In one of the early posts on this thread, a Girl certified in Australia states that she was taught to take her gear off, and to hand it up before getting on a dive boat. In Fact, when I was diving in Fiji, where New Zealanders make up a large share of the clientelle, the same practice occurs--the boat crew at Beqa Lagoon Resort tells the divers to take off their BC's in the water, and fins, before coming up the ladder....As an Investigator, I think you might get some relevant intel by finding out if in the area where the Chinese girl was trained( assuming she did have a C-card), that they have a norm where gear is taken off and passed up before climbing up a ladder....And if she had been certified with an integrated weight BC, this then would indicate why she may not have figured out that the weight belt needed to come off.
There hasn't been any indication so far as to where the victim was certified, and things may be different in various parts of Asia. If she's from China as opposed to Malaysia or Singapore where there are lots of Chinese speakers as well, she's from East Asia, where I've never dived, but in my experience working and diving extensively all over SE Asia where many Chinese come to learn to dive in the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia, it all depends on the boat you're boarding whether you remove gear and pass it up or climb on board with equipment on. In some parts of SE Asia diving is typically done from quite small boats like dinghies or outriggers. In these cases, it's usual to remove gear and then pull yourself aboard or climb up a very small ladder. In other cases, and particularly when diving from big boats, it's usual to simply climb on board wearing everything. Here in Thailand, unless we have a dinghy pickup or dive from a longtail, we almost always get on the boat fully geared up, even on speedboats.
I believe that if this turns out to be a factor in the death of this unfortunate diver, it would be important to learn what her own past experience was in this regard--how she was trained and what procedures were followed where she had dived previously. Most student divers here in Thailand will not be taught to remove gear before boarding, and in fact, I make sure my own students are wearing their masks and have their regs in their mouths when they board the boats, just in case they fall back into the water from the ladder. In the case that I'm teaching people to board a dinghy, even with integrated weights, I have them remove the weights from their BCDs and pass the weights up first.
It's pretty hard for me to imagine, though, that even if a diver's previous experience and training involved removing and handing up gear that the victim would take off her gear thinking she was going to hand it up to staff without the staff being aware of it and noticing her get into trouble subsequently. Besides, it was reported that the gear was found floating on the surface, which indicates that it had not been handed up to the boat crew.
---------- Post added March 3rd, 2013 at 11:47 AM ----------
With those trained and only familiar with an integrated weight bc, what do you think they would do about a weight belt- something they might not even remember they have on ?
My school gear is all simple stuff and students wear weight belts. I don't know of any schools here that rent integrated weight BCDs. The weight pouches are too expensive to replace and people do lose stuff like this.
