Where's the pinnacle? ... Ohh, it's here

The dive plan was straightforward enough. Descend on the shot line, take a bearing of 320 degrees and you'll find a kelp forest. From there, turn east towards a conical pinnacle. Explore until you hit 100 bar, then return to the boat. Simple.

Don, Fran and I did exactly as instructed. We descended slowly down the shot line, taking our time with ear compensation, and Fran took charge of the compass. The kelp forest wasn't far, and when we reached it the effort felt immediately worthwhile. It was a remarkable place, a proper labyrinth, the kelp rising several metres above us, small fish weaving through it like they owned the place, which of course they did.

After a while we moved on, heading east in search of the pinnacle. The minutes ticked by. Gas levels were dropping. We exchanged glances through our masks. the kind that ask a question nobody wants to be the first to say out loud. Do we turn back, or keep going? Visibility was good. The pinnacle had to be close. We pushed on a little further, and then there it was, a conical shape emerging from the blue. A ripple of excitement went through all three of us.

It didn't last long. As we got closer, something felt off. The pinnacle wasn't reaching the surface the way we'd expected. We checked our gauges again. Gas was low, too low to risk a return journey underwater. Decision made: we'd ascend slowly around the pinnacle, complete our safety stop, and surface swim back to the boat.

What greeted us at the surface was not what any of us had hoped for. The boat was hundreds of metres away. And sitting just beside it, unmistakable and unhelpful, was a pinnacle poking proudly above the waterline. The real pinnacle. The one we were supposed to find. We'd found a different one entirely, considerably further east than intended, and now we had to deal with the consequences.

I'll let you imagine the swim back. Long. Cold. Humbling. And entirely our own doing, which somehow made it worse, and also, eventually, funnier.