Abandoned at Sea - Sun June 26, 2005 - The Ibis, Dania Beach, Hollywood Fl.

[lhpdiver]

There a alot of things which bother me about this thread. I'm sorry for jumping around.

. I do not excuse the dive boat if it left the divers behind.
. In this neck of the woods the social thing is to limit your shallow dive to 40-45 minutes.
. I can't understand how if 5 dive flags were launched, 5 dive flags weren't retrieved.
. I do not know any of the folks involved here, have never dove the boat / site, but I did a search and it seems comparable to the "balls" in North Broward. Depth 20-30 feet, probably a few hundred yards off shore. Mooring balls every 100 yards or so for about a mile. On any weekend day there may be as many as 10 boats moored.
. Abandoned at sea seems a bit dramatic.
. I think the captain might have been let down by his DM.
. I think a scuba professional should confront the captain / operator with an operational issue directly rather than via internet forum posting, especially if he is a regular on the boat.
. Who knows at what point the captain realized there were divers missing ? Are you sure he wasn't conducting a search ? 400 yards is quite a distance for a captain to keep an eye over with other boats / divers in the water.
. What were the instructions to the divers ? Was the plan for the divers to return to the boat ? or be picked up ?
. Is this captain being called a liar because he didn't do a roll call on a night dive ? Round here I've been on large boats (28 cap.) that have as few as 4 divers on a Friday night.
. Is there only 1 captain for this boat ? Might it be that he is being labeled a liar because of another captain's actions (the broken agreement) ?
. On more than 1 occasion I have been on dive boats which have picked up their lost divers from private boats in the area.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Why would somesome characterize the incident as an Inconvenience? "As it turned out they were inconvenienced." ...
My wife was injured. She smashed her finger real good climbing onto the back of the small privite boat. The blood was pouring out from her glove. She thought it was broken. It required a trip to the emergency room that night, stitches, a tetanus shot and she wore a splint for a week. It's still healing. I was at the emergency room when I spoke to the Coast Guard the first time. They know all about it.

Golly gee whiz, Don... your initial description of the incident was "Thank God there was a small private boat anchored some 80 to 100 yards away. It took at least 20 minutes but we swam to the private boat who invited us aboard and radioed the Coast Guard. About 5 minutes later the Coast Guard radioed back saying they had talked to the Ibis and she was coming back for us. At least another 15 minutes or so and the Ibis arrived."
I believed you when you said that - a boat in sight and a 20 minute swim & back on a boat. No mention of any real problem or injury to you or your bride. Based on that, what you described was a 40 minute delay with no injury. To me that is in fact an inconvenience - and lucky that's all. Sorry I couldn't divine the injury to your wife and the trip to the emergency room from your description; I really don't see how I could. Had you done so I would not have described it as I did... My point was and is that lawsuits have to have actual injury (which you left out of the original description) in order to have teeth and that a lawsuit would be a waste of your time and money.
That doesn't lessen the seriousness of the Ibis' transgressions, however, and if you'll go back and read my entire post you'll see I don't excuse them in any way.
Rick

 

[djanni]

I figured I told enough of the story. We try not to be crybabies. I was just taken back when I saw "you" use the word inconvenienced. Think I would make a post like this over a little inconvenience? As it turned out it was one hell of a inconvenience because it's not over yet. No, that doesn't imply a lawyer.

Between Saturday and Sunday, we did 4 dives with them and over a beer sometime I could tell you even more wierd stuff as well as stuff they did or didn't do before dives and during other dives. You would be rolling your eyes for an hour.

Golly gee whiz, Don... your initial description of the incident was "Thank God there was a small private boat anchored some 80 to 100 yards away. It took at least 20 minutes but we swam to the private boat who invited us aboard and radioed the Coast Guard. About 5 minutes later the Coast Guard radioed back saying they had talked to the Ibis and she was coming back for us. At least another 15 minutes or so and the Ibis arrived."
I believed you when you said that - a boat in sight and a 20 minute swim & back on a boat. No mention of any real problem or injury to you or your bride. Based on that, what you described was a 40 minute delay with no injury. To me that is in fact an inconvenience - and lucky that's all. Sorry I couldn't divine the injury to your wife and the trip to the emergency room from your description; I really don't see how I could. Had you done so I would not have described it as I did... My point was and is that lawsuits have to have actual injury (which you left out of the original description) in order to have teeth and that a lawsuit would be a waste of your time and money.
That doesn't lessen the seriousness of the Ibis' transgressions, however, and if you'll go back and read my entire post you'll see I don't excuse them in any way.
Rick

 

[Fireboat57]

Hey Don,

Having worked the SAR desk for the Coast Guard this kind of piqued my interest. As we all know lying to a federal investigator is a pretty serious matter and you have stated that the crew lied to the investigating officer/petty officer. I have a few friends in the 7th CG District and I am going to request a copy of the incident report under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). Since there is no personal medical information on those incident reports (casualty reports are a separate form) it should be pretty easy to come by.

