Unknown Chinese diver's body recovered - Kakaban Island, Indonesia

[Steelyeyes]

Thresher sharks. I agree. Go to where they come shallow. We saw 7 of them on one dive in the Maldives. Problem was the shallowest one was probably at 130 feet and we just hung around at about 80 feet so the viewing was so-so and photos weren't going to happen.

Go-pros and diving. I found one at the Mala Pier in Lahaina, never could find the owner. Oddly he had never used the Go-pro in the water. I pulled the SD card and looked over the images to see if I could find some way to ID the owner, all of the images were recorded on a Canon camera on land.

I lived on Bonaire for four years and the two most objects that people lost were weight pockets and Go-pros. I highly recommend at least a wrist lanyard if you want to keep the thing.

 

[Dan]

I have 3 ways of connecting my GoPro to me:
1. Wrist lanyard
2. Leash to clip the rig to my BCD D-ring
3. Uni-Quik Carabiner to clip the rig directly on to BCD D-ring.

I only use #3 during rough surface conditions (high waves), which requires both of my hands free to climb up a boat ladder.

 

[Dan]

Another article says this:

“According to witnesses, Zhang surfaced but jumped back into the water without her scuba gear in an attempt to retrieve the camera.”

Chinese diver dies off Indonesia's Kakaban Island

A 30-year-old woman has died after drowning while attempting to recover a dropped camera off Kakaban Island, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

divemagazine.com

 

[Dan]

Found a more reliable articles (with SAR officer describing the body recovery in Indonesian language) that says she was in full dive gear at 77m depth 31 hours later. There were as many as 30 people involved in the search & recovery effort.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Lots of very different reports here, including the one from esanisa who appears to know the most. Hard to figure out which one is correct or is it a mixture of them all.

 

[Pearlman]

Lots of very different reports here, including the one from esanisa who appears to know the most. Hard to figure out which one is correct or is it a mixture of them all.

That user name logged in here to make just one post and vanished. I doubt the veracity of the claims made in that post.

Dropping the camera at the safety stop likely means the divers were around 50 bar already. Going down to 80mtrs with 50 bar in your single tank to shoot a shark video in ripping currents (and with tech diver training) … seriously??!!

 

[Dan]

I believe statements by Endrow Sasmita, the head officer of Balikpapan Basarnas (Indonesian SAR).

The search & recovery took 31 hours, involving 30 people. The discovery at around 77m depth is within 50m radius from where she was last seen, according to Officer Sasmita. She had her full diver gears on, when the recovery team found her.

National Search and Rescue Agency - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Pearlman]

I believe statements by Endrow Sasmita, the head officer of Balikpapan Basarnas (Indonesian SAR).

National Search and Rescue Agency - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Translation available?

 

[Dan]

Translation available?

I don’t know, but the ANTARA news posted by @DandyDon in post #1 is the most accurate. The accident happened around 9AM on Friday, May 2nd. The recovery was completed around 4PM on Saturday, May 3rd.

Missing Chinese diver found dead in Indonesia's Kakaban Island

A Chinese national identified as Zhang Xiaohan was found dead on Saturday after reportedly missing while diving off the coast of Kakaban Island in Berau ...

en.antaranews.com

 

[justinthedeeps]

Unverified claims of circumstances and personal characteristics from trash "news" repeaters and completely unverified accounts should be ignored, or deleted (admins??)

Can't even tell if the video of strong currents is actually verified to be from the day or dive in question (is it?)

The clip being shown looks like it could be the top of a classic downcurrent slope, which can pull and curve the flow down with it (like a low-head dam), something that could easily kill divers regardless of GoPros or whatever.

It would be a shame if we were being misled to scoff about the circumstances, if there is chance the victim actually had no control over getting hauled down to 80 metres at a time and place where no divers should be in the water at all ?

Which has happened before (pg. 20)

In March 2000, six students and an instructor dived using open-circuit scuba in a narrow pass and were swept by a strong current to a depth of 90 metres sea water. Three died and four were injured...

It happens almost every year at busy sites near the deep Ceningan Strait, which scares even the most wild tech diver I have met (who is still alive) enough that they have sworn to never to dive there again.
[And yet, thousands of divers still go there to roll the dice]