Near misses, some of what I have learned

[Diver0001]

Forgive me for taking issue with a post lacking in even the most basic rules of spelling, sentence structure or grammar.

When I read the post I assumed he was not a native speaker of the language. After checking I was astonished to see that he was.

Dude, if it's not literature and you are having trouble understanding it then just move along.... nobody benefits from cynical comments. You're just making yourself look like a boob.

Do you have anything useful to say about the problems he had or the solutions he chose?

For my part I read that and got a general picture of a diver who:

- would appear to be basically comfortable (although not very conscious of his diving)
- would appear to be task and solution oriented
- would appear to be remaining calm when things aren't going right
- would appear to be thinking as he goes
and
- has some (serious) gear configuration and familiarization issues
- doesn't always choose the most effective solution
- occasionally fails to avoid getting into a situation and ends up having to deal with it instead
- could probably benefit from diving a wider variety people especially more experienced wreck divers and people who can navigate well

There are some good things in that post because like it or not we're not all "experts". I think his message that things can happen quickly and you need to keep thinking (his basic message) is good.

Clearly I see here an opening for a discussion about avoiding issues like getting ensnared in a wreck.

And about configuring properly for the type of diving he's doing. I think dumpsterDiver started about that with he post about weight distribution.

The thing about the guide line to an anchor is interesting but is just the tip of the team/wreck diving iceberg. Clearly some tips about that might have been helpful. There are a lot of experienced wreck divers on Scubaboard. Maybe helping him with some tips on that would be helpful.

Just to name a few ideas. Feel free to pick up on any of those and go with it.

R..

 

[acqua_girl]

There are some good things in that post because like it or not we're not all "experts". I think his message that things can happen quickly and you need to keep thinking (his basic message) is good.

Granted. There are good things in that post.

I think the bottom line is that despite all the warnings about safety and simulations you do while practicing on the pool, situations described in text books do happen.

Maybe he didn't chose the best way to deal with the situation - but I doubt he will have the same problems again. And, if he does, at least he'll manage it better that he did the first time.

 

[imasinker]

Am I missing something here?

I have to admitt I thought the first two post were inappropriate, seeing this was a diver trying to communicate offer an idea or opinion via a forum with perhaps less than perfect typing and grammar skills , like myself. Like mine opinions and comments vary.

Putting that aside I agree that using a line for return can be helpful and as TS&M stated it can also be dropped if you feel it may become a hazard to you. This would be a good reason why you never clip one off to yourself while in use. A compass can help but if you sway off to one side or another just a few feet can cause you to be just as far off on your return heading and in poor viz this could cause you to miss the line all together. A direct line would bring you right back to that very spot. I have been on a few low viz dives and had to really be cautious to navigate myself and remember where I was during the dive to get back to the anchor line. A reel wouldn't have been much help in a few of those cases.

I first started out diving with a weight integrated bc and during the pool session I realized very fast of a potential problem should I ever need to remove my bc at depth. If this is the type of bc you and your buddy use, might very well be another skill to practice along side of ooa drills etc.

As for losing a mouth piece from my regulator. I check the tie clamp on mine at every dive. Since it can go at anytime I try and do my best at preventative maintenance on my gear. Sometimes things happen, best to try and be as prepared as can be. This is why I prefer to wear my octo bungeed around my neck right there when I need it.

I believe as well with every incident is a lesson learned, hopefully without injury. Sharing these experiences can be a great help.

Good Post..

 

[tstormdiver]

There are some good things in that post because like it or not we're not all "experts". I think his message that things can happen quickly and you need to keep thinking (his basic message) is good.
R..

Amen.:cool2:

 

[TSandM]

I actually would be very interested in other strategies for regaining the anchor line, when it's not on the wreck, and not within sight of it. This can happen VERY easily in Puget Sound, where the viz is frequently less than 20 feet, and not infrequently less than 10. In such cases, the bottom is often fairly uniform and has little depth gradient, so you've lost most of your natural navigation possibilities. The only way I know to make sure you return to the upline is a reel.

