Diver lost in Cozumel today

[koozemani]

While warning newer divers about possible risks involved with diving a particular site, or dive destination is not a bad idea, (in fact a great idea) I doubt that a new diver researching Coz is going to see them in this particular thread, unless they are wading threw a huge number of sites and threads.

If your goal is reaching new divers who are doing such preliminary research on a destination like Coz, you might wish to start a thread with a title designed to come to the top of their search. That way, your concerns, and any possible responses will be a lot more easily, and quickly available.

Thats not a bad idea for every major dive destination. Starting sticky threads ranking dive sites by level of difficulty.

 

[gypsyjim]

THAT is exactly the sort of useful thread i am thinking of. Easy to find in a normal search.

---------- Post added April 19th, 2012 at 08:48 PM ----------

We are getting off topic of course, but since the thread as become a discussion of risks, and speculations, not as far off topic as it might seem.

---------- Post added April 19th, 2012 at 08:51 PM ----------

Although we might find some destinations would not be terribly happy about some of the discussions. Witness a recent lawsuit a lot of us put in $ to defend against.

We would have to walk carefully if we made such things "stickies", which makes them a bit more official than regular threads discussing issues and opinions.

 

[Valwood1]

Its this very dubious, very hard to quantify X-factor of a small window of strange currents. How much responsibility does a dive op have in regard to temporary, unpredictable currents. Certainly if its Monday and there are no strange currents and suddenly on Tuesday they start, is the dive op at fault for those currents on Tuesday? What about Wed? Does the dive op know if the strange currents are over with? If they existed on Tues and Wed, what about Thursday? How much responsibility is it the dive op or the diver?

I did my certification open water dives at Coz with an instructor who had been there many, many times. Before we hit the water, he told our group about downcurrents (not frequent, but possible, he said), and what to do if you were caught in one. In maybe 6 later trips to Coz, I've never had another DM mention them, but I think that they should.

If recent conditions have produced out-of-the-ordinary currents, the dive op should tell the divers about them. Perhaps, if a diver had that information, he/she would follow your lead and tell the DM, "Let's not go to that site because I'm not comfortable with those conditions." But it's impossible to make an informed decision if you don't have the information.

Generally, I believe that we're all relying, in part, on the DM and the boat captain to be able to read the ocean and not drop us in a spot where there is unusual current, or other abnormally-adverse conditions. I've experienced situations where a captain did look at the proposed site, pointed out the flat swirling water, and said we cannot dive here. I've also experienced situations where the captain and/or DM say effectively, "By God, we're diving at such-and-such a place, come hell or high water", and we got into the water when the current really was wholly inappropriate for the dive. To me, that is a shortcoming in the dive op.

 

[dmoore19]

If I remember correctly the PADI OW manual covers down currents, if not my instructor spoke of them during my classroom training.

One of the best publications I have found for info on Cozumel dive sites is

Cozumel maps, cozumel diving, cozumel dive, diving cozumel, scuba diving cozumel


I bought it before I went to Cozumel and still refer to it. It gives information on depth, current, difficulty and gives a map showing a normal path for diving.

 

[Mike]

Beaver divers did start a thread about what to do in a down current. Dan Volker posted some incredible footage of him in a down current in the Bahamas as well as a narration of the experience. That'll make a believer out of some people as Dan has more experience than most of us and he is an athlete as well.

I was confused with Dan's point in that post. He was relating an experience about a man made 'down current' which in reality wasn't a down current at all, but just a proximity vortex caused by being basically on top of that submarine he was filming as it was descending . So it really had nothing to do with a naturally occurring current, secondly I thought his point was,that it was no big deal. He never even had to stop filming the sub to get himself out of the pull of the sub.

 

[Splitlip]

I was confused with Dan's point in that post. He was relating an experience about a man made 'down current' which in reality wasn't a down current at all, but just a proximity vortex caused by being basically on top of that submarine he was filming as it was descending . So it really had nothing to do with a naturally occurring current, secondly I thought his point was,that it was no big deal. He never even had to stop filming the sub to get himself out of the pull of the sub.

Agree. A man made current. What I took away from it was 2 important points.
1. He was only marginally aware that he was being pulled down and
2. With thousands of dives his reaction was to swim up, not across.

At the beginning of his post Dan something to the effect that he had never had issues with down currents. I took the rest of the post to mean until the experience with the sub. After all it took him from the planned 120 ft to 200 ft.
I suspect perhaps Dan never considered down currents an issue because he is such a powerful swimmer.

But back to this thread. This is about a new diver being lost in conditions which were reportedly extreme even for the Santa Rosa wall.

 

[diverrex]

Not to hijack the thread much but please do consider a noisemakers and signal for "where are you" and "help". But please don't have one for "look at this". If buddy pairs are far enough apart not to see each other looking or pointing at something don't annoy the rest of us with unnecessary noise.

I was doing a wall dive at Dominca once with a bottom a couple hundred feet down. All of a sudden there was so much noisemaking quaking coming from a dive group that I quickly scanned down the wall because I was sure someone must have gone into some kind of free fall down the wall. Turned out only a turtle was swimming by. I couldn't believe the rukus they made for just a turtle, didn't dive with that group again.

 

[Sorrows]

Not to hijack the thread much but please do consider a noisemakers and signal for "where are you" and "help". But please don't have one for "look at this". If buddy pairs are far enough apart not to see each other looking or pointing at something don't annoy the rest of us with unnecessary noise.

I was doing a wall dive at Dominca once with a bottom a couple hundred feet down. All of a sudden there was so much noisemaking quaking coming from a dive group that I quickly scanned down the wall because I was sure someone must have gone into some kind of free fall down the wall. Turned out only a turtle was swimming by. I couldn't believe the rukus they made for just a turtle, didn't dive with that group again.

Point taken--get a noisemaker and use it judiciously. I do think three people diving together is harder than the usual two; also, you could be a short distance away, looking at something else and not see your buddy in serious distress nor hear him through his regulator. So I do think a noisemaker should be standard safety equipment.

 

[Quero]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Discussion based on the video footage of a downcurrent event at Santa Rosa Wall has been split off and placed in the Near Misses and Lessons Learned forum http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...-hand-account-down-current-video-footage.html

The incident of the missing diver discussed in this thread has spawned other discussions, which are off topic to the incident at hand. In order to encourage discussion of these related topics without taking this thread off topic again, we are closing the thread until/unless new information emerges.

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