Diver missing - Grand Cayman

[58studebaker]

...However, if you're certified to dive you're supposed to be able to plan your dive, dive your plan and do so without a DM anywhere in the vicinity, you're also supposed to dive dive sites and conditions within your training and skill level. Your buddy carries your emergency air supply and is your safety back up, not the dive master.

I can think of no single thing that deteriorates skills, stops the progression of new skills, reduces the progress of new scuba divers then the DM in the water on vacation diving locations. The problem is that new divers often view the DM as an extension of their instructor from back home and it may take years or may never happen that they finally realize that the DM in the water is nothing more than a tour guide working for tips. The nature of DMs and their personality and willingness to take limited responsibility for their guests such as helping with gear, giving advice etc... only reinforces to many divers that the DM is their safety net and will keep them out of trouble. Just the simple act of checking air underwater by the DM, of those in his group is evidence to many that the DM is watching out for them, again falsely reinforcing a false sense of security.

While in some areas DM's are simply working for tips and are "tour guides" whenever I am on a trip with a group I talk to the group BEFORE hitting the water. We let them know that they are all certified divers and are responsible for themselves and their buddy in the water. Typically the DM from the boat will give you a briefing and a dive plan but there are no PADI police in the water. You have to plan your dive and dive your plan.


That said, however, when I am on a group trip, as an experienced diver my buddy and I take it upon ourselves to be the last ones in the water, and the last ones out. We are the sweepers, keeping the group in front of us and keeping an eye on our divers. We make sure that if we go in witrh 10 divers we see 10 divers on their safety stop and at the surface. On a recent dive trip I even went below my planned depth of 80' to get the attention of one of my group who wasn't watching her guages and drigfted down to 95'. I brought her up to 70' and we had a friendly chat about warching your depth and how easy it is to drift downwards especially on a wall if you aren't checking your guages.

It doesn't diminish my dive trip, but the new divers that i have dove with use it as a learning point and we discuss it openly. They know that next time, I may not be there to reinforce safe diving practices.

Regards,
The Cat Herder.

 

[bertschb]

I think there were 3 boats from Sunset Divers, on adjacent dive sites. Their boats can hold 17-20 divers, I think. Don't know if they were full or not.

Yes, there were three Sunset boats. I was on one of the other Sunset boats the morning the diver was lost. We were on the large boat with 17 divers on an adjacent dive site. A few minutes after we came up from our first dive we were told about the missing diver and started helping with the search effort. By this time a helicopter was also helping in the search. I thought the search pattern the helicopter flew was very strange. He didn't seem to follow a search pattern at all. At times he was waaaaaaay away from the dive site. We spent a couple hours driving around looking for the diver. The seas were fairly rough for GC but I've seen much worse. I don't remember a current at our location but then compared to diving at home off the coast of Oregon, there is no current in the Caribbean. It was windy though.

One thing that really caught our attention is the DM's on our boat went up to the boat after about 20 minutes under water. We had never seen that at any other operation anywhere else. There were two crew on the boat and both acted as DM's. Both went in the water and both bailed after around 20 minutes and went up. We couldn't figure out why at least one of them didn't stay in the water until the last diver was up. They really needed two DM's on our boat and one person to stay on the boat but I'm digressing.

We lost a diver in our local dive community several years ago and just like this time, there was a lot of misinformation flying around and a LOT of finger pointing. Please be sensitive to the family of the lost diver. We watched the missing man's wife walk out to the water's edge pacing back and forth the morning after he was lost. It was very, very sad. I'm not sure if anybody will ever really know what happened but this women lost her husband. She or a family member could read this thread so please keep that in mind.

 

[ianr33]

We had never seen that at any other operation anywhere else. There were two crew on the boat and both acted as DM's. Both went in the water and both bailed after around 20 minutes and went up. We couldn't figure out why at least one of them didn't stay in the water until the last diver was up.

It's been a while since I have done any boat dives in Cayman,but as I recall this is pretty standard practice,at least on deep,wall dives. DM leads the deep section. Once back at the mooring pin he/she heads back to the boat along with any divers low on air or diving tables.

 

[richard65]

As I live on SMB I was watching the search (before I knew it was a search) and the police helicopter occasionally headed offshore towards a tanker. Obviously I don't know why but I suspect they were checking something or possible dealing with two issues).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Doubler]

Both crew were in the water at the same time leaving the boat unmanned? Isn't that against local laws. Not that this has anything to do with this situation but boats do break moorings and it so sucks to come up to no boat.

 

[vincent54]

Both crew were in the water at the same time leaving the boat unmanned? Isn't that against local laws. Not that this has anything to do with this situation but boats do break moorings and it so sucks to come up to no boat.

I was under impression there were 2 crew and a captain, which would fulfill Cayman laws. Still wonder if the whole thing was a staged event. Cheers