At my age I should know better!

A little before last christmas a friend (Simon) and I went out to the Crim reef. I chose to search the sea bed between a particular rock and a wreck I'd found a few years back in the hopes of finding more of it, or maybe even find something else entirely. This was the the wreck of the Bassenthwaite. I never felt the need for a compass as, after evaluation, it seemed that the wind and tide should have taken me away from the Crim and out into deep water and towards the nearby wreck. To be honest, it was a bit too rough to be out there but I got kitted and Simon, who was boatman, dropped me off south east end of the Crim reef in about 15m depth. Im normally very good on underwater navigation, using the sun and the seabed and depth, etc, to go where needed to go. However, on the bottom the viz wasn't good and the waves up top buffeted me about- even on the sea bed. Also on the sea bed there was no tide to speak of to aid me along as expected. Down among the rocks the tide dont do what it does on the surface and this I should have known. Ok, I thought, I'll just head into deeper water and that alone should send me away from the reef. This I did. Then after being in 20m depth for about 15 minutes I thought I was well on my way heading east and away from the dangers of the Crim- but with little sunlight penetrating down, it was hard to tell in which direction I was actually going. The increasing depth gave me confidence and so I carried on. Then in 27m I hit a sheer wall where no sheer wall should be! Now came the realisation I could be in trouble. Even though it was deep I had moved over to the foot of the reef and not away from it. This meant that above there awaited the top of the reef with rollers breaking over it. I moved at 90 degrees away from the sheer wall hoping to get further away but found I was trapped and had inadvertently run into a cul de sac with the only way out being to reverse- or go up.. I tried going back but was soon running out of time & air so was left with no option but to surface before I ran into decompression penalties to do-and that turned out to be my only good decision thus far! I went up, hoping and praying, that I would surface outside of the reef and not in amongst it all. The worst was confirmed when I surfaced amidst the rocks and breakers and found the swells were pushing me directly towards a rock; which showed between the breakers. I couldn't swim into the oncoming rollers and I didn't want to get trashed over the rock by the waves either- so tried to pick a way out of danger. After a good while of hard finning (in full kit) I was breathing heavily through the reg and getting nowhere fast and found the nearby rock was drawing me slowly on to it. Being nearly 60 years old, I was already growing tired and for the first time in 42 years of diving I felt it necessary to ditch a weight belt to become more buoyant. That done, with the breakers rearing up and continually going over, I finally felt able to make headway- and managed to pass the rock to one side. I'm sure my relief would have been audible but I wasn't out of all danger yet. After a while Simon was able to get near enough to be able to throw me a line to try and tow me out of danger. I was so tired I just couldn't hold on to it. Simon then came in as close as he dare and with that I swam for the boat. I scrambled aboard tired, scared and shaken but very grateful to be out of there at last. Why I never took a compass is a mystery and to be honest, we shouldn't really have been out there at all.