diving under bridges

[perpet1]

I spoke with the Coast Gaurd regarding diving under a bridge and the final word is that it is ok and NOT restricted. It is true the harbor patrol was blowing smoke up our butt....

If anyone else get stopped by the marine patrol in Maine or NH for diving next to a bridge let me know and I have the contact information at the Coast Gaurd since it tooke me the better part of the day getting bumped from person to person.

Pete

 

[mer]

perpet1 once bubbled...
You could argue that is the flag was not visible for some reason then it could be a problem but your flag was very visible.

You were clearly posted and the boats chose not to proceed with caution as was their right.

I think I would anchor the flag in the future, since it is a matter of public relations. Maybe if I dove the site more often I would know where exactly the channel was, but I couldn't tell which stanchions I was between.

The bigger problem is getting boaters to even slow down to 3mph. But I would like to keep my flag out of the channel in the future. In non-bottleneck situations I would hesitate to alter my flag position to convience boaters, but in this situation I can see the potential for really pissing off some impatient pleasure boaters.

 

[perpet1]

you are too nice

 

[reefseal]

It was definately the boater that was inconvenienced that made the call to the harbormaster. As Mer had mentioned.. they weren't hanging out on the bottom of the boating channel intentionally.

I've never had an incident w/ Harbor Patrol diving there. In past, one of my dive buddies I dove with at Sara Long anchored the flag to one of the old pilings on bottom just before the boating channel.

re: 9/11 concern.. You think terrorists diving are going to advertise they are diving using Dive flags?? It should be clear if divers are diving off bridge w/ Dive Flags in broad daylight, are doing so for recreation and not terrorism.

 

[MSilvia]

As the other part of the "channel obstructing" buddy team, I think anchoring the flag is a great idea at that site. It would make artifact collection easier too.

That aside, it's good to know the USCG gave the site their seal of approval. As one of my professors once said, "if I wanted smoke blown up my a$$, I'd have brought a cheap cigar and a short length of hose."

 

[mer]

MSilvia once bubbled...
"if I wanted smoke blown up my a$$, I'd have brought a cheap cigar and a short length of hose."

Now that's a lovely image to start my day with....

But I do know that if I were to anchor the flag at this site, I would definitely want by DSMB to be more readily accessable for a QUICK deployment. I guess it takes getting used to, but constantly hearing boats over your head is a bit unnerving.

 

[perpet1]

I spoke with the Maine State Police Marine Patrol (LT. David Mercier) and he said there was absolutely no problem diving under this bridge and he went on to say that there was no problem floating a flag in the channel. He did recommend that if the Homeland Security level increases it may be a good idea to call the USCG to make sure it is ok to dive this site. (Phone number USCG New Castle NH (603)433-7324)

We had a long discussion regarding the concept of a hazard and he made it clear that a hazard is something that places the boaters at risk. In his opinion a clearly posted dive flag does not rise to the level of a hazard to navigation. He also said that this is Main State water that can be used for recreational purposes and diving was not discuraged. Now he said if we were in the major shipping lane and there was a ship under restricted manuvering then this may be different but in the channel we were diving there should not be any boats under restricted manuvering.

I also spoke with MST1 Mark Machunis of the USCG and he stated that there was no USCG restriction in place concerning diving around a bridge.


I can only see one problem with anchoring a dive flag here. If you push the tide you may need to go directly to the beach without taking the time to retrieve your flag (in this area current can n kick up in minutes). If you did this the flag yould be out there for 12 hours and it would be on a long line when the tide went out.
OK I lied I see another problem, In an emergency where you need to hit the surface you probably would not have time to deploy the DSMB. Or if you did the action of deploying the DSMB you may be distracted from the emergency at hand. Imagine deploying the DSMB in an out of air emergency. It would suck to survive an OOA emergency only to be nailed by a boat.


I personally have anchored my flag at other sites but I only do it where there is less boat traffic. In my opinion the more boat traffic the more important it is to drag a flag.