DOWN CURRENTS -Any with true real-life experience?

[Wookie]

That's what I was afraid of. If so, seems it would be better to either start climbing the wall or head out to the blue water to try to get away from the down current.

In my experience, the down currents aren’t next to the wall, you get into them when you get off the wall and out in blue water.

I was drift diving "Superman's Flight" by the Petit Peton in St. Lucia two weeks ago. We returned to the dive boat about 30m from a patch of calm, circular water on the surface. The boat captain told me that was a downdraft. We were out of the water before getting stuck in it, but from the strength of the current during the dive, I imagine it would be a very bad time.

I’ve been on Superman’s flight many many times. I’ve been a captain for many many years. Your captain was kind of correct, the flat circle is where the water is rising, not falling. What goes down must come up somewhere else. So yes, it’s indicative of a down current, somewhere.

 

[Wookie]

Found the report

I too have been caught in a down current, on a reef in St. Lucia where 2 currents were merging, and I (and my OW students) had the bad luck to be caught in the down side instead of the up side.

My DM and certified divers were blown to the surface from safety stop depth. My students and I were doing our dive following the skills portion of OW5 for training and experience, and were at about 30 feet, ready to ascent to 15 feet for our safety stop. Suddenly, there were clouds of bubbles around me (my exhalation bubbles) and since I had the float, my arm was being jerked up. I saw my students plunging to the depths, which was measured in thousands of feet, so I abandoned the reel and went after the students, about 50 feet below me.

I caught the students at some point, grabbed their BC shoulder straps, and motioned for them to inflate. The male did hang on his inflator, the female motioned towards her ear, which was streaming blood, as she had obviously ruptured an eardrum. I could not let go of either diver, the male was providing all the buoyancy for the team, and me and the female were still going down, so I motioned to him to inflate her, which he did. I still didn't realize the extent of the problem, but the down current spit me out at some point, and we all began rocketing to the surface. At this point, I adjusted my own buoyancy, the male had the snap to start venting, the girl was now in extreme pain and unable to do anything, so I let the male go and controlled her and my buoyancy. We stopped at 15 feet for 45 minutes (this was long before I knew any decompression theory) and my computer (a Sherwood ReSource) was flashing 289, as that's all the deeper it reads out.

Meanwhile, my boat crew had called the St. Lucia marine patrol and every dive boat in the vicinity. We were found after running about out of air, we kept enough to inflate on the surface about 2 miles from where we were last seen by our crew.

I only relate this story because I had about 600-1,000 dives at the time, I had no idea what a down current was, nor did I have any idea what to do about it. The 3 of us could easily have died that day. Even though I'm trimix certified now, that is the deepest dive I've ever done. I have no idea of the bottom around Duncan rock, but if it's deep, and Lynne didn't get very positive, she could easily have not taken the steps necessary to get out of a down current. I and my OW students were merely lucky.

 

[TMHeimer]

I don't like to be that guy who says "do a search", but somewhere years ago there was an extensive thread on exactly this topic with a lot of good stories.

 

[mcohen1021]

33 years of scuba and several thousand dives all over the world, I've never experienced a down current.

 

[NothingClever]

I was in one in the Red Sea In 2020. It was interesting because we couldn’t figure out the cause. It happened at the breakover point of a wall but there were no telltale signs. I was shallow enough that I just went with the flow down the wall. I was smart enough to know swimming against it was just going to be a consumption exercise so we swam horizontally to get out of it. It was over pretty quickly but it happened to several other divers behind us so I confirmed it wasn’t misperception. I wasn’t smart enough to think of holding onto something.

 

[blue steal]

In the other thread it was said both divers, husband and wife, and perhaps the dive master were at their safety stop. I am guessing this was 5-6 meters and quite a bit above the wall/reef.
So my question would be does a downdraft happen that high above the reef?
And why were the other divers not effected as they were together?
They mentioned something about a vortex.
Not sure exactly what that is.

