At this point in time, the diver is committed. Not as committed as a sky diver at a similar point, but he can't go back now. I recall my single parachute drop in the 1980s flying out of Biggin Hill. There really wasn't any tine to be scared. Sit on the edge, push out, shout the count ending in ‘check canopy' to see the silk filled with air and then enjoy the view till the last 50 feet when the ground rushed up hellish fast. Here it was similar, check your gear, hold onto your regulator and go. With a proper scissor stride you could slow your entry a little. I recall I used to have one hand on my face mask to make sure that didn't go astray.
From the looks of the background this photo was take joust south and around the headland from the Encenada Beach Resort in Puerto Galera, Mindoro in the Philippines.
This is around the same area where we went night diving and also close to where we would surface from our drift dives. Below this spot there's both a shelf and a reef which were interesting things to dive along.
Most of the time we'd just step off the side of the boat as this guy is doing but occasionally we'd sit on the gunwale and roll backwards into the water. The problem with that method was that the gunwale was a tad too high so over-rotation often occurred.
Getting back into the boat was a different thing altogether. There was no platform at the stern. You just had to float up alongside, take off your vest and tank and hand it up to a crew member and then either haul yourself in. I don't recall there being a rope ladder but maybe there was.
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