Diver lost in Cozumel today

[Laurie S.]

Every dive briefing I have ever had the DM says buddies stick together period. It is NOT their responsibility to surface with anyone under normal circumstances however if they are attending to an emergency that would have been also covered in the briefing and the rule would have been all divers surface ASAP safely behind them. Of course there is no wall dive it's called advanced as most walls there are right around the 60 ft "C" card limit. IMO you need an advanced certification prior to diving over any of those walls OR have a certain number of dives at that location that would have any dive shop conclude you are competent enough to go near them. I am not sure who you dive with but I was never allowed near those walls without enough experience. In this particular case it does not matter what the DM did, the shop was negligent in the first place for letting them near any walls in Cozumel PERIOD. Another thing nobody has mentioned........they were from a cruise...I wonder if this particular dive shop is repeatedly recommended by that cruise company. If they point anyone towards a dive shop that is partly responsible for a divers death I would think there is a huge liability issue. Just my opinion of course.

I believe Sand Dollar is contracted with the cruise ships. I've also read complaints about them on cruisecritic.

 

[flots am]

Of course there is no wall dive it's called advanced as most walls there are right around the 60 ft "C" card limit. IMO you need an advanced certification prior to diving over any of those walls OR have a certain number of dives at that location that would have any dive shop conclude you are competent enough to go near them.

I am not sure who you dive with but I was never allowed near those walls without enough experience. In this particular case it does not matter what the DM did, the shop was negligent in the first place for letting them near any walls in Cozumel PERIOD.

An "advanced" certification (assuming PADI) is just 5 more dives including a deep dive with an instructor and a navigation dive with an instructor, and has nothing to do with buddy skills, high current, walls or maintaining buoyancy.

Another thing nobody has mentioned........they were from a cruise...I wonder if this particular dive shop is repeatedly recommended by that cruise company.

The cruise ships specifically make no recommendation about any dive operators, or even acknowledge their existence, ever. I know because I've been asking them for years. They're most likely concerned about getting sued.

I know you're looking for someone to blame, but in the end, only a well-trained diver and his/her buddy can attempt to ensure personal safety. This includes good buddy skills, and good judgement and knowing who you can rely on. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the dive ops all imply that a DM-lead dive is safe/safer, however I've come to realize over the past several years that unless I brought a known-good buddy with me on the trip, everything else is a crap-shoot.

SCUBA has risks. Knowledge, skills, practice and good judgement can make it a lot safer, but it's never "safe".

Sorry to sound like the guy on the risk-awareness video, but he's right.

flots.

 

[Ayisha]

...The cruise ships specifically make no recommendation about any dive operators, or even acknowledge their existence, ever. I know because I've been asking them for years. They're most likely concerned about getting sued.

That's not true. Many cruises have dive excursions that can be chosen like any other ship excursion. Someimes there is a choice between a beginner or advanced dive excursion; often everyone is grouped together. I have done several cruises and I do my own research and almost always choose a different dive op than the ship's choice due to current research and opinions on all the ops, the quality of their boats, their attention to safety and their ability to meet my needs and choices.

In the first safety briefing after everyone has boarded a cruise, they usually give a speech about only taking the ship's excursions due to safety reasons and so that the ship will wait if you are delayed on an excursion. They will usually make it known that they think that venturing out without a ship sanctioned excursion is unsafe and could cost you out-of-pocket transportation to the next port if you're delayed. The dive excursions are lumped in with any other cruise excursion, so yes, they do acknowledge their existence and recommend them over unsanctioned dive ops.

 

[Laurie S.]

After my last ship's dive last month in Grand Turk, I will never, ever take a ship's dive excursion again. I only did that one because we had a tight time window. They have no ship dive excursions for experienced divers as far as I've ever seen.

 

[wtcreaux]

What I realized is that at the point my buddy notifies me of a problem, especially one they want to abort the dive to address, I need to either maintain physical contact or keep them in my sight at all times after that so that I can be ready to help if needed. I already carry a noisemaker in my hand; a metal locking carabiner that I can either click the gate on to get my buddy's attention or can bang against my tank to get everybody's attention. So in the future, if I find myself in this kind of situation, when my buddy says they need to abort the dive, I will grab him or her by the BC with one hand and bang on my tank with the other to get the DM's attention.Then we can ascend together.

.

And that, folks, IMHO is the underlying lesson..........It's called a buddy-team for a reason......

Many thanks to AggieDiver for "putting his finger on it".....I too, hadn't done it until AD said it............It is a change I will be implementing with my dive buddy (daughter) ASAP. As a side note, a buddy who is in direct contact AND facing the "alarmed" (distressed ?) diver, the mere presence (visual and tactile) can have a calming effect.

 

[Ayisha]

If you want to go diving with the ship, you buy a ticket for "a dive". I've never seen them mention the dive op by name (even the op they use).

Why would a cruise ship need to mention a dive op by name? Their purpose is not to have us look up the dive shop and book it ourselves or to research the dive op. Their purpose is to give us a simple, convenient, uneducated choice. A simple search, mostly on this board, told me which dive shop each cruise ship that I've gone on was using on each island and how it compared to others. It is posted which dive shop cruise ships are using in each location.

