Miami Beach charter leaves divers in open waters off Key Biscayne

[covediver]

When I was a divemaster on diveboats going to the Channel Islands in the 1980s, leaving someone behind was my greatest fear. We had redundant headcounts. Check in upon coming back on board, roll call before leaving the spot, visual verification of each diver on board. If someone was below deck sleeping, we verified that they were on board, even having to wake people up to verify they were who we thought they were. Draconian? Maybe. But no one ever got left behind. We didn't work for the boat, we worked for the diveshop that chartered the boat. the boat divemaster and skipper had their own system for accounting for divers. It all seemed to work.

Then in the early 90s things changed. In order to make four dives in different spots, boat like the Spectre, would pull anchor with people still in the water, set unrealistic gate times, and so on. I came up once with a diver on her first dive only to find the boat drifting away from our spot. For a moment i knew how the divers in this story felt, then I realized that the Spectre was liveboating. It wasn't to pick up drifting divers, it was done to expedite getting underway to the next spot. Capatain screamed at us to get on board when I hesitated before confirming the transmission was in neutral. Liveboating didn't bother me, I had done a lot of it. Its kind of daunting for someone on their first dive. Got off that boat and never set foot on it again.

 

[Thespis]

Yikes, I searched several different ways to see if it had been posted already. ScubaBoard can be down right confusing at times with all of the different forums.

 

[flots am]

Stories like this remind me why I carry a snorkel in my pocket. So much easier to just hang there even in fairly signifigant swells.

Stories like this remind me why I carry a 9' Yellow SMB, a strobe light, a flash-light and an air horn.

I've been laughed at, and been the most popular guy in the group depending on whether everything was going well or not.

The difference between "prepared" and "paranoid" can only be discerned in hindsight.

flots.

 

[Mark Derail]

I bought two SMB's last Saturday before my trip out to Maui, based on this story and others.
Like the story of the BCD not inflating anymore at depth, the SMB providing enough lift to not have to ditch (and pay for) the weights.

Oh, and the boat operator is IMHO an ass4ole and I'd sue him for negligence.

Stories like this remind me why I carry a 9' Yellow SMB, a strobe light, a flash-light and an air horn.

I've been laughed at, and been the most popular guy in the group depending on whether everything was going well or not.

The difference between "prepared" and "paranoid" can only be discerned in hindsight.

flots.

 

[blackvans1234]

It's a diver's nightmare: surfacing miles from shore after a long dive, and finding the boat that brought you there is nowhere in sight.

Hollywood made a movie out of that frightening prospect, and it happened Sunday to two divers off South Florida. Left behind by a commercial dive boat about three miles off Key Biscayne, the divers floated at sea for more than two hours before a passing boat picked them up and brought them to safety just before sundown.

RJ Diving Ventures Inc., the Miami Beach-based boat operator, used a method of accounting for divers that involved standing at the back of the boat as divers returned and checking them off a roster once they were on board, said owner Robert J. Arnove.
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"I do not know how the two divers got checked off without them being on the boat or who is to blame,'' he said. "We are still trying to figure that out while devising a further failsafe system to prevent this from ever happening again.''

Leaving divers behind is rare but preventable, dive boat operators said Tuesday.

"I've been in this business for 23 years and I can remember just a couple of occasions of this happening,'' said Matt Stout, owner of Underseas Sports in Fort Lauderdale. "Normally, it's a result of somebody not doing roll call properly.''

Many dive boats perform a verbal call of the divers on board after a dive.

"Usually most boats are very anal about that,'' said Tom Muscatello, owner of the Boynton Beach Dive Center. "I know on our boat, we call names and then we do a head count.''

Arnove said he eliminated verbal roll calls because the wrong person can answer. "This happened to me in Key Largo years ago, and I was left behind,'' he said.

RJ Ventures has been in business since 1982, according to its website. Its 46-foot boat can accommodate about two dozen divers.

On smaller boats with fewer passengers, a missing diver is easier to notice. A simple inventory of air tanks can reveal whether a diver is still in the water.

The divers who were left behind last weekend, Paul Kline of Austin, Texas, and Fernando Garcia Puerta of Spain, had just completed the second of two afternoon dives. They surfaced after nearly an hour underwater only to discover that their boat, the Big Com-Ocean, was gone.

"We were in shock,'' Kline, 44, told The Miami Herald. "We could easily have died.''

Scuba divers left behind - Sun Sentinel

 

[blackvans1234]

I think that it's not so bad that it's posted here, because it is a little (or lot) closer to home than the other incidents.

In my opinion, it's complacency on a dive boat.

 

[Splitlip]

The max depth and bottom time isn't for your benefit, it's for mine. So, when you're in the helicopter on the way to the chamber, I have some information to give to the chamber, at least a little about the profiles you've been diving over the past 3 or 4 days.

We are drift diving here. The 45 minute limit on bottom time equals about 53 minutes of in water time. And for our depths with single tanks, most are pushing NDL 's, turn pressure anyway. Yes there are variables. But the crews know to start searching for a missing diver after that. And since they are experts in the local conditions, they can pretty much get a good idea as to where the drifting diver is heading. (The Narcosis incident aside where the diver swam West, across the Northerly current and off the reef line)

 

[WetDawg]

The most likely explanation here is that they never got on the dive roster in the first place.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have seen divers show up late to a busy dive boat getting loaded up, crew running around taking care of last minute diver problems... "I can’t find my fins!" or whatever… 2 divers get on board and chat through the dive brief and the first role call and no one notices that they never even got on the list.

Before you spend all your hard earned $ on new gadgets and GPS systems how about SHUT UP during the role call and dive brief and MAKE SURE your happy a$$ is on the roster? This is an easy way to help save you own life.

*Side Note* all the stories about this in the media have been wild and ridiculous, “Divers Left to Die at Sea” very sensational and play on everyone's fears. However, the biggest problem these guys had was NOT getting hit by another boat while there were in the water. They were smack in the middle of one of the busiest recreational boating areas on the planet and within sight of land the entire time. I dive here every weekend and can’t imagine how they went 2 hours and how many boats they allowed to pass before they decided to flag one down?

If you come to South Florida to dive, sure enough bring your SMB, you will need to wave at knuckleheads trying run you over, or maybe at pretty girls on the beach, but not because you are “lost at sea” less than 2000 yards offshore.

 

[DandyDon]

2,000 yards? The original story says three miles off Key Biscayne?

 

[Beowulf]

If you come to South Florida to dive, sure enough bring your SMB, you will need to wave at knuckleheads trying run you over, or maybe at pretty girls on the beach, but not because you are “lost at sea” less than 2000 yards offshore.

You have info that differs from news reports? The reports all said 3 miles. Now, I don't trust news reporting but were did you get 2000yds from shore?

BTW, 2000yds is over 1 mile. Not an easy swim with gear.