current

[PeterNBiddle]

Were you on the dive paradise boat? We dove that site on Thursday and there was a DP boat dropping its divers north of our boat. Carlos the DM ended up off the wall and reported that he went from 30 to 140 on a downdraft. We were at the lip of the wall and so just had to deal with the current which was blowing off the wall. Surface conditions gave you a good idea that the currents were going to be nasty.

Not DP. We had no good indications up top where we dropped nor in the first 20 feet or so. Then things went kerflooey.

 

[Pelagicsal]

I wonder why in the world you were dropped in blue water. Better to approach the wall from land-side and leave the blue for the eagle rays!

 

[Prop Joe]

I'm going to miss the pinpoint Marcello drops...

 

[MMM]

I wonder why in the world you were dropped in blue water. Better to approach the wall from land-side and leave the blue for the eagle rays!

I wondered the same thing Sally. Maybe the Vis was bad? B
ut it sounded like the captain missed the drop.


BTW, we dived more southern spots today (3 tanks) with minimal, normal currents although Vis was a bit off at San Francisco.

 

[Dave Dillehay]

My guess is that if the currents went goofy, it might push you out into blue water quickly, even if you dropped before the wall.

Dave Dillehay

 

[diverken374]

PNB: 16 minute dive time. I bet it felt a lot longer!

 

[PeterNBiddle]

PNB: 16 minute dive time. I bet it felt a lot longer!

It felt much longer. And I can't believe I only burned 1200 PSI, I felt like I must be sucking the tank dry.

 

[JFS]

The moon is almost full so we always get weird stuff up there. One area in particular in front of Los Brisas is where all the outcurrents occur. On saturday we did the dive, currents were going north when we entered, ran into a bit of downcurrent but had DPVs to easily pull us out. Saw a bunch of eagle rays and the current was now running south at the area where the squadrons are normally seen. The surface conditions looked flat so sometimes they can be deceptive as to what is going on below and I did warn our divers that exactly.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

Diving Coz in April...I will be looking forward to missing the downwellings... I wanted to add to this post: Thanks for posting about your dive. I am hoping not to run into any of these downwellings but if I do you just added to some food for thought for me and my wife to take with us. Like others have posted, I am glad it turned out good for you and the other divers. Sorry I did not add that last night, I was whooped from a long day at work and spaced it.

You're welcome - I'm glad it was helpful. I have been secretly stressed about down wellings since I first read about them here on SB. I can't say I'd dive in one on purpose, but I'm glad to have been through one.

Here are a few things I learned:

Things can go to hell from out of nowhere, and that's okay. Down currents are entirely survivable.

Exercise your safety gear - if you are crappy at deploying an SMB in calm, non-emergency conditions you're probably going to be worse when things go pear shaped.

Intention is as critical as execution - doing something on purpose is better than doing nothing. I think one of the reasons I wound up in the (perhaps arguably) best situation is because I pig-headedly stuck to a plan. Get to the wall, stabilize, get to the top of the wall, stabilize, wait for stragglers for a fixed amount of time, safety stop, surface. I think we were the only group to do a safety stop.

There's more than one right way out - I talked to one of the divers who went deep right off the drop and she went from 20 feet to 90 feet in a few seconds. She filled her BC and swam horizontally away from the wall until she started going up again. She wound up over half a mile down from me but her dive time was only 6 minutes.

You are in charge of your dive no matter what happens. Aspire to be able to provide help, not need it.

Split fins may be instant death in caves but they will get you out of a down current.

A slate is handy for more than just gabbing and fish ID.

 

[mediumone]

There's more than one right way out

We've never experienced one, and won't complain if we never do, but downwellings are like lightning --- I think you should know what to do or not do even if the odds are remote. We've all been taught since elementary school that you don't go out to the middle of a golf course or climb a tree during a lightning storm.

So, I've had it in my mind, that the first or preferred course of action would be to stabilize depth while swimming parallel to the wall and then ascend when the downwelling subsided enough to allow that. The second plan would be to swim away from the wall.

It sounds like from reading your account, that my option number one would have been an unmitigated failure.

Please comment.