DOWN CURRENTS -Any with true real-life experience?

[Seaweed Doc]

Here in Bali, there is a site called Gili Selang. It is just off the coast and is at the entrance to the Lombok Strait. This is a site that the locals refuse to dive. The currents here can be very strong. They can even split into two with a normal current pushing out into open ocean splitting as it goes over a wall. So an out and a down current. I admit, I find it to be fun. You never know what you will get at that site. From ripping currents the whole dive to none at all. Or in the case of my first dive there, zero current until you turn the corner and find yourself in a **** show of a washing machine. We grabbed the rocks and sounds of laughter could be heard, I think partially due to the shock of how it changed so quickly. We climbed around the next corner which had zero current.

But in the face of a true down current, I am swimming away from the wall, or perpendicular to the current.

Are the currents in the strait wind-driven primarily? (I understand in other tropical locations they are.)

Or tidal?

Thankfully for me our currents are primarily tidal and thus at least somewhat predictable. The two hairy situations I've gotten into in my home waters were due to my own error in one case and bad advice from a person that knew the site better than I did in the other case.

The idea that I can't reliably predict what the current will be doing on a given day and time freaks me out a little bit. From what I understand, that's the case in Hawai'i and perhaps also Cozumel?

 

[lionfish-eater]

Another Cozumel incident. Bottomed out at 205 ft.

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For those who don't already know, Mark Kay died on a similar dive and is lost at sea.

American diver disappears in Cozumel waters - The Yucatan Times

COZUMEL — An American man who disappeared while diving in waters off the south end of Cozumel on Thursday Nov. 10 remained missing on Sunday. The 65-year-old American man, who with his wife have visited the island of Cozumel for more than 25 years, was reported missing Thursday. Port and...

www.theyucatantimes.com

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I have no experience with this kind of “down current.” I do have a lot of river diving in high currents, and know and use both swimming at 90 degrees to the current and grabbing the bottom to resist the currents. Both work, but in different ways. Swimming at 90 degrees to a current will get you out of it, but on an angle. The current will still push you, and if it is down, you will still be going down, but eventually you’ll get out of the current (at least hopefully). Grabbing the bottom is a positive way of actually stopping; that would include the side of a reef.

SeaRat

 

[bradStyle]

This is an excellent thread. I'd like to add another story to it:

Thread 'Whirlpool Down Current – Cozumel Jan 9, 2024'

Mar 22, 2025

I'd like to share my experience with an unusual down current I encountered in Cozumel, Mexico on January 9, 2024.

Unlike many of the stories I've read in these threads, the down current we encountered was not waterfall shaped, but a whirlpool pulling down into the blue, meaning there was no clear direction to swim that would bring us to safety other than up. In reading through other down current posts here I sometimes see people leaving single sentence suggestions on "what you're supposed to do, period". My hope with this thread is to help convey the idea that there is no...

• bradStyle
• Replies: 8
• Forum: Basic Scuba

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[Nemrod]

I posted this in another thread or maybe I just think I did. Twice last year, on separate trips to Cozumel, I got into a strong down current. In November we had gone in for a dive, I think it was Gardens, problem with not logging dives, sometimes I forget or my memory becomes flexible . Anyways, I could see swirling water on the surface. I went in last and was coming up behind the other divers and the DM when suddenly they were gone, they had gone into a swim through and I was swept over the reef and was heading down. I began swimming away from the wall but then I was swimming to the wall and then I was swimming away! I was going around and around in a vortex! Okay, getting deep, dropped from about 60 feet to now getting near 100 feet, pumped my Oxy 18 wing until the over pressure valve was burping and began swimming up, that broke the current's grip on me and I leveled out in open water at 60 feet. Tried to swim back to the wall and finally made it. Looking for my group I could see them back behind me so I tried to get back to them, too much work, hid under a coral head to rest for a moment and then decided this dive was no fun and went on back to the surface. The boat was right there and grabbed me. I could see the water swirling, clearly a vortex. The current was strong, spilling over the top of the reef into a canyon like formation and deflecting off the other side was what seemed to be causing the vortex. Not trying to freak anyone out. Cozumel diving is pretty easy, but there can be current and there can be down currents to be aware of.

I was intending to go through the swim through. Though I often pop over the reef and catch the other divers comeing out and it makes for good photo opportunities. So, after the current grabbed me I aborted the swim through thinking I was just pop over the reef and catch them on the other side, nope, it just kept pulling me down and away from where I expected them to pop out. Drats!

 

[Diverspoint]

Off of Tobago east side. Rories worries. Not bad, but needed to kick hard to go up.

Bali, do not remember which islet it was off. Bubbles racing down to unknown depth after swimthrough