Glad to hear you didn’t follow it under a ledge, that wouldn’t have ended well.
I blew out an eardrum in my rookie years too. The anchor was fouled and I had the most air, I did a fast decent but was OOA just before I got to the anchor :( I was trying to clear my ears and clear the fouled anchor at the same time. I got the anchor out but lost and ear drum :(
The goods news is my rookie years were before the internet and I had the only camera onboard so there is no record of my mistakes :)