Accident on Southern Cal Oil Rigs Dive

[merxlin]

Just to clarify. Mr. Cook never came up to the boat as you all already know. What I described was the buddy.

Thanks.

 

[ChrisM]

Sad for the diver and his family and local dive buddies. Hopefully the other two recover fully. Rigs are beautiful but they don't leave a lot of room for error (NOTE, not saying the diver did anything wrong, just a turn of phrase....)

 

[george_austin]

Wild eyed speculation, gossip and innuendo - thy name is Accidents and Incidents

 

[diverrex]

The Pacific Star does pump Nitrox. I dove the rigs from the Pac Star in September and have done so a number of times before from that same boat. The Olympic then 2 dives on the rigs is a fairly common trip for Pac Star.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

The Pacific Star does pump Nitrox. I dove the rigs from the Pac Star in September and have done so a number of times before from that same boat. The Olympic then 2 dives on the rigs is a fairly common trip for Pac Star.

Thanks for that Rex. Like I said, I wasn't sure. I haven't been on that boat in a while and their website doesn't make any mention (that I could find) of nitrox being available.

 

[CT-Rich]

It's a stunning dive. The structure itself is gorgeous, it's covered in tons of invertebrate marine life and attracts a lot of fish and sea lions. This is a good video


Ellen, Elly and Eureka are about 8 miles off shore from San Pedro. The Ellen-Elly complex is where this incident occurred.

This is certainly a dive worth working for.... beautiful

 

[vladodessit]

AFAIK, Pac Star pumps partial pressure Nitrox only to O² clean cylinders. If this changed-it would be recent and I haven't heard of it.

 

[John Lindell]

The only other thing I’d add to why some divers go deeper on the rigs is that the oil rig companies usually clean the first 40-50 feet of the platform legs on a routine schedule with commercial divers....the more developed invertebrate sea life is 60 feet and lower and if you don’t practice good depth discipline, buoyancy control, and situational awareness you can find yourself deeper than planned while watching the sea life.
I was out on the rigs two months ago, and it was a good day of diving but quite a bit of surge. I did a deep qualifier dive at a floor of 120 ft with my instructor and then came back up to 90 ft to meet up with a class of AOW students with another instructor - one ran out of air at 50 ft and failed to get his cert. The other two dives went like clockwork.
Last month I went scalopping on the rigs with my dive buddies at 60-90 feet to get our 10 scallop medallions. The one dumb thing I did on the dive was dive lower than planned for 15 sec to grab my dropped scallop knife....breaking my own personal floor for the dive. Stuff like that is easy to do on the rigs as the vis is decent and there is no hard bottom for rec divers. Stupid move and I’m a Rescue cert diver with hundreds of dives working on my DM cert - you just sometimes act without thinking and that increases the likelihood of becoming a statistic. Came up and talked that one over with my dive buddies as a self-professed dumb move.
I’m heading out to the rigs this Saturday for 3 tank dive trip. Will be doing an extra equipment and buddy check.

 

[ShutterFinger]

The only other thing I’d add to why some divers go deeper on the rigs is that the oil rig companies usually clean the first 40-50 feet of the platform legs on a routine schedule with commercial divers....the more developed invertebrate sea life is 60 feet and lower and if you don’t practice good depth discipline, buoyancy control, and situational awareness you can find yourself deeper than planned while watching the sea life.
I was out on the rigs two months ago, and it was a good day of diving but quite a bit of surge. I did a deep qualifier dive at a floor of 120 ft with my instructor and then came back up to 90 ft to meet up with a class of AOW students with another instructor - one ran out of air at 50 ft and failed to get his cert. The other two dives went like clockwork.
Last month I went scalopping on the rigs with my dive buddies at 60-90 feet to get our 10 scallop medallions. The one dumb thing I did on the dive was dive lower than planned for 15 sec to grab my dropped scallop knife....breaking my own personal floor for the dive. Stuff like that is easy to do on the rigs as the vis is decent and there is no hard bottom for rec divers. Stupid move and I’m a Rescue cert diver with hundreds of dives working on my DM cert - you just sometimes act without thinking and that increases the likelihood of becoming a statistic. Came up and talked that one over with my dive buddies as a self-professed dumb move.
I’m heading out to the rigs this Saturday for 3 tank dive trip. Will be doing an extra equipment and buddy check.

Hey John...missed you at the dive club meeting....see you Sat on the rigs.

 

[Freewillow]

Isn't 4 rather deep dives in a day a bit pushing the limits? No speculation, just a question