Ken Kurtis
Contributor
This is excerpted from my Palau trip report (got back last week). This incident IMHO could easily have had a much worse utcome. Butg I thought it merited some discussion in this forum. And for perspective if you've never dove the Palau Aggressor II, this is the dive skiff that's central to the story:
We finished the day at a place called Sandy Paradise, not far from Ulong Channel and this provided one of the most dangerous experiences of the trip.
The dangerous part came at the end of this dive and involved two divers on the trip who were not part of our group but part of the overall PA2 passengers. Husband/wife duo and my impression from the previous days was that the guy was a bit arrogant and wasn’t a very good/cautious diver, although he claimed to be an instructor. On this dive, his actions put both he and his wife in danger as well as almost sank the dive skiff with all of us on-board.
Sandy Paradise in and of itself isn’t a difficult dive. It’s basically a small island with a light tower on it. In the briefing, we were told that the skiff would stay on the mooring on the east side, so the goal was to go out, turn about halfway, and come back to the skiff. And if you missed the skiff, surface and inflate your safety sausage. At the same time, be aware that there’s other boat traffic in the area so surface carefully. And be aware of the current pushing you off the main reef.
End of the dive, 16 of us had made it back to the skiff with no problems. It wasn’t unusual for these two to be the last ones back so initially, there was no concern. Then we spotted where they surfaced and the mood changed.
They had surfaced on the west side of the island opposite where the mooring was. That side of the island was not only fairly shallow, but also had a large surf break. They were on the surface inside the surf zone while what I estimate at 5-7’ waves broke in front of them. Why did they surface there? We found out later that they were . . . two guesses . . . out of air!! So they had “no” choice (other than to have been more closely monitoring air supply). And they apparently were out of air because they went back to the cleaning station to take a few more pictures instead of coming back to the skiff.
I’m assuming they had no surf training not only because of where they surfaced but also because they didn’t seem to be making any move to get horizontally out of the surf zone, which was maybe 50 yards or so wide. They’d duck under breaking waves every now and then but that was it. By the same token, we could see that the waves were fairly regular and consistent, and they were getting pounded somewhat, so they must have been tired too (as well as scared).
We dropped our mooring line and Jake, the skiff captain, moved around to assess the situation. We stayed just outside the surf zone watching what was going on and trying to decide what the options were. We tried to make a couple of moves in but then had to retreat because of the breaking waves. Unfortunately the skiff doesn’t carry any sort of a float with a long line so towing them out wasn’t a possibility. Our only option was to drive the skiff into the surf zone – waves generally break in water that 4/3 their height so I guess the water was about 8-10’ deep, which is deep enough for the skiff – to try to get them in-between breaking waves.
So while we waited at the side, we could also see that the wife was panicking. We finally made a run in and were able to grab her, literally pinning her to the side of the skiff as we escaped the next wave, but we couldn’t get the husband. The skiff crew pulled her on-board in her full gear. She was sobbing and screaming and it took a moment for her to calm down once she realized she was safe. But we still had hubby to deal with.
We circled back around and could see he was still holding on to his big camera rig. I honestly don’t remember if this part came after we got the husband or as we were trying to get to him but we suddenly realized that a wave that I will estimate at 6 feet tall was about to break right in front of and over our skiff. Jake pointed the nose directly into the breaking wave and it smashed over the top of us and through. The force of the breaking wave was strong enough that it shattered the plexiglass windshield at the front of the skiff. We basically plowed through the face of the breaking wave. Luckily, no one was injured. And we eventually got the husband (and his camera) on-board.
But in discussing it later, we all commented on how had we been turned sideways, maybe even just slightly, that the wave was high enough and strong enough that it could have flipped the skiff over, dumping all of us in the water in the surf zone – or trapping us under the capsized skiff – as well as dislodging all of the tanks that were in racks on the skiff. And those certainly had the potential to knock any of us out. It was a more dangerous situation that perhaps people realized at the moment, and kudos to Jake for getting us through unscathed.
I don’t know if the Swiss couple got a talking to later on or learned anything from it (they certainly never apologized to the group or anything like that) but here are the lessons I think you walk away with:
• Watch your air at all times and save enough to deal with an unexpected situation
• Don’t surface in shallow water as there may be surf there
• If you do find yourself in a surf zone, do everything you can to get out
• Weights and cameras are extraneous gear that can be replaced – your life is not
• Fall on your sword, swallow your pride, and apologize to the group as well as thank the crew (and leave a big tip)
We finished the day at a place called Sandy Paradise, not far from Ulong Channel and this provided one of the most dangerous experiences of the trip.
