1997 Deep Dive/Shark Attack.

[ReelHard]

Does anyone the deep dive/shark attack on the two divers in cozumel in august of 1997? A friend brought it up the other night but there isn't much on the web about it. Anyone here on the same trip as those two fellas or know much about it? Apparently they were trying to reach a depth of 500 on air and something happened. They found one guy three days later after his body washed up and never did find the other guy.

 

[ScubaSteve85]

Is this the story you're looking for? Certainly one of the craziest things I've ever read.

Note: won't let me quote the whole story since it's so long. Check it out on the original thread.

Here's the full story as it appeared in several books:

SHARK ATTACK!
by
Bret Gilliam

included in Marty Snyderman book "GREAT SHARK ADVENTURES!"
release date 1999
and "MARK OF THE SHARK"
release date 2003


Be forewarned. There's no traces of my trademark dry humor to found in this story and there's no happy ending. It's probably as close as I've come to my trip to Valhalla. In October of 1972 it happened like this:

Rod Temple and Robbie McIlvaine were waiting for me when I drove up to the beach at Cane Bay on St. Croix's north shore. This area of the Virgin Islands had some of the best wall diving in the eastern Caribbean and the drop off was an easy swim from shore eliminating a long boat ride from Christiansted. We unloaded our gear and began to dress under the shade of the palms while a dozen or so tourists watched with interest. Diving was still not an every day sport for most people and the double tanks and underwater camera equipment held a certain fascination.

We were setting off to recover some samples from a collecting experiment we have placed on the wall for a local marine science lab. Six days before we had positioned our large support float right over the drop off with the research vessel and carefully loaded our sediment traps, nets and lines so they'd be ready for positioning in various locations in the shallow patch reef and the deep wall. Today we planned to inspect one project at 210 feet and shoot some photography of the area. Rod transferred the dive profile and decompression information to his slate as Robbie and I rounded up the remainder of the equipment and walked into the warm ocean to begin our leisurely surface swim to the float station about 300 yards offshore.

We'd done Cane Bay hundreds of times in the last two years both for work and for fun and this October morning was no different than scores of others as we snorkeled over the clear sand a few feet beneath our fins. As usual, Rod struck a livelier pace and forged on ahead while we wallowed in his wake towing the photo gear and another plexi-glass sand trap the lab wanted set in the chute that spilled over the wall.

Reaching the float, Robbie retrieved the snap swivels that would anchor the trap into our rope grid strung on the wall face. Rod reviewed the deco schedule, "Look, if we can get this thing set up and check out the project at 210 in fifteen minutes, we can save a lot of decompression. Can you do the photos in that time frame if I run the lines on the plexi trays?"
2

 

[ReelHard]

No this happened in 1997 in cozumel. Mac and Mike were the diver's names.

 

[yle]

Does anyone the deep dive/shark attack on the two divers in cozumel in august of 1997? A friend brought it up the other night but there isn't much on the web about it. Anyone here on the same trip as those two fellas or know much about it? Apparently they were trying to reach a depth of 500 on air and something happened. They found one guy three days later after his body washed up and never did find the other guy.

So two guys try to reach 500 ft depth on air, end up dead... and sharks get blamed for it?

 

[ReelHard]

I'm not sure of the whole story that's why i posted here. One of the guys that washed up had a severed leg and arm due from shark bite.

 

[Texasguy]

'97 was pre common internet age, I doubt it got saved in any online publication. More likely it was in some local print publication in Spanish and that is it.

Even on today's Cozumel accidents there is as little info as in '90's.

 

[dmaziuk]

I'm not sure of the whole story that's why i posted here. One of the guys that washed up had a severed leg and arm due from shark bite.

what @yle means is in cases like that those tend to be post-mortem

 

[ReelHard]

Bump

 

[luscioman]

I have good Google skills

A Columbia diving instructor apparently was training for a record depth
dive
> off the coast of Mexico when he did not resurface.
>
> The body of Mac Lupold, 33, who owns Columbia Scuba near Broad River
> Road, was found Sunday off the coast of Cozumel, a Mexican resort island
> that is popular with American tourists.
>
> Authorities still were searching for Mike Jonaitis, a 28-year-old
Lexington
> commercial diver, who accompanied Lupold on a deep dive. Lupold and
> Jonaitis might have succumbed to a form of nitrogen buildup that
afflicts divers
> at great depths.
>
> Larry Cogburn (sic), who owns Wateree Reef(sic) Dive Center off St.
Andrews
> Road,
> said Lupold told him that he intended to break the depth record of more
than
> 500 feet for a dive made with an air tank.
>
> "Mac was a very competent diver. Several people have died attempting to
> break this record. He knew what the risks were," Cogburn said. "Several
> people, including myself, tried to talk him out of it. It would be like
> trying to climb Mount Everest solo."
>
> Lupold has operated his Columbia diving business for at least several
years,
> Cogburn said. Cogburn, 56, has operated his own diving business for two
> decades.
>
> He and Jonaitis disappeared Friday afternoon, when they went diving off
the
> coast of Cozumel.
> Lupold often went to Cozumel, leading diving tours, Cogburn said. Most
of
> Lupold's clients were novice divers, he said.
>
> Recreational divers don't dive deeper than 130 feet, Cogburn said. At
the time
> he disappeared, Lupold was not diving with the group of 42 Midlands
> residents that he took to Cozumel on a tour.
>
> Lupold and Jonaitis told six members of the tour group they planned to
dive as
> deep as 400 feet at the Santa Rosa Wall. Depths at that formation reach
> 1,000 feet.
>
> The divers, who both had two air tanks, told tour group members they
each
> would send one tank to the surface to show they completed their dive. No
> tanks ever surfaced.

 

[luscioman]

Quote

As far as the victims, only one of them was married. Mac Lupolds body
was found Sunday about six miles from the site they disappeared and as
far as I know the second victim has yet to be found.
The latest report that I recieved (Mac was my instructor and a
frequent diving buddy, so I have been following pretty closely) there
was evidence of trauma from a shark attack on Mac's body.
Estimates were that he was attacked by a 400# tiger according to the
local TV news.