My father always had a rule about SCUBA diving; never go diving with people he didn’t know well. Well, one Saturday afternoon down in the Keys, he broke that rule.

He and two guys that he’d just met went out about 10 miles from the coast to dive. It was a beautiful day and all looked good. The entered the water and dove to about 80 feet. They headed East away from the Keys. Not long into the dive, the two guys he was with took off, leaving him behind. And alone. It was at that moment that his regulator failed. He tried all of the normal things, still no air was coming out of the mouth piece. Running out of air, he was close to panicking.

He swung the SCUBA tank off of his back and hung it across his chest. Cracking the valve where the air lines attach to the tank he let out a large bubble of air into his cupped hand. He then breathed that in. He had sunk probably 20 feet since losing air. It took a dozen or so bubbles of air to get to the surface. Keep in mind, he was too deep to start to just shoot up to the surface or he’d get the bends.

Once he’d surfaced, he dropped the SCUBA tank and swam for the boat.

He never told me if he had words with the other two men. I never asked. He did say that upon making it onto the boat that he had a near religious experience.