Dr. Tracy,
First, my condolescences for the loss of your dog; that can be very traumatic. I lost my dog, King (a German Shepherd) and felt it for quite a while. I finally had a dream where he came back and said he was okay, and that helped me out. He would follow my bubbles when I dove near my home in the North Umpqua River near Roseburg, Oregon. I have a photo of him somewhere looking down through the surface to see me about ten feet underwater.
Now, about your BC. I'm very curious why it would sink? Is it that it had weights attached? Was the tank heavy? I have been diving a long, long time, but I dive vintage with a separate weight belt, and my own design for a front-mount BC, so I'm pretty much out of the loop about a "travel BC". If you could explain that, I would appreciate knowing.
SeaRat
---------- Post Merged at 06:41 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:33 PM ----------
DandyDon,
Here is a quote from my Vintage Scuba Supply website entry:
This is pretty easy to do, but one thing people don't realize is that most oral inflation mechanisms have the ability to "clear" the mouthpiece first, before inflating the BC. That way you don't blow seawater into the BC. That's what those little holes are all about. You start blowing, and the water is blown out those holes, then push the oral inflation button and blow air into the BC. Don't blow a whole breath, as you may need a bit of air to clear the second stage. (In the example above, I was using the oldest of my regulators, a two-hose Broxton DA Aqua-Lung from the early 1950s, so all I needed to do was to put the mouthpiece above my head and it free-flowed; the same can be done with the purge button on a modern regulator.)
SeaRat
---------- Post Merged at 06:56 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:33 PM ----------
To all,
A discussion of buoyancy and emergency techniques is great, but we need to realize that we do not know much specifically about this accident. There are factors that were mentioned above that are unique to the Oregon coast, and Yaquina Bay. Although it has been many years since I dove Yaquina Bay, here are a few insights.
--Tides: can be quite high. Here are the tides for last Sunday, September 23, 2012 at the entrance of Yaquina Bay:
Tides for Bar at entrance starting with September 23, 2012.
Error Message Page
Day....High Tide....Height....Sunrise....Moon....Time....% Moon
/Low Time Feet Sunset Visible
Su....23....Low....12:57 AM....0.1....7:05 AM....Set 12:10 AM....50
........23....High....7:42 AM....6.0.....7:11 PM....Rise....3:29 PM
........23....Low....12:55 PM...3.3
........23....High....6:50 PM.... 7.4
Note that the tides went from a high of 6 feet to a low of 3.3 feet, a difference of 2.7 feet of seawater.
But once the tides change, the tides wen from a low of 3.3 feet to a high of 7 feet, meaning that there
was a pretty hefty current after the low at about 1:00 PM, with an exchange of 3.7 feet. It's not real high,
but there will be a good current.
--Water Temperature: One person contributed that Oregon's water is cold. It is not unusual for summer temperatures
to be lower than in the winter (water in the 40's F in summer, and in the 50's F in the winter). This is because
we have north winds in the summer which blow warmer water off-shore, and it is replaced by very cold upwelled water
from great depths. This causes a characteristic fog bank off the Oregon coast.
--Air Temperatures were very mild, unusually warm for the summer on the coast.
--The south jetty has many small finger jetties, which are dive-able in any tidal current if
the divers are on the downsteam side of the current. But on the surface, especially at high tide,
these currents can be quite fast.
--Offshore waves: these enter the bay, and can be 3 feet or greater where divers dive on the
south jetty. Exits are onto large rocks, with highly variable surfaces, making water exits tricky.
All of these, as well as the issues we have discussed (and the fact that this was a multiple-dive
day), probably factored into this tragedy.
SeaRat
