Another view of the surface before the dive

The thought of going to a depth that at 100+feet (30m) where you have the density of 10 stories of water pushing on your body and equipment takes some getting used to. When I first started diving my greatest fear was sinking to the bottom. Through experience that fear has changed to a fear of reaching the surface to quickly after going deep. Due to all the problems rapid decompression cause - nitrogen bubbles stuck in your blood stream and nitrogen narcosis you never want to ascend to the surface quickly after going even a few metres below the surface. A safety stop at 5m for three minutes is a very good idea, however if you don't set your boyance correctly when you get to 5m for your stop you could actually overshoot it and go straight to the top. For a shallower dive of a short time this may not be an issue but after going down 30m the equivalet to a 10 story building a slow ascent is a must. The dive for me went well, I must admit I felt very anxious as we approached the final depth, but the beauty of the sea floor/wall was incredible as was the animal and plant life. We stayed at that depth for 5 minutes or so and began a slow swim up the island shear rock face (vertical). We got to our saftey stop at 5 metres with no issue. Two minutes into the pause an out of control diver that was caught by a current swung their air tank right into my face and mask, knocking the mask from my face allowing salt water to rush in at my eyes. For just a brief second I felt a bit paniced and started to breath rapidly, but due to training I calmed down and prioritized what I needed to do. First I slowed my breathing so that I didn't consume to much air and become positively boyant and shoot to the surface, I dumpted some extra air from my suit and stabalised myself on the rock wall. Once all of this was in control I was able to put the mask right and clear the water. My heart was racing but I felt good working my way through that minor crisis. We completed our pressure stop and moved on to the boat and surface. Success feels so good when failure can potentially be so bad....