Does a dive flag protect you? Think again.

[MXGratefulDiver]

Marine patrols need to get their priorities straight, a death is a death whether caused by an out of date life preserver or by a boat propeller while towing a dive flag. Marine patrols are awfully good at counting life jackets and complaining that your registration numbers are incorrectly spaced, not so good at enforcing the flag laws that are already on the books.
N

That's the crux of the biscuit, to my concern.

A few years back I was teaching a scuba class at a beach that's commonly used for that purpose. There were several classes out (as normal on a summer Saturday), each with a dive flag planted appropriately. At one point a large (40-foot or so) powerboat came steaming along, rather close to the beach, at about 20 knots. One onlooker actually managed to video the boat for positive ID as it ran over one of the dive flags ... which had a whole class of OW students underneath it at the time in about 20 feet of water.

We called the Harbor Patrol, and even showed them the video. The boat was known to them ... it was owned by a resident of a condo nearby, and was by then moored in front of the guy's condo. The video was good enough that you could positively ID the person at the helm.

The response by the Harbor Patrol was that unless he hit and injured someone, there was nothing they could do about it ...

Moral of the story ... laws are only as good as the willingness to enforce them ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ShakaZulu]

..... I personally live where a dive flag is treated by many boaters as a slalom flag on a ski hill. ...

OMG, that was funny.... No s@#$t, don't get me started. I'm a boat owner, and I don't know why it is not compulsory to have a boater education course when you buy a boat. Some unbelievable stuff going on out there. I had this one guy who almost drove his boat at speed between me, wake boarder in the water, and my boat? Every time I go out, my use of the F-word increases dramatically.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

OMG, that was funny.... No s@#$t, don't get me started. I'm a boat owner, and I don't know why itÃÔ not compulsory to have a boater education course when you buy a boat. Some unbelievable stuff going on out there. I had this one guy who almost drove his boat at speed between me, wake boarder in the water, and my boat? Every time I go out, my use of the F-word increases dramatically

I once saw a guy drive his boat between a tug and the barge it was towing ... :shocked2: ... I didn't think anybody could be that stupid.

Fortunately for him, the tug operator felt like cutting his engines ... allowing the chain between his vessel and the barge to drop below the water before the boater ran over it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ScubaSteve]

The problem is, even divers who are boaters can be idiots as well.

The site where I do most of my diving is known as a shore diving location. So, my buddy and I we out there getting suited up and a group of people show up asking questions about a specific site (somewhere about 500 meters offshore but location not known for sure). We figured that since it was so far off shore they would settle for shore diving.

Well, we went into the water, achored our dive flag heard some boats along the way but thought nothing of it, and surfaced in about 4 feet of water as we usually do. As we surfaced, we saw this same group of divers being shuttled BY BOAT from our shore dive site to the remote location. So these divers (about 5 trips worth of diversd with their boat) were driving their boat within 30-40 feet of our dive flag to come into shore (we surface in about 4-5 feet of water to be safe and to avoid propellers) to pick up divers.

We started a discussion which turned into a heated argument because they saw absolutely nothing wrong with it "because we are divers to so we know". This was the straw. We had our words and threatened them with their belongings and more if anything happened to us. When we surfaced with our flag after the second dive, they had moved down about 150 feet further.

OMG, that was funny.... No s@#$t, don't get me started. I'm a boat owner, and I don't know why itÃÔ not compulsory to have a boater education course when you buy a boat. Some unbelievable stuff going on out there. I had this one guy who almost drove his boat at speed between me, wake boarder in the water, and my boat? Every time I go out, my use of the F-word increases dramatically

 

[captndale]

I once saw a guy drive his boat between a tug and the barge it was towing ... :shocked2: ... I didn't think anybody could be that stupid.

That is just how one of the more popular wrecks in Lake Michigan came to be. The Dutch freighter, Prins Wilhelm, crossed close behind a tug without noticing that it was towing a barge. Prins Wilhelm now rests in 90 feet of water about 3 1/2 miles east of the Milwaukee harbor entrance and prpbably attracts more divers than any other wreck on Lake Michigan. There is sometimes a positive result to stupid actions.

 

[Missdirected]

For those that haven't seen this thread:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/fl...dive-flag-awareness-event-fl-statewide-4.html

 

[DivingPrincessE]

For those that haven't seen this thread:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/fl...dive-flag-awareness-event-fl-statewide-4.html

:shocked2: What are you doing Tracy?!? You're going to make Dan want to puke.

 

[NudeDiver]

There are many more boaters that "just don't care", who are potentially going to split your skull----if ten times as many, then this means it is ten times more important, to solve this problem first....

If the state would execute boaters who run over and kill divers, you can get this group's attention real fast.

 

[Andy077]

all you need to do is mount your flag on a higher mast.
Like this one:

 

[seaducer]

all you need to do is mount your flag on a higher mast.
Like this one:

Bah, no one wants to dive between Camden NJ and Philadelphia PA, its too dirty...