Don't move the upline!

[grazie42]

Sorry onfloat with "livedrop" I thought you meant the same thing they call "smartbombing" in florida, the same procedure as charlie99 described:

OTOH, in some areas (most notably the UK) it is normal practice to drop a shotline on the wreck and then do a live drop upcurrent of the buoyed shotline.

I don´t know how they get it to work in the uk (which has similar conditions to here), specially not in the kinds of currents they have...maybe they just drop far enough up-current to find the down-line at 6m/20ft or so?

The smartbombing I did in florida had bluewater descents of 100-200ft without reference and we hardly missed the wrecks once...trying that here or in the conditions of uk (or california as onfloat describes them) sounds "optimistic" in the extreme....

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I don't think it would be THAT much more difficult to "dive bomb" (drifting free descent) onto a wreck in a strong current with no down line and in bad visibility. However, the BIG problem with live drops in strong currents is not that you won't find the wreck but actually that you can easily get slammed into, or entangled with the wreck on descent if the visibility is not very good. I have screwed live drops up in bad visibility (say 15 feet) and actually seen a tower fly by my head sideways at 3 knots.

Without any visual reference, the diver always seems to think that he is looking and swimming downstream, but if the current direction is not known prior to descent (and a compass is not used) a diver can be looking sideways and get SLAMMED into a tower or some other sharp obstruction. In other words, the diver THINKS he is stationary (or moving forward in the direction he is swimming) , but in fact he may be moving sideways at the speed of the current.
It really can be VERY dangerous around wrecks.

I imagine it would also be very hard to keep buddy contact in bad visibility on a free descent since it is not easy in good visibility.

 

[Randy43068]

I always like your posts and I don’t want to sound too critical but, DAMN. You profess to be DIR and use all the team stuff and then you guys completely fail to plan a very significant portion of the dive plan which was entirely foreseeable. You could have conceivably really endangered the other divers. You seem to fail to acknowledge this failure to make appropriate pre-dive plans because you make reference to writing “wet notes” underwater at the end of the dive and seem to imply that you could have stopped Peter from moving the hook. This should all have been worked out well before anyone hit the water.

Of course before I go too far on a rant, my buddies did the same thing to me when diving on a 200 ft deep wreck, 100 miles from shore. We were all pretty much solo spearfishing, and when I came back to where the hook should be, I couldn’t find it and was pretty confused since the vis was 70 feet, but the narcosis on air was also a factor. I had accrued some deco and the only person on the boat was sleeping when we descended, so I was not too happy about a drifting deco and ascent… Anyway, as I stood on the wreck scratching my head and delaying my ascent I somehow heard a tiny little scream. I looked out (down current) and could just make out my “two buddies” drifting off the wreck with the grappling hook just at the limit of visibility. They had pulled it because they assumed I had already ascended. If I had showed up 10 seconds later, I never would have seen them. All three of us made an uneventful ascent, but we also held a long overdue discussion about how we are going to handle pulling the hook later on. We also should have known better.

What good is all the DIR stuff, if you fail to make extremely basic dive plans? For a very shallow dive like 70 feet, my first option would be to have a divemaster or crew descend down the line and pull the hook after everyone else has safely been on the boat. If you are on a private boat with no designated crew, then somebody should have been designated to go down (and oh my God, solo even) and pull the stupid thing. Doing a bounce to 70 feet is not that big of a deal if you plan to do a slow ascent and deco out properly. Of course you could designate teams, allocate responsibilities, contingency plans and supplement this with the placement of colored lights and other ornaments on the anchor rode to designate the status of various groups or individuals, but I’m not sure what colors would be DIR.

Sheesh! Do you feel better now??

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Glad it worked out... with that kind of viz you probably should have run a reel from the upline. That too, I learned from experience.

Didn't have a reel at the time and the line was only a couple feet from an easy to find feature on each wreck. I found the features just not the line The final wreck we did that weekend they missed the wreck with the hook so the DM went down and put cave line between the hook and the wreck. I ended up skipping that dive due to being seasick but probably would have skipped it anyway. I hadn't been able to find the thick anchor line so finding what amounted to a piece of string leading from the wreck to the upline wasn't going to happen.

Last year in Tobermory I used a spool to tie a jump line to the down line on one wreck and it caused more problems than it solved. My husband made me promise not to dive with the spool again--at least when I'm with him.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Charlie99]

Last year in Tobermory I used a spool to tie a jump line to the down line on one wreck and it caused more problems than it solved.

Please educate us on what problems it caused.

Confusion as to who and when it was to be removed?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well, I don't think very many of us recreational divers in the Sound carry cookies, or even own them. But I think almost everybody is carrying SOMETHING they could clip off to the line as a signal.

Yeah ... all you need is some visual way to let the second team know that the first team has already gone to the upline.

And, of course, the most important part is to discuss and make sure everyone understands the protocol prior to the dive.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Wow ... just made my way thru this whole conversation. Having the advantage of knowing both the dive site and the divers involved, I'd like to offer some comments ...

First off, those who suggested a shot line ... it wouldn't work. Surface current is very strong here ... even something like a 15 lb downrigger would just drag until it snagged on something. This site is a 185-foot ferry sitting in the middle of a channel .... there's nothing to speak of for structure for long distances in any direction, so a shot line is impractical. Chances are that Mike tried to hook the bottom within 20 or 30 feet of the wreck and the current just pulled the anchor into the wreck ... happens all the time. If you try to go much further out, you may never find the wreck ... been there, done that, with much more experienced divers than were on this trip.

