7 divers missing off Indonesian island

[danvolker]

I used to do tech dives off of Fort Pierce and Stuart....over 25 miles from shore, and the Gulf Stream is headed away from shore out there.....There were a few essential gear choices....the boat, which would be following us in the big drift current, had to be a very reliable boat......Your buddy had to be a really aware buddy--this was no place for buddy separations.....Each of us carried the Halcyon Divers Life Rafts in the pouch between our back and the steel back plate ( totally out of the way unless needed--if the boat did experience an engine failure, this would be a potentially life threatening problem for the divers--so we would have this covered with our own personal rafts--and would be easy enough to spot the next day by the air search or any boat search. While we never did this, the addition of a radar reflective dive flag would have made this better still.

In any event, when I have dived Fiji, and other places far from Florida, and I don't know the charters, I have no reason to TRUST them....so I will assume massive incompetence until they prove this is unwarranted.
5 or 6 mile swims I am not going to worry much about--Sandra and I are cyclists so just swimming a few miles is not a big concern........strong currents that go out to sea is another matter....and it warrants planning and lack of trust.

Someday Sandra and I will dive BALI....when we do, I will have the Liferafts and radar flags with us--we won't TRUST these operators.

Halcyon Diver's Life Raft | MonsterMarketplace.com

 

[rusti999]

Sad news indeed. Serangan Island, then this deceased diver drifted west to the main island. The latest article that I've seen from WSJ said that the two people spotted were actually rescuers left behind after rescuing the five divers (might need subscription to view):

Body of One of Two Missing Divers Found Off Bali, Survivors Improving - WSJ.com

 

[Golo]

Sad news indeed. Serangan Island, then this deceased diver drifted west to the main island.
[...]

Could that mean that she's the diver who got separated right in the beginning of the dive?

NHK Japan says that the deceased they found was 59 year old Ritsuko Miyata, meaning last one still missing is instructor Shoko Takahashi.

 

[Doubler]

This is tragic and could/should have been avoided. I don't know how many times a contestant on " the Amazing Race" has been done in by a taxi with low gas and a clueless driver. They lose a race, these poor people lost their lives. What happened to towing a marker buoy during a drift dive? Depending on surface bubbles is crazy as they can be dispersed and undetectable on the surface. Of coarse if I anchor the boat following bubbles is a mute point.

 

[danvolker]

This is tragic and could/should have been avoided. I don't know how many times a contestant on " the Amazing Race" has been done in by a taxi with low gas and a clueless driver. They lose a race, these poor people lost their lives. What happened to towing a marker buoy during a drift dive? Depending on surface bubbles is crazy as they can be dispersed and undetectable on the surface. Of coarse if I anchor the boat following bubbles is a mute point.

I have done dives with the boat following my bubbles, but ONLY on reefs where I would practically ENJOY the swim back to the beach if the boat lost us. Places like Breakers Reef or the Boynton reefs, it would be no big deal--even though not very bright to lose your protection from boat props and rampaging drunken boaters....but by Juno and Jupiter, the Gulfstream is CRANKING and headed north and "out to sea"..and I would feel pretty stupid if I allowed a boat to follow our bubbles on a 90 foot or deeper Jupiter dive!!!
We are supposed to be "ADVENTURERS" ....Maybe only a vestige of what Adventure once was, but still, WE need to see what is stupid, and protect ourselves with our behaviors....

 

[DandyDon]

The Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe are running stories reporting information that the remaining two divers have been located and are alive. If you have ever seen the sheer cliffs and big water outside Manta Point, it makes sense that a rescue could still be ongoing. Still, this is great news.

Meanwhile, I hope this is a time when all operators around Bali and Lembongan take some time to review some IMPORTANT procedures with their guides and boat crews, especially before running 20km across big water and dumping your guests into spots like Blue Corner and Crystal Bay. Contingency planning does matter. This is especially true if one is subcontracting a boat and crew. Having 25 years of experience leading dives around Nusa Penida don't mean a whole lot when the guy(s) topside makes very poor decisions.

Leaving seven people in the water when low on fuel and not calling it in for almost four hours...that is really, really freakin' scary.

That being said, I should also point out there are a number of amazing operators in Bali and across Indonesia. Many have a presence on this board. I would not hesitate to send people I love out with operations like Two-Fish, Blue Marine, Wicked, Froggies, and a number of others across Indonesia.