They recommend their dive excursion over "outside" choices, even without giving the name of a dive shop. It's not the shop itself they're recommending, but their "vetting" of the choices.

 

[flots am]

Why would a cruise ship need to mention a dive op by name? Their purpose is not to have us look up the dive shop and book it ourselves or to research the dive op. Their purpose is to give us a simple, convenient, uneducated choice. A simple search, mostly on this board, told me which dive shop each cruise ship
that I've gone on was using on each island and how it compared to others. It is posted which dive shop cruise ships are using in each location.

You're kind of missing the point.

From a safety perspective, it's irrelevant whether you dive using the cruise ship op or book your own. No matter what dive op you use, or how you got to the island, each buddy team needs to be responsible for their own safety, because the DM can't do it no matter how good he/she is.

flots.

 

[Ayisha]

You're kind of missing the point.

From a safety perspective, it's irrelevant whether you dive using the cruise ship op or book your own. No matter what dive op you use, or how you got to the island, each buddy team needs to be responsible for their own safety, because the DM can't do it no matter how good he/she is.

flots.

No kidding. And that safety perspective is prevalent throughout these threads. But that is not the statement you made that I was responding to, which again was:

...The cruise ships specifically make no recommendation about any dive operators, or even acknowledge their existence, ever. I know because I've been asking them for years. They're most likely concerned about getting sued.

Regarding the point you're now making above: I am all for personal responsibility. But I also believe that dive ops should not be accepting people without appropriate experience/certification on Advanced dives.

Around 10 years ago, long before the hurricanes ripped open Devil's Throat, there had been a couple of accidents. All of a sudden, Devil's Throat became by invitation only and few and far between could go. Barracuda Wall and Maracaibo were not the norms due to extreme currents and were for very advanced divers only. Over time, restrictions eased, and the splitting of Devil's Throat's long tunnel due to the hurricanes allowed more people to go (although a cruise ship diver later went missing there). When it was deemed necessary, restrictions were put on sites and it is about time that dive ops pay attention to who they are taking where, IMHO.

 

[AggieDiver]

The whole dive operator selection angle on this is another thing I have been kicking around in my head for a while as well. My first instinct would be to tell newer divers to pick a smaller op that runs fewer divers on their boats so they get more personalized attention from the operator and the DMs. But then I realized that those are the exact same ops that experienced divers would go to with the expectation of "avoiding the newbies". So those ops might be under even more pressure to go to more challenging dive sites than the cattle boat ops favored by the cruise ships. On the other hand, the cattle boats may be more used to dealing with novice divers and might be more likely to pick an easier dive site...but there is more risk of getting lost in the herd.

It really is a conundrum to figure out which type of op would be best for a novice diver, but the reality is that if a novice diver is here reading this and recognizes that such a dilemna even exists, they are already halfway home in the self awareness necessary to dive safely with their buddy. They will be more likely to ask questions, more likely to let the operator and DM know that they are less experienced, and more likely to understand their limitations when evaluating a potential dive. With that knowledge in hand, they are better equipped to assess what the operator and DM are getting them into.

 

[jd950]

OK, so you're a DM leading a group of 6 certified, qualified divers on a wall dive.

One heads up.

If you go with the ascending diver to make sure everything is OK and wait until the boat arrives and the diver reboards, you have just abandoned five divers who could easily get lost or killed in some other manner.

If you stay with the remaining five, the diver who ascended could have some sort of problem and be lost or killed.

As a good DM, how do you do both at the same time?

Also, there is no "wall dive" certification that I'm aware of, and aside from prior successful wall dives, I also don't know of any way to ascertain whether any particular diver is qualified to dive on one.

flots.

I have avoided getting into the whole issue of whether the DM is hired as a a guide or a protector (or whatever). But in my opinion, if you feel you need a DM with you to keep you from getting lost or killed, then maybe you should not be on that dive in the first place.

I have been on Cozumel dives where the DM escorted someone up and others remained below. The DM let us know he/she was going up to the boat and on one occasion told us which direction we should head in the meantime. I don't think any of us gave it a second thought. I have also had occasion to ascend with a buddy while the remaining divers continued, either using the DM's smb or floating my own so the boat would know where we were. It too was a non-event. Clearly there are some conditions in which it is important that the group stay together, but those don't include an individual diver being unable to safely dive unsupervised. I expect to take care of myself on a dive and not rely some DM to protect me from myself.

If you don't feel you can safely continue or end a dive without a DM near you, then you need to reevaluate the wisdom of making that dive. Obviously, I hope, I am not referring to a situation in which a diver has gotten injured or become ill on a dive, or a sudden emergency has arisen and there is a need to get the group out of the water or away from a hazard, or students, brand new divers, training situations, etc.

Some ops, like Aldora, have a policy that everyone ascends together. Fine, that is their policy and it may well be safer and I have no complaints or criticisms of that procedure. I suppose if a diver feels that they are only safe in a group and when accompanied by a DM, then they should ask about such policies before booking dives.