This version has a bit more detail:

(I was just talking to a buddy about giving the Sundiver a try the next time
we went out - now I think not)

By BRIAN MARTINEZ
The Orange County Register
A feeling of powerlessness slowly swept over Dan Carlock as he drifted in
the ocean for nearly five hours Sunday, seven miles from Newport Harbor.
There were no signs of his scuba-diving group.

Four times, he noted the time of day on his small, waterproof writing slate
and took photographs of himself to document that he'd made it to the surface
and how long he had lasted at sea.

He worried about how his parents would react to his death. But he never lost
hope.

"God, I don't want to die," he prayed, breaking down in tears. "I want to be
saved. I need your help."

Carlock, 45, thought of a survival manual he read as a Boy Scout. Stay calm.
Think methodically through the situation. He turned his head and feet east,
toward land and away from where he last saw his companions.

Aboard the century-old tall ship Argus, crew trainee Zack Mayberry, 15,
stood watch on the stern. The ship full of Boy Scouts was returning to
Newport Beach from Santa Catalina Island and two hours earlier had to change
its course because of heavy fog.

Mayberry thought he noticed a balloon or debris floating in the sea. He
grabbed his binoculars to take a closer look. About 150 yards away,
Carlock's head was sticking out of the water, and he was waving a bright,
yellow-green tube.

Mayberry handed the binoculars to a friend.

"I wanted to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me," Mayberry said.

The friend confirmed it.

"Man overboard!" they yelled.

Carlock belted out a joyful "Yeah!" as he pumped his fists in excitement.

The Boy Scout troop from San Diego had drilled the rescue procedure just a
day before, and this time it went like clockwork, First Mate Al Sorkin said.
The crew quickly sent out a small motorboat to bring Carlock aboard.

The Scouts gave Carlock warm clothes, a sandwich and hot coffee.

Tuesday, Coast Guard officials were investigating why Carlock was found 11
miles from the dive location where Ocean Adventures Dive Co. of Marina del
Rey reported him missing - and near the spot where the group had dived
earlier in the day.

Carlock and three dive buddies had entered the water at about 8:45 a.m.

Carlock had problems equalizing the pressure in his ears and fell behind. He
tried following his partners' bubbles, but he lost them.

He decided to end his dive after 15 minutes, but when he surfaced, he was
400 feet down current from an oil platform where the boat was anchored. He
figured he couldn't make the up-current swim and decided to wait, blowing
his whistle as loud as he could.

Carlock, a Santa Monica resident and spacecraft engineer for Boeing
Satellite Systems, said he's dived about once a month since learning in
2002, but he hadn't gone out since December.

"I figured when the dive was over, they would realize I was missing and come
looking for me," he said.

But they never came.

The group left that location and moved north to a shipwreck site six miles
southeast of the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles, Coast Guard Petty
Officer Collin Croft said.

The captain of the Sundiver, Ray Arntz, reported Carlock missing from the
second dive location at 12:03 p.m., Croft said. The Coast Guard, the
recreational diving instructors, Long Beach lifeguards and Los Angeles City
Fire Department personnel searched for Carlock near the second dive location
until hearing of his rescue in Orange County.

Arntz told officials that Dive Master Zacharias Araneta had accounted for
all the divers before leaving the first location, Croft said.

Ocean Adventures Dive Co. owner Steve Ladd said Monday that he was figuring
out what had happened and would seek to "turn a negative into a positive" by
changing procedures, if needed. He declined further comment and could not be
reached Tuesday.

Croft said he is determining if safety rules were violated.

"The Scouts definitely saved this man's life."

Maybe the divemaster assumed the diver decided to swim to shore or decided to do some
fitness swimming?

What I shake my head at is the dive buddies.  They where the irresponcible
ones, even more so than the divemaster.  They failed to do the right thing on
many points.  Lesson learned...never dive with them again!!!

My favorite story about the boy scouts was one a work partner told me a number
of years ago.  He was driving up the Angeles Crest hwy with his gf behind him
on his motorcycle, when an amorous mood hit them.  They stopped, and hiked
into the woods a distance and proceeded to drop trou. Well, they were having a
very nice time there in the woods, when they heard some rustling in the brush.
Just as they were reaching nirvana, they heard a prepubescent voice call out,
'ooh, look!', and an entire troop of boyscouts rushed into the clearing.

What's the boyscout motto, again -- always prepared?!!

CUL8R

R*Horse

www.sonic.net/~lkokot

"Take a look behind you - upstream - now you begin to
recognize this country, don't you?"

"Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful
thing I ever heard of; by a long shot the most
wonderful - and unexpected."

                           Mark Twain
                           Life on the Mississippi