During our Master Diving training course, we were instructed to do a shore-entry navigation dive in our buddy pairs. This meant kitting up on the beach, gently easing into the waves, setting the appropriate navigation course, putting fins on, submerging beneath the waves and setting off in the right direction. The intention was to swim out 30m, surface, wave to the instructor, take another bearing back, submerge and return. Being near-professionals, currents and swell needed to be taken into consideration. We had calculated how long it took us to swim 30m, so the time had been set.
It had been raining heavily and the locals rivers were in flood. We hadn't seen Umkomaas this rough before. The waves were large and angry. The viz was 30 cm. As newlyweds, we were quite keen on the advice that buddy-pairs maintain physical contact during the dive and decided that one partner would hold the other's arm. We established a few basic signals and set off.