Monterey 2 divers dead, separate incidents

[Ben_ca]

Chuck's Tongue in Cheek Guide to Swell Heights

Chuck Tribolet's Sea Conditions at a Glance

... and if you are still confused just ask if Chuck's diving.... if he passes might want to pass also. Now if some one could put a webcam up looking at his boat parking spot then it'll make things a lot easier...

 

[Vicente]

I was present at one of the Lobos incidents earlier in the year.

I don't think there's any particular SCUBA hazard here. Adults hiking with their kids around on the trails at Point Lobos also have cardio-incidents. They just aren't reported in the same way. Also a lot of diving here is shore-diving, so you are a lot further from real help in terms of minutes than you would be boat-diving. By that I mean the time for a buddy or a rescue-boat to get you to dry land where real CPR can be performed. With boat-diving most of the time they could get a victim aboard and have them stripped and be performing 2-man CPR with O2 and maybe even an AED unit a lot faster than any shore-dive rescue.

Main things you need to teach any buddy:
1) ESTABLISH BUOYANCY OF THE VICTIM!
a)release weight belt
b)inflate BCD
2) CALL FOR HELP!

There's more to a Rescue than that, but you'd be suprised in an emergency how even trained professionals sometimes miss a basic step. If you can drill your kid so they can reliably do 1 & 2 in a pinch, you'll be way ahead of the game.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

... and if you are still confused just ask if Chuck's diving.... if he passes might want to pass also.

A few years ago I said on ba_diving that I was going to stay home and do my income
taxes. Someone went diving that day, and wrote something to the effect of "when
Chuck says stay home and do your taxes, do your taxes". ;-)

I tracked down the eighth NorCal fatality:
Mon. 04/17/2006 - Name Unknown, Mendocino Headlands, Ab Diver.
.TODAY...NW WINDS 10 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT. NW SWELL 8 TO 12
FT AT 12 SECONDS. (note, that's the Monterey forecast, the north coast where this
happened is always bigger).

That was on a weekday, and over my maximums. That makes it 4 out of 8 on
snotty days, and 6 out of 8 on other than normal weekends.

My maximums: NW swell: Go diving if it's 8' or less. W swell: go diving if it's 10' or
less (we get some shelter from the W swells). SW or S swell: Go diving (we get lots
of shelter from SW and the very rare S swells. But one exception: gale warning:
always stay home.

Ben's 1a (lots of folks stay home when it gets snotty) makes the conditions factor
much more significant. 33% of the days may be snotty, but I'll bet << 10% of the
dives happen on those days. Yet we had half the fatalities this year on days like
that, though not from stuff like getting bounced off rocks. Maybe just the stress of
trying to fight it (note: don't fight it, go with the flow).

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

I went through my 2004 and 2005 data. Before that, my data is somewhat incomplete.
With the additional data, I think there's something to the holiday/weekday theory,
but I'm less convinced about the snotty days.


Total, 2004-2006:
20 total

8 normal weekend
6 holiday weekend
6 weekday

6 over maximums


2004:
6 total

4 normal weekend
2 holiday weekend
0 weekday

1 over maximums


2005:
6 Total confirmed (2 more that can best be described as rumors).

2 normal weekend
2 holdiay weekend
2 weekday

1 over maximums


2006:
8 total.

2 Normal weekend.
2 Holiday weekend.
4 Weekday

4 over maximums.

 

[uspap]

Could it be that the ones on holidays don't dive as often and figure they planed this day and don't want to waste it? I was out on Thanksgiving day and it was rough all over. I saw two guys going out at breakwater and they looked like an accident waiting to happen. The waves were up to the steps. It was diveable but I was there to try out my new scooter and decided it was a little too rough. We ended up at Del Monte and had an excellent dive along the warf. Macro heaven. I also get to dive pretty often so calling a dive is not as big a deal to me.