That day the pump intake clogged at 40 feet and I had to feel my way out

Two summers back I was working a marina job on the Illinois River near Peoria, doing a hull inspection on a barge that had been sitting in the mud for a while. I was down about 40 feet in zero viz, which is normal for that stretch, just running my hand along the plating when my umbilical started dragging hard. Turned out a mess of zebra mussels and river junk had packed into the pump intake on the surface, so my air was getting thin and I could hear the compressor surging up top. My tender was new, first month on the crew, and I could hear him yelling through the comms but I couldn't make out a word of it. I did the one thing that saved me, which was grab my hose and follow it hand over hand back to the stage instead of trying to swim a compass heading in that soup. Cost us about 3 hours of downtime and a $90 intake screen, and we pulled a softball sized ball of shell out of the strainer. Now I want to know, what's your go to move when comms go sideways and you're working blind, do you bail out or hold and wait? Because I've heard guys argue both ways and I'm still not sure I did it right.