The dangerous part came at the end of this dive and involved two divers on the trip who were not part of our group but part of the overall PA2 passengers. Husband/wife duo and my impression from the previous days was that the guy was a bit arrogant and wasn’t a very good/cautious diver, although he claimed to be an instructor. On this dive, his actions put both he and his wife in danger as well as almost sank the dive skiff with all of us on-board.
Sandy Paradise in and of itself isn’t a difficult dive. It’s basically a small island with a light tower on it. In the briefing, we were told that the skiff would stay on the mooring on the east side, so the goal was to go out, turn about halfway, and come back to the skiff. And if you missed the skiff, surface and inflate your safety sausage. At the same time, be aware that there’s other boat traffic in the area so surface carefully. And be aware of the current pushing you off the main reef.
End of the dive, 16 of us had made it back to the skiff with no problems. It wasn’t unusual for these two to be the last ones back so initially, there was no concern. Then we spotted where they surfaced and the mood changed.
They had surfaced on the west side of the island opposite where the mooring was. That side of the island was not only fairly shallow, but also had a large surf break. They were on the surface inside the surf zone while what I estimate at 5-7’ waves broke in front of them. Why did they surface there? We found out later that they were . . . two guesses . . . out of air!! So they had “no” choice (other than to have been more closely monitoring air supply). And they apparently were out of air because they went back to the cleaning station to take a few more pictures instead of coming back to the skiff.
I’m assuming they had no surf training not only because of where they surfaced but also because they didn’t seem to be making any move to get horizontally out of the surf zone, which was maybe 50 yards or so wide. They’d duck under breaking waves every now and then but that was it. By the same token, we could see that the waves were fairly regular and consistent, and they were getting pounded somewhat, so they must have been tired too (as well as scared).
We dropped our mooring line and Jake, the skiff captain, moved around to assess the situation. We stayed just outside the surf zone watching what was going on and trying to decide what the options were. We tried to make a couple of moves in but then had to retreat because of the breaking waves. Unfortunately the skiff doesn’t carry any sort of a float with a long line so towing them out wasn’t a possibility. Our only option was to drive the skiff into the surf zone – waves generally break in water that 4/3 their height so I guess the water was about 8-10’ deep, which is deep enough for the skiff – to try to get them in-between breaking waves.
So while we waited at the side, we could also see that the wife was panicking. We finally made a run in and were able to grab her, literally pinning her to the side of the skiff as we escaped the next wave, but we couldn’t get the husband. The skiff crew pulled her on-board in her full gear. She was sobbing and screaming and it took a moment for her to calm down once she realized she was safe. But we still had hubby to deal with.
We circled back around and could see he was still holding on to his big camera rig. I honestly don’t remember if this part came after we got the husband or as we were trying to get to him but we suddenly realized that a wave that I will estimate at 6 feet tall was about to break right in front of and over our skiff. Jake pointed the nose directly into the breaking wave and it smashed over the top of us and through. The force of the breaking wave was strong enough that it shattered the plexiglass windshield at the front of the skiff. We basically plowed through the face of the breaking wave. Luckily, no one was injured. And we eventually got the husband (and his camera) on-board.
But in discussing it later, we all commented on how had we been turned sideways, maybe even just slightly, that the wave was high enough and strong enough that it could have flipped the skiff over, dumping all of us in the water in the surf zone – or trapping us under the capsized skiff – as well as dislodging all of the tanks that were in racks on the skiff. And those certainly had the potential to knock any of us out. It was a more dangerous situation that perhaps people realized at the moment, and kudos to Jake for getting us through unscathed.
I don’t know if the Swiss couple got a talking to later on or learned anything from it (they certainly never apologized to the group or anything like that) but here are the lessons I think you walk away with:
• Watch your air at all times and save enough to deal with an unexpected situation
• Don’t surface in shallow water as there may be surf there
• If you do find yourself in a surf zone, do everything you can to get out
• Weights and cameras are extraneous gear that can be replaced – your life is not
• Fall on your sword, swallow your pride, and apologize to the group as well as thank the crew (and leave a big tip)
