Local Instructor Heartbroken Over Lost Gear...PLEASE HELP!

[Denise Ad Absurdum]

Hi All!

I know that the local Monterey SCUBA community is AMAZING and I was wondering if I might enlist your help on a little Search and Recovery project. We all need to keep our skills fresh, right?

It seems I have lost my gear which consists of a HP100 steel tank, a Zeagle Zena BCD, Sherwood SR-1 Reg and Octo, a FogCutter and a few other bits and bobs.

My gear was lost off a boat anchored to Ball Buster with 300 feet of anchor line out which means we were drifting a bit. The wave and wind action pulled the boat off of the top of Ball Buster back toward the Aquarium. My gear was tethered to the boat when it sunk/drifted away. My BCD has 30lbs of lift. 28lbs were in the weight pockets making it slightly negatively buoyant, but not necessarily sinkable.

My gear can be identified by hot pink Miflex hoses and a purple corset-style BCD.

While I am sure some of you may have snarky comments about this loss I'd love for you to save those for when I buy you a round (or thirty) of beer AFTER we've recovered my gear.

If you happen to find it/recover it/see it washed up on shore and grab it, please take it to Aquarius Dive Shop on Del Monte, any of the employees there know it is mine and are hoping to see you. You may also contact me via email to deniserempel@gmail.com or 831.205.9741.

THANK YOU!
Denise

 

[diver 85]

There are too many one-liners out there to throw @ you......Do hope you get it back, though.....

 

[Lionfish51]

Well if anyone knows of somebody who may have found or picked up a analox
nitrox reader pleas tell them it's mine!
if they found in Cozumel 4/26-5/3
Thanks
Rick

 

[3D diver]

Bummer Denise,

I hope your gear finds its way home soon.

 

[zf2nt]

If you post this to ba_diving you'll hit more divers who are likely to go to Ballbuster then you'll find here on Scubaboard. Chuck Tribolet may already have done this for you, but I won't know until tomorrow because I get ba_diving in digest form.

Bruce

PS I trust the "it" in the sentence, "My gear was tethered to the boat when it sunk/drifted away" is your dive gear and not the boat? And was that James's boat?

PPS Talk to Marty Overson. He seems to be good at finding lost gear.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Keith Middlekauf beat me to it on ba_diving.

With 300' of scope out, it's far enough off the rock that people aren't likely to stumble over it. That's
the bad news. The good news is that a few years ago I found and recovered someone's gear lost
under similar circumstances at Ball-Buster. If you can confirm the 300' of scope (that's a lot, even
for Ball-Buster) and describe where on the rock the hook was, and describe the current, I can puzzle
out GPS numbers where I would start looking, assuming it sank.

Chuck

 

[Rwolf01]

I'm always happy to practice my search & recovery skills on someone else's stuff... If you get Chuck the info he needs to establish a starting point of a search, I'll help with the under water work.

In general, as soon as you notice something is lost you should mark a waypoint on your GPS and record anything else that might come in handy for figuring out where it went. (time of day, depth reading if you have a sounder, the compass heading of the anchor line, etc.)

Was that steel tank painted or galvanized? Any stickers, protectors or other flashes of color on it?

If anyone is heading out there to look, text me at 650-804-8301 and I'll meet you at the dock with my dive gear & tanks.

- Ralph

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Also, the track line on the boat's GPS may well have some information about position.

Chuck

 

[Denise Ad Absurdum]

Thanks so much Chuck et al!

I have been trying to get more precise info but all I have is "we were anchored right on the top of the pinnacle" and "the current was running east". I don't have access to the GPS...

---------- Post added May 6th, 2014 at 09:01 PM ----------

Steel tank. No stickers. The hot pink hoses are easiest to spot and the BCD is different than most, back inflate with a zipper down the front.

 

[DocWong]

Hey Denise, I'm sure you'll get your gear back! Next time we dive Ballbuster, well scooter out that way and do a search pattern. Hopefully it went really negative so it stays put.