Anchor Almost Dropped on Head - What Would You Do?

[Darnold9999]

Would be hard for a boat to speed off - with the anchor that just missed you on the bottom.

This is going to be unpopular on a dive board, but as I see it the problem is the divers centric view of the world. By that I mean - of course every boater should know about diving and where divers dive and what the risks of hitting them are.

The reality is that non divers have absolutely no idea what divers do and where they might be on the water. At best they might be aware of a dive flag and know enough to stay away. Without some kind of surface support or flag the idea that a non diver would make the connection between people in rubber suits on shore and a few bubble patches on the surface and someone swimming below their boat is a huge stretch.

You say "waters known to be populated with divers" - around here that describes exactly two locations (Whytecliff and Porteau Cove) and both are well marked on charts and one is surrounded by marker bouys. Outside of these two locations there are no "waters known to be populated with divers", around here anyway. Most boaters/people wouldn't even consider divers as a possibility - just doesn't enter their thoughts. Why would it? Diving is done by a very small number of people on a very very small part of the ocean.

Such a minor sport that happens on the fringes of the ocean and is rarely, if ever, seen. The PNW is a hotbed of divers and I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen another diver in the water from my boat, and I spend weeks at a time on it in the summer - sometimes days at a time within hailing distance from one of the artificial wrecks that many here dive on.

Divers are just not a significant concern except in very unusual situations - and unless they are really paying attention and notice, this unusual situation will not even enter into most boater's minds. Why would a boater even know that a specific location was a popular one for divers???? Whytecliff as a local example is a site I pass pretty regularly (one leaving and once returning from virtually every trip.) and is probably the most popular site around here to teach divers. The one place I HAVE seen divers from my boat, but even then pretty rare to actually see divers. I need to go by at the same time that someone is both out of the water but not yet out of their gear. A very small window of time.

Not saying that it is OK for a boater to drop an anchor on a cloud of bubbles, just that it is a bad idea to assume that a boater will have any idea at all that you are there. And unless you have some kind of surface support/flag to indicate that you are below it is extremely unlikely that a boater will even think about the possibility.

 

[Dsix36]

If you really want to get back at the boater in this situation, be sneaky about it and sty out of trouble.

Swim up under the boat and pull the drain plug out of the back and let it fall to the ocean floor as you swim back to shore hidden underwater.

 

[flots am]

Actually there is one place where you don't tow a float, flag, or shoot an SMB from depth. The shipping channel in the St Lawrence river. Do that and you face a fine as they have to shut down the channel and it takes a lot of room and time to stop a 500 ft freighter.

OTOH, nobody will be dropping an anchor there either.

 

[doctormike]

I dont understand the position of posts 56 and 57. The position seems to be is that when boating in waters known to be populated with divers, the boater has no precautionary responsibility so long as they see no... bubbles in the water.

I'm not sure I understand your position. Are you saying that when boating in waters known to be populated with divers, the boater should never drop anchor? I mean, if you are saying that even with no dive flag and no bubbles (that they see, anyway), the fact that divers like to dive in a certain area makes it automatically a no-anchor zone?

If a diver gets hit in the boat channel it is the divers fault.

Yup, that's what I would say. If you surface in a boat channel without a flag, it would definitely be your fault if you get hit by a boat. Just like if you dart out into a highway from where no driver can see you, it's your fault if you get hit by a car.

If a diver were looked at like a cripled vessel then the navigation responsibilities for collision avoidance reside with the able vessel.

Absolutely, and that's a good analogy. But that's not what we are talking about with a diver on the bottom with no flag. And to follow that analogy, if a boat sinks and sits on the bottom in a shallow ship channel, it is a hazard to navigation, and it is the responsibility of the owner of the boat to remove that hazard, specifically because you can't avoid a hazard that you can't see.

Anyone who would penatrate a diving area wit a boat would never get a surface from me next to them. Who is to say that they would not start up and speed off as they see me surfacing next to them to avoid being reported.

Reported for what? For boating? Remember, the OP wasn't talking about a designated diving area marked off with buoys and with laws excluding boaters from the area. Sure, if the boater enters an area that is so designated, then he would be at fault (I'll assume that such areas exist - I have seen them for swimmers but not for divers). But that's not the case under discussion, at least as far as I can tell...

 

[danvolker]

This whole diver without a flag, annoyed with the boat anchor, is an awful lot like a cyclist riding their bike at night with no lights or reflectors, and then being pissed that a car hit ( or almost hit them), because the cars should know that this is a road commonly ridden on by bicyclists.....

 

[kwinter]

If you surface in a boat channel without a flag, it would definitely be your fault if you get hit by a boat.

Boaters do have some responsibility, and it gets violated all the time. Even if you have a float, it doesn't stay directly above you. There is a safe distance away that boaters are supposed to respect. But often they don't and divers surface and get hurt.

Towing a flag is no guarantee, but it helps.


