hypothetical scenario 4 our Monday morning quarterbacks 20 miles out & boats gone

[citykid]

Leah, that's easy. I'll take a underwater scooter. Hey, you said the mother of all dive shops...

And I learned on land the hard way with the Northeast blackout that you need a box of candles only for said emergency. Did I mention that they should be unscented? I scrambled to light all our candles and if you walked into our place an hour after wards...:11:
Ha ha ha, OMG, never again. Plain white sticks in a designated cabinet.

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Fred, kudos to you and your buddies for getting yourself home. Also for teaching your kids to be prepared and to reach out to others who aren't. It just amazes me how unprepared people are. I have been giving various pieces of emergency equipment to my family for Christmas. At first they balked at my crappy or useless gifts until the NE power outage and other events that have made the gear come in handy. I gave my Mom a portable air compressor for her tires. She called one day and someone had let the air out of her tire while she shopped--no biggie. She pumped it up and was on her way!

The more you have a preparedness mentality, the better your chances are no matter what you face. The more gear you have tailored to the specific emergency you are likely to encounter in a given area or activity or area significantly increases your chances when the deck is against you.

The link to the surface survival primer was a very informative. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

City, you should think about getting a few of the Wal-Mart Ozark Trail $10 floating lanterns. They use 4 D batteries and I used them for a week and had all the light I wanted. Still enough life in them that I used them for camping this summer. The do not pose a fire hazard and are much brighter than a candle or oil lamp--I also keep those on hand. Anyway they are cheaper than the Coleman put out just as much light and only use half of the batteries. Also, Target is having a Christmas battery sale and you can get 4 Panasonic Heavy duty D's or C's for $1 and 8 AA's and AAA's for the same. Lots of folks are running sales on batteries in hopes of selling you battery eating toys for the kiddies for Christmas.

 

[Don Burke]

And I learned on land the hard way with the Northeast blackout that you need a box of candles only for said emergency. Did I mention that they should be unscented? I scrambled to light all our candles and if you walked into our place an hour after wards...:11:
Ha ha ha, OMG, never again. Plain white sticks in a designated cabinet.

You would probably be better off with some LED lights. They are safer and the batteries last a very long time.

I was without power for a week in Isabelle in 2003 and never got down to candles.

 

[plot]

As for rescue, in both cases it was save ourselves or die. We didn't like the second choice.

FT

Which brings up an interesting point... nobody has said they'd give up on life yet and dump their BC, go for broke and try to black out at 500 feet on their way to 1000 before they ran out of air.

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Which brings up an interesting point... nobody has said they'd give up on life yet and dump their BC, go for broke and try to black out at 500 feet on their way to 1000 before they ran out of air.

Well, in on this dive we were only in 70' of water, so digging to 500' and beyond never occurred to me!! LOL

 

[grassyknoll]

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO (10 Feb 2006) -- A lost diver who was the subject of a U.S. Coast Guard search managed to swim 10 miles through heavy seas to safety, authorities said Thursday.

Well heck, since were only 20 miles out, I'll split the swim among the four divers, that way we only have to swim 5 miles each, piece of cake!

On a serious note, does anyone take their cell phone down with them in a watertight enclosure? I don't know what the maximum off-shore range would be but it might be a consideration. Also, I have some of the usual stuff-whistle, flashlight snausage and mirror, and I cam up with a neat little trick for my mirror. It is a small sighting mirror, about 2 x 3, I tried it out on a dive when I first got it and ended up dropping it in 20', I found it but then realized that when the chips are down and I drop it that could be bad. So I put it on a small nylon tether. Now, last thing I wanted to create was a entaglement hazard and I wanted to keep the line wound around the mirror. I ended up attaching the line to the same D-ring my Cetacea console retractor is attached to. The mirror is the same size as the retrtactor case so I cut a 3" section of bicycle tire inner-tube which fits very snuggly over the retractor case and mirror. Keeps the whole thing safe and secure yet very accesable. Low-tech I know, but sometimes it's the little things that make a differrence.
Oh yeah, like Don Burke said, LED flashlights, if you can find a decent low watt marine proof model as a back up, some of them run for hundreds of hours.

Lots of good stuff on this post, great to hear some of your stories but all this lost-at-sea talk is giving me the heebie jeebies something fierce.

 

[BigTuna]

Ships in distress use EPIRBs. These are beacons that determine their position and broadcast it via satellite relay to rescue centers. Personal EPIRBs such as this one (http://www.landfallnavigation.com/spwff1.html) are available that also broadcast a SAR homing signal. But this is only useful if your dive boat or expected rescuers have the corresponding receiver, so take one on the boat and lend lend it to your captain!

So far as I know, personal EPIRBs and beacons are not waterproof in scuba terms, so they need to be carried in a diveproof container, like this http://www.landfallnavigation.com/spwffdive.html.

When rescuers are in sight, you want to make it easy for them to see you. But if your signaling consumables like dye and smoke are gone, well, they're gone. I think a good addition to the rescue kit, or even an alternative to these, is a floating orange streamer, like this http://www.landfallnavigation.com/srsl1.html. It's 25 feet long deployed, and it rolls into small package that you can attach to a BCD or BP.

The total cost of these suggestions would be a bit under $1000. What are you worth?...

 

[BigTuna]

I tried to make a checklist of the suggestions that have emerged. What did I leave off?

- Carry a full compliment of safety and signaling equipment in the ocean (consult http://www.tabula-international.com/DIV/SMB3.html). The list includes 1/2 liter (two 8 oz. containers) of water for 1 day.

- Consider including a combo person locator beacon and EPIRB, and a streamer, per my previous post.

- Always use hood and gloves to minimize loss of heat (especially if the water is cooler than 75 degrees).

- Notify somebody about the dive plan and tell them where to send help in the event you are overdue for reporting in.

- Stay together. Tie in with guide line, jon lines, or even regulator hoses.

- Stay in one spot. Sight a bottom feature, lower ditch weights as an anchor, or dive and tie in.

- Appoint watch captains, then rest.

- Strobes work best at twilight.

- Swimming great distances is possible, but NEVER buck the current. Swim on your back, to save energy. A retained tank can serve as a keel.

- If you decide to swim, get light and minimize drag. Consider ditching heavy tanks. Al tanks are positive and maybe ought to be retained for floatation.

 

[Crazy Fingers]

Since I dive off a kayak in the ocean I do worry about something like this happening. For this reason I carry a signaling mirror & whistle in my BC's weight pocket. It fits perfectly, you never know it is there until you need it. Fortunately, the waters off South Florida are full of boats and someone would come to the signaling mirror I'm sure.

I would tie everyone together ASAP, ditch the weights, and do not talk unless necessary to keep someone from freaking out. This way you reduce the amount of saltwater getting in your mouth. I would use my signaling mirror towards every vessel during the day, and flash the lights at them at night. I probably should learn morse code.

I would also try to rig up a sea anchor with whatever I had or could find floating on the ocean. Tying off on the bottom would be a great idea too if you could reach it. Swimming back to shore is not possible at 20 miles out, and you're better off staying at your last known location I think.

I don't think I would ditch my tank. I've been diving in some pretty bad weather where waves constantly break over your head on the surface. Breathing through a regulator helps a lot here.