Diver missing off of No. Cal coast

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Gombessa:

Gombessa: Sad news indeed. Still hoping that Kawika will make it. The store where he was first certified as a diver is my LDS. My son was certified at the same good store.

North coast diving is great. It does have challenges.

I do not know Kawika but I am thinking about him and hoping for the best.
 
Does the CG also search the shoreline? Could he have made it to shore after being swept off by a current, but with the rugged coastline, be unable to make it inland? Like everyone here, I'm still hoping for the best.
 
Does anyone know if there are portable EPIRB devices available for solo (or i suppose buddy) divers in the ocean? It sounds like it might have helped in this case. Are they expensive?
 
DeepBound:
Does anyone know if there are portable EPIRB devices available for solo (or i suppose buddy) divers in the ocean? It sounds like it might have helped in this case. Are they expensive?
I'm not sure any of us are ready to examine what may or may not have helped. There was some discussion of personal locators on ba_diving a while back if you'd like to search the archives.

I'd only met Kawika a few times. Didn't know him well by any means. Still, this sucks. I was looking forward to a trip with him this summer. Now I need to accept the fact he probably won't be there.
 
On a different thread it is stated
Larry C:
... His boat was found empty, save for his camera, and partially swamped. ...
Anyone heard that or any other specific info? I also am still praying he shows up.

Willie
 
wet-willie:
Anyone heard that or any other specific info? I also am still praying he shows up.
I'm a co-worker of Kawika's and knew him fairly well. He was an extremely nice guy, a great engineer, great photographer, and was very very smart. Once we figured out that the other was into scuba we probably spent more time chatting about diving at work than we did chatting about work stuff at work :) He gave me a lot of tips on underwater photography although I've never been able to to capture any pictures close to the quality of his work. He would look through my pics though and give advice on what I could do to make the shot better the next time.

I really regret that I never got the chance to go diving with Kawika :( I live in NC and have never done dry suit diving...I kept meaning to learn so I could do a dive with him when I went to San Jose for work. We had a loose plan to meet in Pensacola to dive the Oriskany in a few years. I plan on going someday and will certainly have him in mind when I go.

As for new info, I haven't heard any since the coast guard search ended. Almost everyone at work has been reading the ba_diving messages for info. It isn't new news but here are the initial threads on ba_diving:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ba_diving/message/22560
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ba_diving/message/35117

The Eureka Reporter had a couple of articles about him, these were some of the more informative articles I could find earlier this week:
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=21824
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=21852

It is very very sad :(

Does the coast guard normally wait for the dust to settle and then publish some form of accident report for scenarios like this? There has been very little info about what equipment he had on him vs what was left in the boat. Did he have his flares with him (he normally carried two of them), where there any photos taken that day with his camera, did the gps on his boat track the boat position over time, etc.
 
Good to meet you Dwalton, altho I am sorry it is under these circumstances. I don't have the answers to your questions, but we always hope for more info so we can learn from the accidents of others.

It may be a little early yet, I don't know - but we have just started a new forum for condolences: Passings at this link - and you are welcome to start a thread there if and when you are ready. The accident may also be examined in also new and heavily moderated sub forum here, but I don't know that we'll have enough info for that.

Again, the Passings forum is new, hasn't become as active as it may in time, but whatever you post there will indeed be read and appreciated.
 
There were no pictures taken with his camera that day. We're still trying to get an
inventory of what was on the boat. I suspect the track line on his GPS will have
wrapped because it sat at anchor at the site for a couple days, but it's still worth a
look.
 

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