Please pardon any typos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[danvolker]

Best method to protect us when freediving, has been to tow a kayak with a big high dive flag on it.....I used to have a 19 foot surfski that only weighed 35 pounds, and towing it there was zero resistance.....but many divers will go with the much less expensive Scupper pro type kayaks....
The deal is....they are quite a bit more visible to boaters than a float....and even more important, the really ignorant among the boater crowd don't really care one way or another about running over a crab pot , buoy, or dive flag( which they don't process as a dive flag in their tiny brains).....however....if they see the 12 foot kayak with the dive flag......they still don't think much or at all about the flag....but they really DONT LIKE the idea of damaging their props if they run over the kayak, so they try hard to steer clear.

 

[DelrayDM]

but they really DONT LIKE the idea of damaging their props if they run over the kayak, so they try hard to steer clear.

Like this one?
Mass. man appeals conviction in boy's boat death - Homenewshere.com: State

 

[danvolker]

Like this one?
Mass. man appeals conviction in boy's boat death - Homenewshere.com: State
View attachment 177565

I don't know that even having a big Chater boat like Narcosis or Wet Temptations, ( 48 foot dive boats) would be a guarantee that this could be prevented when serious drug or alcohol impairment has the operator of a vessel UNRESPONSIVE to any visual stimulus.....Charters in Palm Beach have actually "played chicken" with oncoming speedboats threatening their divers in the water...but even this extreme measure only works when the boater is looking and seeing....there actually was one luxuary yacht that was plowing down the reefline once on autopilot, with no one in the cockpit....there is no way a charter boat or a kayak will help in this scenario....

My surfacing ALWAYS involves the last 10 feet being rapid, spinning 360 and listening for dopler shifts of a boat prop.... If I hear the bad sounds, I am instantly reversed to back down to safe depth...if I hit surface, there is a full 360 scan of horizon done in a second, and on safe lack of approaching boaters, I wave my buddies up to surface..... It's just one of my things I do

There are divers that like to do their last 10 feet with a very slow ascent, for the DCS safety margin it offers...
After having dived agressively since 1972, I can honestly say I don't need to do this.....and that safety concerns at practically any destination where more than just your own dive vessel are motoring around overhead....have me thinking that oncoming vessels are the greatest threat for injury--far greater than any DCS threat ( at least to me).

 

[NAM001]

As far as what was posted it was said that bouys could not be towed because of entanglement from the large population of divers and tht at times up to a hundred or more divers ar in the water at a time. This makes this site a popular site. I am assuming tht this is a reoccuring situation at this ocation. Not just one weekend a year. As such local boaters should know that it is a populated dive site and take appropriate precautions. I agree that most boaters may not recognize divers in the water however when you are in a popular dive area you must assume they are there for the same reasone you assume children are present in residential areas. I will agree perhaps that the points of the cove should display a divers flag to cover the area and limit boat traffic to designated channel areas.

I must also say that there is a centric view of the boaters in play also. Still i would never surface next to a boat unless i was sure the prop would not be engeged. Boaters will do that to insure thier reg number will not be reported. I will agree that also the group that violates it most are the jet skiers. I have watched many times at lake travis jet skiers and large boats propell them selves into the diving areas and then without regard full power thier way out of the area when someone starts yelling at them. The last hting they want is to be caught and expelled from the lake. I guess its fun to throw a wave into a divers face on the surface.

Would be hard for a boat to speed off - with the anchor that just missed you on the bottom.

This is going to be unpopular on a dive board, but as I see it the problem is the divers centric view of the world. By that I mean - of course every boater should know about diving and where divers dive and what the risks of hitting them are.

The reality is that non divers have absolutely no idea what divers do and where they might be on the water. At best they might be aware of a dive flag and know enough to stay away. Without some kind of surface support or flag the idea that a non diver would make the connection between people in rubber suits on shore and a few bubble patches on the surface and someone swimming below their boat is a huge stretch.

You say "waters known to be populated with divers" - around here that describes exactly two locations (Whytecliff and Porteau Cove) and both are well marked on charts and one is surrounded by marker bouys. Outside of these two locations there are no "waters known to be populated with divers", around here anyway. Most boaters/people wouldn't even consider divers as a possibility - just doesn't enter their thoughts. Why would it? Diving is done by a very small number of people on a very very small part of the ocean.

Such a minor sport that happens on the fringes of the ocean and is rarely, if ever, seen. The PNW is a hotbed of divers and I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen another diver in the water from my boat, and I spend weeks at a time on it in the summer - sometimes days at a time within hailing distance from one of the artificial wrecks that many here dive on.

Divers are just not a significant concern except in very unusual situations - and unless they are really paying attention and notice, this unusual situation will not even enter into most boater's minds. Why would a boater even know that a specific location was a popular one for divers???? Whytecliff as a local example is a site I pass pretty regularly (one leaving and once returning from virtually every trip.) and is probably the most popular site around here to teach divers. The one place I HAVE seen divers from my boat, but even then pretty rare to actually see divers. I need to go by at the same time that someone is both out of the water but not yet out of their gear. A very small window of time.

Not saying that it is OK for a boater to drop an anchor on a cloud of bubbles, just that it is a bad idea to assume that a boater will have any idea at all that you are there. And unless you have some kind of surface support/flag to indicate that you are below it is extremely unlikely that a boater will even think about the possibility.