As for Lynne's "lack of planning" ... it's tough to foresee circumstances you have never before experienced, and this was more a case of lack of experience than lack of training or forethought. I doubt DD would've done much better back when he had Lynne's level of experience. We all ... even DD ... learn by doing ... and doing often involves making mistakes. I appreciate Lynne's fortitude in putting up with the inevitable flames for posting her mistakes here. I don't doubt for a moment that this is a mistake she will never make again ... few divers I've ever met put more effort into learning than she does. To my concern, it was an excellent learning experience at a place that often turns into a "classroom" for divers due to the unique conditions of the site.

And Lynne ... your "newbie" friends do, in fact, know how to shoot an SMB. They were shown how, and practiced it, in their AOW. If they need more practice, I'd be happy to take them out and work with them on it. On the other hand, it pleases me to hear that they did manage a free ascent from 70 feet without issues. That's progress ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

Well, Bob, they had an SMB, but neither of them even had a spool . . .

The captain of the boat talked about the possibility, if the surface current was too strong, that he would end up putting a float on the line and dropping us upcurrent, to drift down on the float, and as I recall, that's what we did the other time I dove here. But this time, the current was mild (if you can call it mild) enough that he could actually stay attached to the line, which certainly made it easier to begin the dive with a reference.

Visibility, as I said, was in the 20 - 30 foot range, which wasn't as good as the last time I was there, where we could see the wreck by the time we were at 20 feet on descent (that was fun!)

I knew, when I posted this, that I would get my butt chewed, but that's okay; I deserved it. If it helps somebody else realize that, in this kind of situation, there's some stuff that has to be decided before you get in the water, it was well worth it.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Please educate us on what problems it caused.

Confusion as to who and when it was to be removed?

Nope. We all came back to the line at the same time and I was at my planned ascent pressure and did not have time to undo the line. Take into consideration we were at about 70 feet after a 104 foot dive and I'm still pretty narced and wearing dry gloves so my hand/eye coordination is pretty clumsy. I was going to cut the line and take the spool so I was tying it in to the wreck because the regular jump line was gone. A dive buddy thought I was narced and came over to help me "untie" the line and I signalled for him to stop and cut the line instead. My buddy didn't understand the "cut" signal (I can't even be sure I gave it correctly) and insisted on untying the line because he saw me tying it tighter instead of removing it and thought I was too narced to know how to untie it. He realized it would take me so long to get it undone I would never have enough air for the ascent (the exact reason I wanted to cut it) so he butted in to fix the problem. He gets it untied and we head to the upline and make our ascent to our stop at 50 feet. During the entire ascent I'm trying to re-wind the line on the spool and thinking I'm doing a good job except I keep getting my fins tangled in the dangling line. We get to the 50 foot stop and my husband takes the spool away (evidently I gave him the finger when he did--I don't remember that) winds it and hands it back to me. He said I wasn't getting any of the line wound on the spool it was just sliding off my glove where I was holding the spool and I was so narced I didn't notice. He was afraid I would stay down there messing with the line until I ran out of air. Unfortunately when he took the line from me he somehow managed to drop the camera (Olympus 5060) so we saved the $15 spool but lost a $1200 camera set-up. We were lucky enough to be able to stay on the site and I stayed on the boat as safety diver while the guys went down to find the camera. Luckily it had gone straight to the bottom near the wreck.

Even when you're all on the same page one narced out buddy can screw the system up.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[do it easy]

Nope. We all came back to the line at the same time and I was at my planned ascent pressure and did not have time to undo the line. Take into consideration we were at about 70 feet after a 104 foot dive and I'm still pretty narced and wearing dry gloves so my hand/eye coordination is pretty clumsy. I was going to cut the line and take the spool so I was tying it in to the wreck because the regular jump line was gone. A dive buddy thought I was narced and came over to help me "untie" the line and I signalled for him to stop and cut the line instead. My buddy didn't understand the "cut" signal (I can't even be sure I gave it correctly) and insisted on untying the line because he saw me tying it tighter instead of removing it and thought I was too narced to know how to untie it. He realized it would take me so long to get it undone I would never have enough air for the ascent (the exact reason I wanted to cut it) so he butted in to fix the problem. He gets it untied and we head to the upline and make our ascent to our stop at 50 feet. During the entire ascent I'm trying to re-wind the line on the spool and thinking I'm doing a good job except I keep getting my fins tangled in the dangling line. We get to the 50 foot stop and my husband takes the spool away (evidently I gave him the finger when he did--I don't remember that) winds it and hands it back to me. He said I wasn't getting any of the line wound on the spool it was just sliding off my glove where I was holding the spool and I was so narced I didn't notice. He was afraid I would stay down there messing with the line until I ran out of air. Unfortunately when he took the line from me he somehow managed to drop the camera (Olympus 5060) so we saved the $15 spool but lost a $1200 camera set-up. We were lucky enough to be able to stay on the site and I stayed on the boat as safety diver while the guys went down to find the camera. Luckily it had gone straight to the bottom near the wreck.

Even when you're all on the same page one narced out buddy can screw the system up.
Ber :lilbunny:

Since you survived, I can say that was quite entertaining.

But it also illustrates how quickly things can get sideways underwater and how problems can compound. Any single issue would have been manageable, but throw in a few together and it gets interesting- narcosis, low on air, gloves, task loading, miscommunication.

It's also good to keep in perspective how much your life is worth versus a $15 spool. No one likes to lose or leave gear, but it's more easily replaced.