I woke up early Sunday morning and since I knew everyone else would sleep in I thought I'd better try to get in another dive.  We were going to stingray city monday and leaving tuesday so this would be my last chance.  I wanted to check out the north wall so I called around and got on 8am north wall trip.  We had 12 divers and picked up one more at Rum Point before heading beyond the barrier reef to check vis.  Seas were 6' and we cruised the length of the north sound and finally settled on Eagle Ray Pass as having the best conditions.  Upon jumping in, the surface current promptly started dragging me out to see.  I descended to 30' for the swim to the buoy line at the bow and had to swim pretty hard to overcome the current.  Finally got to the line and hung out waiting for others, air was down from 3000 to 2300 or so.  Visibility was perhaps 80', and I knew conditions were marginal for continuing the dive, especially with a group of unknown experience, none of whom (other than our dive masters of course) had been on the north wall before.  I had been in worse current and knew I could handle it so decided to follow my dive master's lead.  He arrived and signalled his group to follow him on down where I knew the current would be less and it was.  We were cruising the wall nicely at 100'.  I went out 20' from the wall where the current picked up so kept in within 10' of it or so where it was next to nothing.  Anyhow after a short traverse one of our group was down to 1300 but our dive master thought he was down to 700 so we went back to the buoy line and sent him and his buddy up for their safety stop.  We stayed on top of the reef for another few minutes before heading up for our safety stop.  Then the swim to the stern to the drift line had to be angled so that you could catch the drift line before getting swept out to sea.  I timed it just right catching the end of it behind a few other people.  Getting aboard was just a little trickier than usual in the 6' seas and I had over 700psi left.  However once on board I learned that conditions had been too much for some people.  At least one person was down to 0psi.  And then a headcount revealed that someone was missing!  It was the rum point guy and about that time another boat was on the radio saying they had picked him up and he was OK, thus fortunately avoiding a search.  Apparently, he had overexerted himself on the initial swim to the buoy line, was not getting enough air from his reg so had surfaced and been swept out to sea.  Another dive boat had fortunately been in the area and had fortunately spooted him and picked him up.  Apparently there was some confusion on the dive masters' parts as to who was going with who as his loss was not noticed until after the dive!   We aborted the 2nd dive and got refunds since it was more or less a busted dive.  Didn't see any big fish or rays and only took a few pics due to shortness of time on the wall.  Fortunately everything ended well.  I'll be getting myself a safety sausage before my next trip. 

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