As part of BSAC ’ s 70th anniversary , SCUBA presents an account of a daring rescue carried out by the late Reg Vallintine , while he was working at Zembra Island , Tunisia , in 1965 . The story is told by Reg himself , who went on to become BSAC ’ s first Director , and is reproduced here with his permission . It offers a portrait of a bygone era , when parts of the Mediterranean were still a frontier and recompression facilities not always accessible .
TRUESTORIES
A time for heroes
As part of BSAC ’ s 70th anniversary , SCUBA presents an account of a daring rescue carried out by the late Reg Vallintine , while he was working at Zembra Island , Tunisia , in 1965 . The story is told by Reg himself , who went on to become BSAC ’ s first Director , and is reproduced here with his permission . It offers a portrait of a bygone era , when parts of the Mediterranean were still a frontier and recompression facilities not always accessible .
Ron and Linden Blake , BSAC First Class Divers who had previously holidayed with Club Med , enjoyed their first visit to Zembra in September 1965 . I took them and another diver , Neil Peterson , into the Grotte des Pigeons . We decided to look at a cave at 30m , on our ascent from a deeper dive .
Towards the end of the dive , we saw the cave entrance just above , at a depth of 31 metres . It was quite large and there was plenty of light inside , and so I took Ron and Linden in , while Neil stayed at the entrance . They had torches , but did not need to use them . After a few moments , I turned to check the way out and saw , to my alarm , that the sand floor we had been swimming over was in fact silt and was being stirred up by our fins into a fog that obscured the light .
I indicated that we should get out at once and took Linden ’ s arm while Ron acknowledged my signals and started swimming out on my other side . Unbeknown to me , he saw a slipper lobster on the roof of the cave and left us to take it . When Ron turned round , he saw Linden ’ s fin disappearing , but then a huge cloud of silt billowed up and he could see nothing through his mask at all . He tried to find the way out , but it was impossible . He decided to stay where he was , near the roof of the cave , hoping that the sand would clear . He held on to his lobster .
Reg Vallintine in diving kit typical of the mid-1960s ; inset , a contemporary poster for the dive centre at Zembra
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