Mad_diver
Contributor
Hey everybody.
I just wanted to relate something potentially dangerous that happened to me last week while diving in the Pamlico sound near Buxton S.C.
The event happened while I was doing a pretty shallow shore dive, 17 feet/32 minutes with my son, and another dive buddy (both on their 2nd open water dive since OW cert.).
After having a relatively nice (calm) dive with only minimal entanglements from the leader to the float, we were on our return heading when I noticed that the tension in the leader line was feeling odd. At first it felt like there was a pretty stong wind blowing it around. But then it became more violent. It was kind of like you're fishing and you hook 20lbs "bubba" bass.
I started wondering if a sailboat boat had made contact with the float because I hadn't heard any motor noises, but the force on the line was now keeping me from maintaining contact with my dive buddies. So I began to let out more slack from my reel until I could get them to wait while I find the problem.
I had barely gotten my buddies to stop and wait when I was out of line slack and was being pulled towards the surface. Since I hadn't gone deeeper than 17 feet, I didn't have a deco requirement or safety stop. I still didn't hear any boat or other motorized traffic and couldn't see any floating vehicle on my unintended ascent. Basically, though it was a more rapid ascent than I like, it was still manageable.
When I reached the surface, I couldn't believe what I found there! A group of about 15 non-diving, non ENGLISH speaking, non ENGLISH READING, ignorant foreign morons were tugging at, playing with, letting air out of, trying to sink, untie and steal MY DIVE FLOAT! While I was USING IT!
This is no small float either. It's one similar to this link
which is clearly marked in BIG READ LETTERS...... "DIVER BELOW"...
The sound side of the Outer Banks is relatively shallow. Because of the sand build up from the Hatteras Inlet, in just a few feet of distance you can go from 15 feet depth to less than 1 foot. Which is why they were able to come in contact with my float. They were swimming on a shallow sand bar.
Anyway. The potential problem is probably obvious to most of you. For those who dont see the danger: If I had been doing a required deco stop or safety stop from a deep dive, these attempted theives could have cause me to get DCS or worse (depending on the type of diving I was doing and the gas I was using).
When I surfaced and discovered that there were PEOPLE responsible for the problem, I was pretty PISSED! I asked the moron, who's hands were still on the float AND the leader line, what Hel* he was doing? I think it came out more like this "Hey! Dumb As*! Can't you freakin' read? What the hel* are you doing? You trying to kill someone?" His buddies began to laugh and snicker and he let go of the float and rope. Appearantly this was funny to them somehow. At least one of them realized their mistake and attempted to utter a broken english appology. Which was a small consolation. I really wanted to kick his as*. But since there was so many of them, the odds weren't good on that one....lol To make matters even worse, my favorite baseball hat was in the float which was now flooded and soaked!
My buddies surfaced while I was in the middle of chewing the butt-head out. They just as surprised as I was when they found out what was going on.
I guess if I learned anything usefull from this event, I'd say that there's good reason to have someone acting as surface support while your doing shore dives in any vacinity that might be accessible to other people.
If this had happened when we were doing that same dive at night the day before, it would have really freaked me out!
Thanks for reading.
Now I really am a MAD_DIVER!
BTW.... Vacationing the Outer Banks rules~!
I just wanted to relate something potentially dangerous that happened to me last week while diving in the Pamlico sound near Buxton S.C.
The event happened while I was doing a pretty shallow shore dive, 17 feet/32 minutes with my son, and another dive buddy (both on their 2nd open water dive since OW cert.).
After having a relatively nice (calm) dive with only minimal entanglements from the leader to the float, we were on our return heading when I noticed that the tension in the leader line was feeling odd. At first it felt like there was a pretty stong wind blowing it around. But then it became more violent. It was kind of like you're fishing and you hook 20lbs "bubba" bass.
I started wondering if a sailboat boat had made contact with the float because I hadn't heard any motor noises, but the force on the line was now keeping me from maintaining contact with my dive buddies. So I began to let out more slack from my reel until I could get them to wait while I find the problem.
I had barely gotten my buddies to stop and wait when I was out of line slack and was being pulled towards the surface. Since I hadn't gone deeeper than 17 feet, I didn't have a deco requirement or safety stop. I still didn't hear any boat or other motorized traffic and couldn't see any floating vehicle on my unintended ascent. Basically, though it was a more rapid ascent than I like, it was still manageable.
When I reached the surface, I couldn't believe what I found there! A group of about 15 non-diving, non ENGLISH speaking, non ENGLISH READING, ignorant foreign morons were tugging at, playing with, letting air out of, trying to sink, untie and steal MY DIVE FLOAT! While I was USING IT!
This is no small float either. It's one similar to this link
which is clearly marked in BIG READ LETTERS...... "DIVER BELOW"...
The sound side of the Outer Banks is relatively shallow. Because of the sand build up from the Hatteras Inlet, in just a few feet of distance you can go from 15 feet depth to less than 1 foot. Which is why they were able to come in contact with my float. They were swimming on a shallow sand bar.
Anyway. The potential problem is probably obvious to most of you. For those who dont see the danger: If I had been doing a required deco stop or safety stop from a deep dive, these attempted theives could have cause me to get DCS or worse (depending on the type of diving I was doing and the gas I was using).
When I surfaced and discovered that there were PEOPLE responsible for the problem, I was pretty PISSED! I asked the moron, who's hands were still on the float AND the leader line, what Hel* he was doing? I think it came out more like this "Hey! Dumb As*! Can't you freakin' read? What the hel* are you doing? You trying to kill someone?" His buddies began to laugh and snicker and he let go of the float and rope. Appearantly this was funny to them somehow. At least one of them realized their mistake and attempted to utter a broken english appology. Which was a small consolation. I really wanted to kick his as*. But since there was so many of them, the odds weren't good on that one....lol To make matters even worse, my favorite baseball hat was in the float which was now flooded and soaked!
My buddies surfaced while I was in the middle of chewing the butt-head out. They just as surprised as I was when they found out what was going on.
I guess if I learned anything usefull from this event, I'd say that there's good reason to have someone acting as surface support while your doing shore dives in any vacinity that might be accessible to other people.
If this had happened when we were doing that same dive at night the day before, it would have really freaked me out!
Thanks for reading.
Now I really am a MAD_DIVER!
BTW.... Vacationing the Outer Banks rules~!
