Ryan Chapman and his friend experienced a harrowing moment while free diving and scuba diving about five kilometers off Mindarie, Western Australia. After 45 minutes underwater, the duo resurfaced to find that their boat had vanished. The incident took place at the causeway to Plum Island, a well-known fishing spot. Now, Chapman is using his experience to help bring awareness to diving safety.
Alexa Chapman, Photo Credit Matthew Schwartz When Chapman surfaced, she was immediately met with a wave of superficiality in relation to her experience. “In hindsight we probably should’ve taken a moment to reflect on the decision-making but we figured we’d just continue to send it,” he said. For as terrifying as the discovery was, he didn’t panic. Chapman and his restored mate waved down passing boats for assistance. Fortunately, they were rescued an hour and a half later.
The two divers were found much closer to where they had come up. Once rescued, Chapman and his friend were pumped to figure out the precise drift of their boat. Even more impressively, they located it about two kilometers from their drop-off location.
“We found the anchor, re-anchored and had another dive. This time we had one person on the boat and one in the water,” Chapman recounted, highlighting their proactive approach following the incident. Once they got their boat back, they dove right back into dive tourism. Yet their determination and will to continue playing the game they love was unmistakable, despite the earlier trauma.
Looking back on the ordeal, Chapman admitted that his outlook was grim at first. “I thought the ship had already sunk at first,” he confessed, remembering how sure they all felt in their ability to make it back to land if they needed to. “I was pretty convinced we could navigate our way back to shore if we had to, but it would have taken several hours and the boat would be long gone.”
Chapman’s inspiration to share his footage and story comes from wanting to raise awareness of the dangers of diving for other divers. “The reason I agreed to air it and own up to stupidity was for awareness – it’s easy to get complacent and think everything’s all good,” he explained. The bottom line He knows that it isn’t easy to admit mistakes, but this is an important step that will allow the government to learn from them. That said, in hindsight, it really could have been a lot worse. It’s a courageous thing to admit your own stupidity,” he said.