Scuba diving Sunday at a depth of 165 feet, two to three miles off Makaha, and toting 150 pounds of gear, 32-year veteran diver Scott Folsom was prepared for anything.
Folsom, donned in fleece underneath a dry suit sealed at the neck and wrists, was carrying special equipment for deep diving including a rebreather, an underwater scooter and a spare scuba tank, as well as a 10-foot inflatable buoy and a signaling device.
Despite his equipment and experience, Folsom said Friday he made a mistake that could have cost him his life, but he remained calm as he spent the night in the dark ocean.
"I was fine," he said. "People were amazed I wasn’t panicking. I was very comfortable out there."
Folsom is embarrassed more than anything else after the Coast Guard rescued theEwa man at 1:10 a.m. Monday. He survived a 12-hour ordeal in the open ocean.
Folsom, who has a master’s degree in marine biology, also has under his belt environmental work for the military and dives in Antarctica, Norway, Australia and Samoa.
On Sunday, conditions were calm with a slight current when Folsom and his dive buddy jumped in at 11:30 a.m. to collect tropical fish, which he does "to support my habit," he says, while another friend manned the boat.
Folsom said the boat’s anchor line provided a way for him to keep track of his location. But Folsom said he "got a little ways away," examining the edge of a drop-off, "thought it was no big deal, just retrace my steps." But he had gotten away from the anchor line and couldn’t see the boat bottom or his dive buddy.
After doing a search grid for 15 minutes, he could see the sun and deployed the 10-foot buoy to mark his position.
While decompressing for 45 minutes, the current had gotten much stronger, and he discovered himself five miles straight off Kaena Point at 1:15 p.m. "When I surfaced, the seas were huge, and I was getting hammered, rolled, beat up, slammed."
He said his critical mistake was not staying with the anchor line, and that he probably should have tied himself to the bottom to prevent drifting while decompressing.
His buddies, not seeing him on the line, left an anchor tied to a buoy and started searching. They then went down to the bottom to look for him but at 3:30 p.m. called the Coast Guard.
Folsom’s signaling device failed. He said he went with the current and ended up on the Mokuleia side of Kaena Point. He used his underwater scooter and got within 200 yards of shore, then turned it off to try to conserve battery power. But the current pulled him back out, bringing him to the Makaha side.
"Oh man, I couldn’t catch a break," he said. Rather than feeling fear, he said, "I was more ticked off at myself."
But the sea was calm that night. "I was laying on my back, watching the stars. I was really in a Zen mode," he said. "I don’t want to minimize this. My wife said people might think, ‘You cocky jerk,’" but Folsom was uninjured and ocean conditions were fine.
Folsom was ready to hunker down, pulling his neoprene hood and mask over his face, but his dry suit was slowly leaking, and the backs of his knees were wet and badly chafing, and started to feel a little chilly.
That’s when he heard a couple of helicopters, but they zoomed past.
Folsom shined his scooter headlight up at the helicopter cockpit, waving it back and forth.
"I was extremely grateful" to the Coast Guard, he said.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Nesward Marfil, a rescue swimmer in the helicopter, said the team had been returning to refuel. "Right before we made our turn to Kanea Point to do a shoreline search, we saw the light," he said. "It turned out to be him.
"It’s a feeling of relief, then the adrenaline started," he said. Marfil was hoisted down and found Folsom in good mental and physical condition.
Because the helicopter didn’t have enough fuel to carry the two men, Marfil stayed a half-hour with Folsom until the Coast Guard Cutter Ahi picked them up along with Folsom’s gear.
Folsom was happy to return home to his wife, Alicia, and two daughters, 6 and 8.
Folsom, a pharmaceutical representative who turned 50 on Wednesday, said he took his wife out to her favorite restaurant in a birthday celebration. "I put her through a lot. I put a lot of people through a lot," he said.
