Being left on the dive site: How to avoid and how to survive...

[NAUI Wowie]

I should have been clearer

It's extremely difficult to register one living in this area

But as @rjack321 pointed out, you need to rely on having someone to come get you. In the Strait of Hormuz that's pretty much the Iranians - if they could be bothered


No.

Oh I dont know about that, they just tried to rescue a british tanker yesterday.... luckily a british navy vessel came up behind them and trained its cannons on the iranian ships..... all in all not a healthy area to be floating in id assume.

 

[NAUI Wowie]

I think after the drifting Dan incident a lot has changed with CA dive boats.

that happened in CA???

 

[NAUI Wowie]

This jumped out at me:

"One key factor that helped stave off hypothermia was the fact that Hewitt is (in the words of the researchers) “a large, muscular male”; at 5'11" and 220 pounds, he clearly had a decent amount of insulation. In fact, for every 1 percent increase in body fat, you slow your rate of heat loss by 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit (0.1 degree Celsius) per hour—a big deal when you extrapolate to 75 hours."

I am 6'1 and 185 lbs so I guess I'm screwed. Time to hit the cheeseburgers, for insulation's sake.

Im the same dimensions, the opposite might be good for insulation however I think severe obesity has a correlation to medical issues on land and moreso with scuba. especially as you get closer to the big five O

 

[rjack321]

Do the boats have marine radios equipped with DSC / AIS?

All marine radios sold worldwide have DSC now. The phase in period where you could buy an analog radio has long since passed

 

[Dan]

I should have been clearer

It's extremely difficult to register one living in this area

But as @rjack321 pointed out, you need to rely on having someone to come get you. In the Strait of Hormuz that's pretty much the Iranians - if they could be bothered


No.

Indonesia is probably worse than Oman. You might read how @IyaDiver equips himself there: Updated 2018 - Emergency Equipment to assist Search & Rescue

One of the solutions is to buy 2 VHF marine radios. He carry one in waterproof case. The other he hangs it over the neck of the skiff pilot.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Indonesia is probably worse than Oman. You might read how @IyaDiver equips himself there: Updated 2018 - Emergency Equipment to assist Search & Rescue

Local laws prevent all this. - We've been doing this a while and have fully explored all the options.

Equipment doesn't trump having a well thought out and robust set of protocols and procedures for both the diver and the surface cover.

The simplest one for the diver, especially in our circumstances, is not to faff and continue a dive, but to shoot a dsmb even before any ascent to the surface. We know through hard lessons how quickly someone can be swept away, and how hard it can be to find someone. Time is always of the essence and works on a logarithmic scale.

If you need to be calling for help on a PLB etc, then lots of things have gone wrong prior to that. Often down to poor decision making by the diver

 

[Dan]

This incident was first posted here back in 2006: Diver survives three days in ocean

As @Diving Dubai mentioned, had he have a DSMB and launch it at depth the minute he got swept away by the current underwater, the boat would have seen his SMB and rescued him.

 

[kelemvor]

that happened in CA???

Search for "Drifting Dan."

Short story: Some guy got left in the ocean for four hours after a dive. He was a sucky diver and the boat people blamed the victim. In the end, the Jury awarded him 1.68 Million American doll hairs. They were going to give him 2.1M but knocked a bit off the top due to how much Dan sucked. Most likely, his lawyer took 1.6 and left $80k for Dan.

I got left in KL briefly after a night dive. Although they came back for me pronto, it was pretty terrifying watching my boat power up and drive away without me. Story is somewhere here on scubaboard. I think there's a bit of video, too. Had a gopro running at the time.

I now carry a lifeline, 6' dsmb, mirror, dye pack, whistle, and I'm planning to replace the lifeline with a proper 406Mhz PLB soon. I wonder if I can find an inflatable lifevest or something. I dive a bp/w and I don't think it would keep my head out of the water if unconscious. Obviously you can use the SMB for that but I'd rather have the serving it intended purpose.

 

[blake7]

I now carry a lifeline, 6' dsmb, mirror, dye pack, whistle, and I'm planning to replace the lifeline with a proper 406Mhz PLB soon.

I would not replace the Lifeline with a PLB, I would add the PLB. You want to have an escalation policy which has the PLB as the final step, when all the other signaling devices have failed.

 

[Searcaigh]

Having been drifting around for 90 mins in Musandam once, it was the DSMB that got that got someone on the boat attention, not a whistle or airhorn.

With engines running and other noise on a boat a whistle is about as good as an ashtray on a motorbike, nobody will hear it.

Do the boats have marine radios equipped with DSC / AIS?