I'd like to pass on an incident involving spear fishing! On Sunday, 15-July-2007, during a morning dive on the Duane in Key Largo, Florida with 20 Advanced Certified Divers an incident occurred. Among the divers were some that have never dove the Duane and several teenagers with their father. As for me, I've been diving for over 10 years, AOW and NITROX, @ 1,000 dives and a few dozen on the Duane, do not spear, but respect the rights of those that do!
We were part of a larger group of Experienced Advanced Divers down for a weekend of Deep Wreck and Reef dives. On this particular dive, we were hot dropped on the bow of the Duane with a pickup due on the stern either by tie on or free float to the boat. Approximately 3/4 the way through the dive, most divers were assembling towards the stern of the Duane. At this time, I noticed a group of spear fishing divers all together on the starboard side and the end of the superstructure. One had some fish on a loop and I wanted to get as far away from him as possible as there were numerous cuda and a few sharks in the area. One spear fishing diver in particular, he had a mustache as could be seen through his mask, was attempting to load his gun's bands. The other divers in his group were watching him. The problem was he was aiming the gun directly towards me. He was then waving it around pointing it towards the other dives in our group. He was on the side of the wreck aiming his gun towards the inside of the wreck instead of towards the open sea. I tried for several minutes to communicate with him and his fellow divers for him to aim his gun towards the open sea. He did not understand and spent a lot of time trying to load his gun, all this time it was waving towards our dive group! We all were awaiting a spear release at this time. There was not much we could do except head for the stern up rope.
The spear fishing divers started to head for the bow of the ship. If they headed for the stern up rope, I was going to go up the amidships rope. As our group all gathered around the stern line and started up, the spear fishing group also decided to go up the stern line. The problem now was there were at least two and possibly a third diver that had their guns LOADED and aiming up - towards our group of 10 - 15 divers doing their ascent. Again, I tried to communicate with one of these loaded gun divers to have him unload his bands. He did not understand and kept the gun aimed up - towards our group. After a few minutes of showing him one of his buddies unloaded gun, he still would not unload his gun. It was a forever hang at 50 and 20 ft. The group finally passed us up and left the area.
When I got back on the boat, the rest of the group had already briefed our Capt. His comment was it is legal to spear on the Duane and this diver can aim his gun at anyone. Only if goes off and hits someone else can we take action. The boat was identified as the Orian from the Florida Keys Dive Centers. I was informed that there was an Instructor on board, probably teaching the group how to spear fish.
I resent deeply the total incompetence of these divers, the instructor on board and the dive shop sponsoring such action. Although there may be nothing that I can do to prevent further such actions, I can spread the story out to the many divers that I communicate with. I'm sure there are some spear-O's that will use this to keep going to such an operation. I would never recommend this operation and would pass on this episode to those that desire to associate with them..
For the 99% of the spear fishing divers that would not ever do such actions, I apologize for bashing out on this. As a non-spear fishing diver, but respecting your freedom to do so, I would ask that you police the people that you deal with so that hopefully this episode will never happen again. Actions like these are what cause innocent divers to get hurt or killed!