 

[ColoDale]

In the other thread it was said both divers, husband and wife, and perhaps the dive master were at their safety stop. I am guessing this was 5-6 meters and quite a bit above the wall/reef.
So my question would be does a downdraft happen that high above the reef?
And why were the other divers not effected as they were together?
They mentioned something about a vortex.
Not sure exactly what that is.

Not addressing the other thread but we dropped onto Cedral Wall in Cozumel quite a few years ago and immediately went down and out to the channel. I watched the top of the wall below us disappear and we all knew there was no way to make the wall. We ended up over dark water and basically did a bounce dive to 65'. This time the down current started at the surface. We got back on the boat, repositioned and went back down normally. So it did not last long.
Alternatively our group was split by an up current also with current going to the north on one of the Palancars. Half of us ended up about 30 yards from the shore and the other half further south on the channel side. This one was wide/big and with so many boats and groups, it took awhile for all the captains to round up all the divers. Lots of chatter on the radio. Good idea to know your boat name and what radio channel they use.

 

[Ayisha]

There was this thread about 3 missing divers suspected of having been caught in a downcurrent in Mexico:

3 Missing in Deep Dive Incident Mexico

 

[Dr Simon Mitchell]

Hello,

Arguably one of the most spectacular down-current accidents ever - a triple fatality when 7 scuba air divers were sucked down from 30' to ~300'. See published description attached here, also downloadable at:

https://www.dhmjournal.com/images/IndividArticles/39March/McGeoch_dhm.39.1.20-28.pdf

Simon M

 

[jerbee]

The

Reading the latest thread about the witnessed down current fatality in Cozumel, (Tourist lost - Cozumel) I was wondering if anyone here has actually experienced a true DOWN CURRENT incident, and more importantly, how did you survive it? I have experienced "out currents" in Cozumel, but never a true uncontrollable down current.

There are some opinions as to dealing with a down current, especially on a wall. (Swim to blue water, hug & climb the wall, etc). What has actually worked?
What is the "last resort" measure? Inflate BCD/ Ditch weight? (I would not ditch weight & inflating your BCD would require deflating to prevent an uncontrolled ascent).

There’s a dive site here in Puerto Galera (actually it’s at Verde Island, but same difference) called “the washing machine”. It can get pretty intense. It’s not a site for your average recreational tourist diver. There have been more than a few instances where people came out of it with broken mask glass, torn wetsuits, gashes, etc. The current acts so weird there that you basically just have to hop in and go for the ride. Many dive shops refuse to take people out there for that very reason…. Which is probably smart. If you aren’t very, very competent when it comes to buoyancy, it can be a pretty hairy experience. At times you have to inflate, at times you have to deflate, and at times you don’t know what the hell to do.

There’s another site called “the canyons” that has down currents every so often (but is a lot less dangerous - relatively so, anyway - although there have been a few fatalities there - including one missing Chinese diver in 2019 who was an exprerienced UW photographer). When the bubbles start going down instead of up, you know that you need to start kicking towards the surface while keeping an eye on your depth gauge/computer. If you continue to go down, then you inflate a little bit until you stop going down, but at the same time you have to keep a close eye on your gauge, because the last thing you want is to get out of the down current and start rocketing towards the surface… So basically, you just keep your hand on the inflator ready to deflate as soon as you start heading back up again. I’ve never been in a down current strong enough that I needed to fully inflate, though. Normally just inflating for a few bursts is enough to counteract getting pushed down…

Another thing to watch out for is disorientation. Especially if the bubbles start going sideways as well as down. Your best friend that point is your depth gauge. Same scenario as the last paragraph - your primary focus should be what your depth is and if you’re starting to ascend too fast. And exhaling if you do start going up quicker than you’d like.

As far as true downcurrents strong enough to push someone dozens of meters down rapidly, thankfully, I haven’t come across anything like that before. If I did, I think I would start kicking parallel to try to find the edge of it and get out while inflating - although that’s just my knee-jerk reaction, that might not be what you’re supposed to do. I guess I should read the comments and see what other people have to say about it.