mjbTaiwan
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It's now approaching 8pm here...Still no word on the fate of the 8 missing divers. As the foreign diving community here in Taiwan is fairly small, we often run over the same paths, meet the same locals, do the same lunatic fringe dives.
The search parties, coast guard rescue boats and helicopters have been at it since dawn. One despondent wife is separated from her husband (she was too seasick to do the second dive and opted out), the dive shop owners nephew (one of the dive instructors) is also included among the missing. It's a very sad event all around.
I think there are some interesting comparisons to be made between the Peleliu incident and 7 star. One is a challenging, but international dive site enjoyed by thousands annually, and the other is so far off the beaten track it's normally dived by a few dozen hardy souls at most from year to year. And yes I've done both sites more than once.
Diving "the cut" at Peleliu could be one of the single greatest dives I've ever done. But, there is something very hypnotic about the "true frontier" feeling of 7-star, the element of risk knowings it's troubled past, the amazing visibility, the shoals of fish/pelagics not normally found on the mainland dive sites due to overfishing, the feeling of the currrent sucking you between the rocks like a giant vacuum cleaner, the dropoff into the abyss on the backside, Anthias dancing everywhere....A magical place.
This is pinnacle diving at it's finest. 7-star despite the dangers is a world-class dive site.
Unfortunately, the window for safe diving on the 7-star site is very short, usually only 2-3months maximum, and during that time it might get 1-2 weekends with favorable weather/tides. If the conditions are even remotely iffy, the dive is instantly canceled; the penalty for an error in weather judgment (as seen currently) is just too high to contemplate.
The single largest question in the diving community here is this: Why did they choose to go out when the conditions were so obviously unfavorable? The same boat captain that taken us there safely/cautiously in the past is the same one that motored this group of 14 out there in huge swells/ripping current. A short video clip of a coast guard cutter standing off of the dive site showed it getting knocked around by what looked to be 3 meter swells.
Winds are out of the SW, and this is good for two reasons...First, it should push them toward the mainland's southern tip and toward the Black River (Kurushio current) that runs all the way up the east coast of Taiwan toward Japan in some places within a few hundred yards of shore.
A few years ago, a local diver was caught in this current, taken nearly 100miles up the east coast in 36 hours. He self rescued by swimming ashore. He's not the first. Another group of divers were diving off the Southeast coast on Green Island (about 26km off of the mainland) and were swept into the Kurushio and then carried all the way back to the mainland.
An earlier post inquired as to the nationalities of the missing divers...All of them are Taiwanese.
The search parties, coast guard rescue boats and helicopters have been at it since dawn. One despondent wife is separated from her husband (she was too seasick to do the second dive and opted out), the dive shop owners nephew (one of the dive instructors) is also included among the missing. It's a very sad event all around.
I think there are some interesting comparisons to be made between the Peleliu incident and 7 star. One is a challenging, but international dive site enjoyed by thousands annually, and the other is so far off the beaten track it's normally dived by a few dozen hardy souls at most from year to year. And yes I've done both sites more than once.
Diving "the cut" at Peleliu could be one of the single greatest dives I've ever done. But, there is something very hypnotic about the "true frontier" feeling of 7-star, the element of risk knowings it's troubled past, the amazing visibility, the shoals of fish/pelagics not normally found on the mainland dive sites due to overfishing, the feeling of the currrent sucking you between the rocks like a giant vacuum cleaner, the dropoff into the abyss on the backside, Anthias dancing everywhere....A magical place.
This is pinnacle diving at it's finest. 7-star despite the dangers is a world-class dive site.
Unfortunately, the window for safe diving on the 7-star site is very short, usually only 2-3months maximum, and during that time it might get 1-2 weekends with favorable weather/tides. If the conditions are even remotely iffy, the dive is instantly canceled; the penalty for an error in weather judgment (as seen currently) is just too high to contemplate.
The single largest question in the diving community here is this: Why did they choose to go out when the conditions were so obviously unfavorable? The same boat captain that taken us there safely/cautiously in the past is the same one that motored this group of 14 out there in huge swells/ripping current. A short video clip of a coast guard cutter standing off of the dive site showed it getting knocked around by what looked to be 3 meter swells.
Winds are out of the SW, and this is good for two reasons...First, it should push them toward the mainland's southern tip and toward the Black River (Kurushio current) that runs all the way up the east coast of Taiwan toward Japan in some places within a few hundred yards of shore.
A few years ago, a local diver was caught in this current, taken nearly 100miles up the east coast in 36 hours. He self rescued by swimming ashore. He's not the first. Another group of divers were diving off the Southeast coast on Green Island (about 26km off of the mainland) and were swept into the Kurushio and then carried all the way back to the mainland.
An earlier post inquired as to the nationalities of the missing divers...All of them are Taiwanese.
