Belize: Death of Corey Monk

[pilot fish]

What agency recommends night diving alone? Do you think it's a good idea to dive without a buddy on a night dive? This sad accident might have been avoided, I think difinitely, if he had had a dive buddy. He obviously got into trouble and no one was there to help him. Rules of diving in pairs are there for a reason and it's a good idea to follow those rules.

What you do is not relevant to this accident, true, but I would not be happy to hear you had an accidnet on a solo night dive.

PF - I think every dive I have done in Belize (roughly 90 dives) had "depth" as part of the configuration. I don't recall one that didn't, but there might have been been one or two. These are wall dives on a barrier reef after all. You can choose to stay shallow or you can choose to go to the wall and go down the wall to whatever depth you choose.

What I do is not relevant. Working diver on a liveaboard is the criteria. I am not an instructor nor do I work in the diving industry. However I have been diving solo at night in Belize - could even have been at Que Brada, I don't particularly remember which sites.

Deep is only "perhaps - perhaps not" as I said, speculation.

If you can't hold your depth in the pretty benign conditions of Belize then you shouldn't be diving off the walls at all, let alone solo.

Solo at night. Everything else - deep, gear not working, sick etc. etc. etc. all speculation not facts.

 

[Darol]

Sorry to hear of this loss. Interesting thread.
Done solo diving, would never stand in judgement of
anyone, without knowing the facts, or even with them.

 

[Zippsy]

What agency recommends night diving alone?

I don't think any "recommend" diving alone at night but I do believe there are courses that teach both night diving and solo diving. I have no idea of this young man's experience or training but what is wrong with getting trained to do solo night dives? I won't judge him without knowing his experience / training and swum a mile in his fins.

 

[berick]

UWBB,

I'll admit also that I didn't know what the yellow plastic bag was on the bed, either, and, I carry a safety sausage. It was my first liveaboard the week before your trip -- I guess these must be common on livaboards. My wife and I didn't use theirs. I have heard from other divers that they actually thought the plastic bags worked as well (or better) as the others for visibility. The only 2 times I've used my safety sausage was for flotation, not, visibility . Once, I had a dump valve malfunction and my BCD wouldn't hold air at the surface. I got tired of finning and pulled out the 8' safety sausage and inflated it and floated on it. A second time, I used it in rough water so my wife and I could hold on and stay together until the boat picked us up. I don't think the plastic bag would have worked very well in either of these 2 situations.

 

[peterbj7]

It's a great shame full use of an SMB isn't taught in basic scuba classes. They come in two flavors - an SMB is something you inflate before you go under and (usually) drag behind you on a line so people on the surface know where you are. Mandatory in some areas for CCR divers as they don't show bubbles.

A DSMB (delayed surface marker buoy) is intended to be sent up on a line at some point during the dive, typically at the start of the ascent. Clearly there has to be some means of inflation, which is usually oral, by reg second stage, or by opening a small pressurised bottle attached to the DSMB. It's usually on a line from a compact reel. Good ones have sufficient positive buoyancy that once on the surface they would take a great deal of dragging under, so the diver makes himself slightly negative and winds himself up the line. Even in rough seas the diver has no difficulty maintaining a constant depth.

DSMBs are almost universally used in northern European diving as they are such a simple and obvious safety measure, and make the business of a free ascent so much easier to manage safely. Then of course we also have the color coding which is NOT a fashion statement - if you dive off Britain (for example) and send up a yellow DSMB there will be a diver in the water coming down to you with a spare tank/regulator very quickly. We know what it means and act accordingly.

Of course, you do it on a rec dive in the Americas and it'll probably be ignored. I believe that tech divers in US/Canada treat it the same way as Europeans. Here in Belize I know only one or two divers apart from myself who use a DSMB at all, and color coding means nothing. Although I have both yellow and red I only ever take the red one with me, as I know the significance of the yellow one won't be understood.

