a spot of
rubble, control your breathing and
remain motionless. There’s nothing
to be gained by chasing them. They
need to come to you, and for that
to happen you need to settle in,
be quiet and get a little bit lucky.
At 80-90 feet you take on nitrogen
fairly quickly, and you have to be
pretty disciplined to leave such a
magic encounter in which the sharks just keep coming
and coming and coming. You might see 100 sharks at a
time (or maybe the same 25 swim by four times). There
are a lot of sharks.
Luck comes to the prepared and those willing to invest
the time. Sarah invested. She dived to 71 feet for 53
minutes, 93 feet for 60 minutes and 83 feet for 55 minutes.
She was diving with nitrox 32 (32 percent oxygen) and
had set her computer accordingly.
After dinner Sarah came to the
main salon to speak with the crew
about a mottled rash that had just
developed on her abdomen and
back. Having recently published
photos for an article about skin
bends we ran in Alert Diver (DAN
Was There for Me, Winter 2017), I
recognized the rash right away. We
administered pure oxygen and used
Skype to call the DAN Emergency
Hotline: +1 (919) 684-9111.
We were about as remote as
you can get, but communications
on the liveaboard were just fine.
It was 2 a.m. Eastern Time when
I spoke to the DAN medical
12 | SUMMER 2017