Did the CG give you a case number? The incident number would make it a tiny bit easier to locate, but just given the date as you already have would work too.

Toby

 

[djanni]

I don't have a case number but if you truly want to know more please contact your friends at the 7th. PM me with your request I'll give you the investigating officers name and her telephone number.

BTW: What you said about lying to the CG... You might want to go back and read through some threads again and try to figure out who said what.

Don

Hey Don,

Having worked the SAR desk for the Coast Guard this kind of piqued my interest. As we all know lying to a federal investigator is a pretty serious matter and you have stated that the crew lied to the investigating officer/petty officer. I have a few friends in the 7th CG District and I am going to request a copy of the incident report under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). Since there is no personal medical information on those incident reports (casualty reports are a separate form) it should be pretty easy to come by.

Did the CG give you a case number? The incident number would make it a tiny bit easier to locate, but just given the date as you already have would work too.

Toby

 

[Fireboat57]

Don,

I did go back over the entire thread and found that the only person that stated that the CG was lied to was Sharpenu. I apologize for the error. PM is on the way to you.

Toby

 

[djanni]

Don,

I did go back over the entire thread and found that the only person that stated that the CG was lied to was Sharpenu. I apologize for the error. PM is on the way to you.

Toby

Everyone,

For the record and as I mentioned in a previous post, I have the business cards of three other divers on that trip and I can assure you they would support Sharpenu's report. They would say the Ibis was not conducting a search when the CG called them.

In fact I have come to respect Sharpenu for reporting the fact's he knows. Read the post by "lhpdiver" if you want an example of the opposite of factual.

 

[Padipro]

How crowded to you consider Key Largo area dive sites? I'm thinking of the people who were left behind on Molassas Reef overnight. Did the operator (who I will not name because that happened a long time ago, they have since changed hands, and even before the op was sold, they changed their system to DAN tags and roll calls) think it was no big deal because it happened in a heavily trafficed area? Sorry. there is no excuse for leaving someone behind, even if it's in a bathtub.

Even though the Keys are located in Southern Florida it's not the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami
"South Florida" area. The Keys are more like the northeast as it's quite shallow around the small islands and dive boats need to go further out away from land to find deeper water and that puts divers not only in the gulf stream but more spread out so there are fewer boats at each site. In the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area the water gets deep quick so most dive sites are close to shore, within a mile or so, the gulf stream runs several miles off shore in this area and there are hundreds of boats in the area even during the week.

If a diver were carrying nothing more then a small SMB I don't think it would hard for a boat to spot them if they needed help.

 

[sharpenu]

Some Captains WANT divers to have short dives so they can hurry up and get the second trip of the day out of the way. The hurry to get in another trip is what I suspect happened here, IMO.

My dives go from 60-70 minutes, usually. To be nice, I usually tell the Capt and they frequently drop me and my buddy in first (with our own flag) and pick us up last. We then do a much shorter SI than the rest of the boat (since I dive EANx, I can get away with this) and I am back in the water. Many divers do a 30-40 minute dive, followed by a 1 hour SI and then a second 30-40 minute dive. I frequently climb back on the boat to find the other (impatient) divers dry and drinking sodas.

Just because I prefer long dives doesn't mean the Capt has any excuse for leaving me behind. IMO, the CG should fine the Capt at a minimum. The most appropriate would be a suspension, but that is just me.

This thread is no different than the "10 dirtiest restaurants" stories in the news or the lists of sexual predators. What you don't know can kill you. Know the operations you dive with and be picky. It is your money and your life.

 

[Aqua Buoy]

Having been lost at sea for 5+ hours a couple years back I have NO problem with naming a particular operator (no point naming the one I was involved with, it no longer exists) on a public forum, especially when there is other evidence to back it up. It really depends on how you go about doing it.


Roll calls, definitely, preferably with eye to eye contact with the DM and the person who's name is called. Tags, not a bad idea, but again depending on the layout of the boat, type of operation, etc.

To Don Janni, you're lucky there was a private boat AND a coast guard.


dive safe!