It does sound like the captain failed in preparations as well as waiting to call for help. I think I read on one of the many stories that he was not a regular, but you never know what the news media has right.

Are these the cliffs at that point? If so, I can see the problem...

 

[gee13]

Not quite, the dive started in Mangroves, the island of Lembogan. Its a fairly straightforward drift dive but can have a surface current which can take you out to sea.

Manta point, where the cliffs are ..is quite a way out, on the neighbouring island Nusa Penida where they drifted in open sea to.

 

[Nihon.Iruka]

It is unfortunate that most of the commenters here do not speak Japanese. There is a very good amount of better information in the Japanese press.

Here is the police report interview with a survivor. ??????????????????????????? ?????? - Yahoo!???? Try Google translate.

People may learn that some assumptions were wrong.

 

[DandyDon]

One of the others found dead: Japanese diver found dead off Bali after five rescued - Channel NewsAsia

 

[Leejnd]

Incident happened at Mangrove.

Diving the area in the near future ?

One piece of advice : ask some dive centers about their plans for a specific day (let say ... a full moon or half moon day) pretending you are a novice diver with no drift / current experience. If the DC plans a trip to Crystal Bay on that day and feel comfortable to bring novice divers, run away from it.

It is indeed best to avoid Crystal Bay, Toyapakeh & Blue Corner during full moon as the moon phase amplify tidal effects, creating bigger waves & chances of stronger & still unpredictable currents.

However, Full moon & Half-moon & the 2 days before & after each are also supposed to be the best time of the month to see some Mola² (no scientific data on this one, pure local believes).

Thus being said, many divers & operators decide to dive Crystal Bay, Toyapakeh or Blue Corner during full moon & half-moon.

It is not the most conservative practice but it might be doable - with local guides (I mean a guy diving the area everyday for years, not a guy diving Tulamben on Monday, Padang Bai on Wednesday & Crystal Bay twice a month ...), small ratio & experienced divers only - at one point and at one point only : during slack tide.
.

As it turns out, the days we have slated for diving Nusa Penida do happen to be during the full moon. My dive op mentioned that as increasing the chances that we'll see Mola Mola, but also mentioned that the currents can be stronger. This is not the first time I've dived Nusa Penida - did both Crystal Bay and Manta Point a few years ago, and we did experience some pretty intense currents, but I never felt in danger. And my dive op already knows that I'm an advanced, experienced diver, since I dove with them before. What I don't remember is if it was a full moon at that time. In three days of diving we did NOT see Mola, which was a bummer but also not uncommon.

One of the others found dead: Japanese diver found dead off Bali after five rescued - Channel NewsAsia

I'm so sad.

Like everyone else, we read these threads hoping to find out what went wrong so we can try to learn from the mistakes of others, and do our best to ensure these things don't happen to us. There's a lot we don't know yet, but from what I'm reading so far, it appears that this was one of those situations where a multitude of things went wrong, some of which were out of their control (weather), but others which were very MUCH in control - e.g. running low on fuel, not reporting missing divers IMMEDIATELY. The weather...were there any predictions of this storm? Could a local have been able to tell based on what the conditions were like right before the divers descended that the weather was about to go seriously south? Or was it a freak weather phenomenon? I'd really love to know this.

As for the boat, I'll wait to pass judgment until more confirmation of this story comes out...but if these things are true, I hope that boat captain gets brought to justice. I literally feel ILL over the idea of a dive boat going out without enough fuel, LEAVING the dive site during inclement weather, and not bothering to freaking SEEK HELP the INSTANT he realized he couldn't find them.

And I will stick with my chosen dive op, who has been specializing in Nusa Penida and Crystal Bay for years, gets fabulous reviews on every review site I can find, and with whom I felt extremely safe when I dove with them several years ago.

---------- Post added February 18th, 2014 at 12:31 PM ----------

Someday Sandra and I will dive BALI....when we do, I will have the Liferafts and radar flags with us--we won't TRUST these operators.

Halcyon Diver's Life Raft | MonsterMarketplace.com
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I'm also going to pick me up one of these. I do trust my dive op...but only to a point. There have been a few too many reported instances of divers caught in the currents...$275 seems like a reasonable price for insurance against this remote possibility.