When I ascend, whether by myself or if I am leading a dive group, I always use either a fixed boat mooring line or my DSMB. I have heard comments that it is because I can't make a controlled free ascent without, but this is missing the point that it is far safer to have an ascent line. When I was taking my CCR instructor course I was not allowed to use an ascent line, as performing a controlled ascent with a CCR is difficult and I needed to demonstrate that I could do it well enough to teach others. Nonetheless, other than in an artificial teaching situation I would ALWAYS use an ascent line.

I see many people with a "safety sausage" tightly wrapped and fixed to the front of their BCs. No line attached. This can only be used to wave once you're on the surface, and can't serve the important purpose of being an ascent line. Even if (as some do) there are a few feet of line attached it still can't be used for ascending.

On a routine rec drift dive I usually send up the bag as we're leaving the bottom, at maybe 40ft (my reel has around 150ft of line). Then we have the safety stop of several minutes. All this time the SMB is visible on the surface, and as my weight on it varies with wave action it bobs up and down, making it highly visible. Long before we surface the boat has seen it and is waiting nearby.

 

[Nesher]

It's a great shame full use of an SMB isn't taught in basic scuba classes.

Peter I am in full agreement with you here! I have a Safety Sausage which I purchased and it's in the pocket of my BC.

I haven't taken it out once nor have I used it just to practice.

Well, I'm going to remedy that right away.

Thanks for the information, that was really helpful.

 

[Darnold9999]

What agency recommends night diving alone? Do you think it's a good idea to dive without a buddy on a night dive?

This sad accident might have been avoided, I think difinitely, if he had had a dive buddy. He obviously got into trouble and no one was there to help him. Rules of diving in pairs are there for a reason and it's a good idea to follow those rules.
QUOTE]

You dive according to your certification, training and experience and I will dive according to my certification, training and experience and one of the silly cards I have says solo diver on it so I can do exactly that on liveaboards that allow it.

IMHO night diving is not particularly more dangerous than daytime diving except its dark. To deal with the dark I carry three lights, a modeling light for my camera (which I use as my primary most night dives in clear water), a much brighter primary when I need to see in poor vis or want to see a long way, and a small backup in case both fail. Overkill, but that is my choice. I do this whether I have a buddy or not.

Thankfully there are no "rules of diving" so those of us that wish to accept the risks of diving alone, diving deep, wreck diving or whatever can accept the risks of our style of diving and go do it without the scuba police following along behind. Even if, according to your standards, we are being reckless.

You think that a buddy would definately have saved him - I think the very best that could be said is that a buddy might have - we don't really have enough data to know either way.

 

[peterbj7]

You dive according to your certification, training and experience

NO!!

You dive according to your certification, training and experience, AND THE EQUIPMENT YOU ARE CARRYING WITH YOU. I am certified to dive solo (whatever that means) but if I don't have the necessary redundant equipment with me (the most important of course being an alternate air supply) then I MUST NOT dive alone.

This is not just semantics, playing with words, nor is it a detail that "of course is understood". It is fundamental. I have seen too many people diving completely alone (not just technically without a buddy, but out of sight of anyone else) with eg. a single tank at great depth. I challenged one of them back on the boat - she replied rather arrogantly that she was a PADI instructor and of course was qualified to dive by herself, and who was I to question her? I didn't reply - no point. I wonder if she's still alive?

 

[Darnold9999]

It's a great shame full use of an SMB isn't taught in basic scuba classes.

When I did my classes don't know that they even existed. Also up here don't know that if you sent up a yellow one anyone would pay it any more attention than a red one. Will have to check on my next trip. Makes perfect sense however.

 

[peterbj7]

When I did my classes don't know that they even existed

Even though compared with me you're a positive youngster (!) you may well have started diving before I did! They certainly existed when I started, though they weren't taught then any more than they are now, and it was only when I joined a dive club that did adventurous dives that I really became exposed to them.

When I have more thoughtful divers, ones who want to learn to become good divers, not just get a card to go out once a year, I introduce use of a DSMB. Technically I'm breaching PADI requirements by teaching something that's not in the syllabus.....