Brownie's Southport Divers loses divers

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They no longer own the boat. My understanding is they sold it to Alejandro Dutto in Miami and he is running it as a 6 pack?
 
Yeah they should, but honestly I think they focus heavily on the yacht industry.

I also own a Island Hopper charter vessel in Broward County.
Hydrotherapy Dive Charters – Snorkel. Scuba. Explore.

I have seen this video on qualified captain already as well. While there are definite issues with what happened, the guy filming was a complete prick, and he nor many of the people commenting on the videos understand much about how diving works. There are a lot of assumptions being made without knowing the details of what happened leading up to this.

This appears like a recreational trip. I do not see a dive flag, and only a single SMB deployed. If the divers hot dropped on a shipwreck and didn't appropriately shoot the bag when coming off the wreck, they could have drifted quite a distance before they got a bag up.

They also could have been blown off the downline, if one was attached, and drifted before sending up an SMB. It is highly likely the divers share some of the responsibility in this situation.

The current here was 6+ knots the other day when we went to do a tech dive on the Hydro Atlantic. We drifted nearly 2 miles on deco before surfacing. My captain was right there when we surfaced because we have good communication and a plan in place. However it takes a coordinated effort to get it right. We simply don't know the full story here about this particular incident.
 
I have been out with them on tech charters, though it was years ago. It’s not unusual to drift for mile or more in that area, when doing a deco dive on some of the deeper wrecks. It’s the best tech shop in the area. The owner is top notch.
 
I have been out with them on tech charters, though it was years ago. It’s the best tech shop in the area. The owner is top notch.

I would say that is us now at Aquí Water Sports :wink:

You should stop in when you are in town next.
 
Landon is right--something is wrong in this video and screams for an explanation.

It is reminiscent of a very similar video a few years ago about a different very similar-looking incident. In that case, the guy with the video withdrew it under thread of a defamation lawsuit, and the ScubaBoard thread ended up being pulled--one of the few times that has ever happened.

In that area, there are normally two ways divers leave a boat. They can be doing a drift dive with the boat following, or they can be doing a wreck dive, either with the boat having and ascent/descent line, or the divers being hot dropped to the wreck. Let's look at those possibilities.
  • On a drift dive, the divers MUST by law tow a dive flag. They do not have one. In the other case mentioned above, the "lost" diver had intentionally left the group with flag and struck out on his own. If this was a drift dive, then something similar must have happened.
  • If this was a wreck dive with an ascent line, they should have come up the ascent line. If for some reason they didn't, they should have shot a bag before leaving the wreck to they could be followed by the boat. If they don't shoot that bag right away, then the boat has no way of knowing where they are.
  • If it was a hot drop, they should also have shot a bag immediately upon leaving the boat, for the same reason. With a group that size, they should have shot several bags.
 
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