Diver dies not trespassing

[MikeFerrara]

This wasn't meant to be a thread about private property rights per se but rather about assessing what is known of the accident to see what steps could have been taken to change the outcome.

Well, I'm not sure what the article meant by "carrying their equipment". Were they wearing it?

Several things come to mind...

OW 101 maintain pos buoyancy at the surface.

I've seen divers take their gear off in the water and carry it down the beach. I leave mine on my back. It's easier to carry and you can still use it if you need to. If you fall in...breath off your reg...big deal!

If hiting the tides and navigating back to a small target of an exit is required you need to be able to plan for it and do it. If you can't maybe it's best to pass on the site. Covering less ground (staying closer to the exit) during the dive might help while you learn.

 

[DivemasterJoe]

Hi All,

I would like to express my deepest sympathies to the family of the diver who died at Sunrise Beach. I am fairly familiar with the Sunrise Beach site and I too have tarried a bit too long, taking pictures of the wolf eels, and have had to swim my way back to the public section of beach. The way the current flows at this site can make folks end up near private property where a large concrete retaining wall takes the place of a "beach" making an exit impossible. My normal technique in the case of getting blown past the exit is to inflate my BC, get in water a little more than waist deep, and walk backwards while more or less floating. If I trip on one of the larger submerged rocks I simply float on my BC. I think this was probably a freak accident and the property owners shouldn't be blamed out of hand; more data on the exact cause of the accident is needed. I would hate to see such a cool site get a bad rap because of a one in a million occurance. Perhaps unfamiliarity with the site may have played some role in this tragic accident.

DMJ

 

[pt40fathoms]

What a tragedy, this is going to be very polarizing.

One question though, is the waters in question, adjacent to international navigable waters. Meaning simply I could launch somewhere in the world in waters adjacent to international waters, and navigate to that spot? If so do not the international laws of 2 chains or about 60 feet of natural shore line, being legal anchorage apply? It does not mean you can use a man made structure without permission, but if no structure such as a dock or pier exists, and only beach or unimproved shore exists, then you are free to anchor or even walk there. Or has that law governing international waters been struck down in America?

 

[pasley]

My condolences to the family.

Any further comment I might make would involve both Federal and Washington State laws about it being public property. So I will refrain from commenting further.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Again.... this thread is NOT about property rights, wrongs or otherwise so please keep out of that area of discussion.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sorry folks, but I have to disagree with you. Although I consider it totally whacky, the way beachfront property rights are defined in this state are that a property owner has rights "down to the waterline" ... meaning that their property rights change with the tides. You can walk in water up to your knees, but you cannot walk on the beach without trespassing.

That's the law. All of us who dive here know it, and plan our dives accordingly.

My heart goes out to this family ... but don't blame the property owners for enforcing what the state defines as their property rights. We all know, before we get in the water, what those rights are.

BTW - on this particular beach, we're not talking "upper crusty" types. These are, for the most part, ramshackle homes that've been there for decades. Most are owned by people who might be considered crusty, but aren't exactly Trust Fund Babies ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Uncle Pug]

Sunrise Beach County Park is on the West side of Colvos Passage just North of the confluence of Dalco Passage and The Narrows.

The parking lot is at the top and the hike down to the beach is considerable and is about ~150' elevation drop. The beach itself is small stones and the most interesting feature for divers is the wall South of the No Trespassing sign at the end of the County Park property. This is the end of public property and the tide lands are privately owned.

This necessitates divers entering the water at the sign and either surface swimming or wading South and out from the shore line to the wall.

At the right (or wrong) time currents at the site can be considerable and a Southerly flowing current could carry a surface swimmer out away from the beach toward the other currents at the confluence of the Colvos, Dalco and Narrows.

What is curious to me is that my tide program shows that yesterday at 3:30pm it was slack at Sunrise Beach! I don't know if this is an error in my program or if the news report is missing some facts.

Attached is a screen print of my charting program that puts current arrows in red on the chart and changes their size to indicate the strength of the current. The time setting for this chart was 4-10-04 3:30pm and there is no arrow at Sunrise... only a red dot as the program is indicating slack.

BTW... the divers would no doubt be wearing (not carrying) their rigs. Even after exiting the water there is still the hike back UP to the parking lot.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well, first off ... yesterday was not a good time to be diving this site, especially from shore.

Slack at the Tacoma Narrows way station was at around 4 PM ... and slack before flood happens at Sunrise about an hour and a half prior to that time ... about 2:30 yesterday. However, yesterday's tides were HUGE ... 13 feet on the ebb, followed by a 14-foot flood. For all intents and purposes, that's a good day to avoid this dive site altogether. And if you're going to dive it anyway, timing is critical.

On large exchanges, a current reversal happens during the first hour and a half after slack ... a current that effectively pulls you out away from the beach entry. Had they entered the water an hour or so later, they'd have been able to ride this current out to the wall, then ride it back to the beach as the current reversed itself again, effectively creating a second "slack" period for a short time.

In other words, they chose a bad day to dive this site ... and compounded the error by not taking into account the fact that the current doesn't do what you'd expect it to for the first 95 minutes or so on a large exchange like they got yesterday.

The divers screwed up ... they should not have been there at that time, if at all. Yesterday was a good day to pick a less current intensive dive site.

The property owners had nothing to do with it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Uncle Pug]

I guess this is one of those *local knowledge advised* sites.

I've only been there twice... once semi-right (with you) and once really wrong.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

This is one of those "even the local knowledge can call it wrong" dive sites ... recall that when we did our "semi-right" dive there, we were with Shawn ... and he grew up diving Sunrise.

I did a dive there once last year on a 4-foot exchange when we got blown off the wall.

There's a reason why they call them current "predictions" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)