For people who dive wrecks because they love them, and study the plans for the ship and that sort of thing, using the structure of the ship (if it's still recognizable) is a great way to navigate. For those of us who don't, it may be challenging to tell the bow from the stern, especially if the ship is large and somewhat deteriorated. It can be a bit like a cave -- if you do something that loses you your orientation for a bit, when you put your attention back on where you are, you CAN be going the opposite direction from what you think. That's one of the reasons I like diving as a team, because generally, three people don't get confused at once. That's also where paying attention to external cues (eg. current) can help, or noting things like wave lines on the bottom. There's a lot to "situational awareness" for the purposes of navigation, no matter where you are. But there is no shame to running line where it's helpful -- at least, I don't think so.

 

[Diver0001]

I actually would be very interested in other strategies for regaining the anchor line, when it's not on the wreck, and not within sight of it. This can happen VERY easily in Puget Sound, where the viz is frequently less than 20 feet, and not infrequently less than 10. In such cases, the bottom is often fairly uniform and has little depth gradient, so you've lost most of your natural navigation possibilities. The only way I know to make sure you return to the upline is a reel.

Well... I think you'll find that there are regional differences to how people do this. I'm pretty sure that the NJ wreck divers don't do what we do, but I'll explain how we do it.

What we do is don't decend using the ship's anchor at all. We drift over the wreck and drag a grappling hook (a small 4 pronged anchor about a metre long) along behind until it hooks on the wreck.

The grappliing hook is attched to the deco bouys and depending on currents and tides we sometimes attach a smaller 2nd buoy to the first one with a weight in between so we can judge the current by the distance between the two bouys.

The ship, if it needs to be anchored, is anchored next the wreck and a leader/parking line is attached from the ship to the deco station. The ship I've been diving off of lately does that because it has propellers and it needs to idle. Another ship we use has jet drive and an autopilot that's controlled by GPS so they can "park" it in position without anchoring it.

The first team down secures the grapple to the wreck by tying it on with a strong rope. Sometimes they blow a bag to indicate that this operation is complete and diving can commence.

Divers then enter the water and crawl/swim along the parking line to the deco buoy and then decend along the grappling line. If they're going to lay out a guide line then they start it within visual distance of the grapple.

The last team out (this is agreed upon before hand and usually done by the crew) unties the grapple and brings it up with using a lift bag. The deco bouys don't drift away because they're still attached to the ship with the parking line. If the currents are heavy and viz limited, this can be kind of tricky. I've also seen them just swim off the wreck with the grapple and leave it on the bottom downstream from the wreck to be pulled up once the last divers are back onboard. The last time they did this they had some kind of contraption to 'reel' it in that involved going around in a circle around the bouy with the boat but I don't know how that works.

All of this works for us because the bottom of the North Sea is mostly a flat sandy bottom aside from the wrecks. Like I said, local conditions will determine if you can do it like this or not.

R..

 

[TSandM]

Diving wrecks off charter boats, I've only had the experience of the boat anchoring near (but not necessarily on) the wreck. Divers go down the anchor line and hopefully find themselves on the wreck, or close enough to see it. If the conditions are such (strong wind, for example) that the boat can't anchor, the wreck is shotted and the divers go down (and come back up) the shot line. But, quite similarly, the shot line may or may not end up ON the wreck, and in Lake Washington, the viz can literally be two feet, which means if you don't land on it, you don't find it unless you can execute some kind of search pattern.

These are all recreational depth wreck dives. I know one of our technical charter boats hangs a deco trapeze, but I've never been on it and I don't know whether that's attached to the anchor line or something else.

 

[Diver0001]

Diving wrecks off charter boats, I've only had the experience of the boat anchoring near (but not necessarily on) the wreck. Divers go down the anchor line and hopefully find themselves on the wreck, or close enough to see it. If the conditions are such (strong wind, for example) that the boat can't anchor, the wreck is shotted and the divers go down (and come back up) the shot line. But, quite similarly, the shot line may or may not end up ON the wreck, and in Lake Washington, the viz can literally be two feet, which means if you don't land on it, you don't find it unless you can execute some kind of search pattern.

These are all recreational depth wreck dives. I know one of our technical charter boats hangs a deco trapeze, but I've never been on it and I don't know whether that's attached to the anchor line or something else.

Well.....

Ok.... assuming that were the situation I would approach it by sending down our most experienced divers first along the anchor with the assignment of finding the wreck and laying out a guideline from the anchor to some position on the wreck and then marking that position with a blob shot from the bottom at the point where the guideline meets the wreck. That way (a) once the blob surfaces everyone knows they can start diving and they just decend and follow the guideline to the wreck. This way you don't get a spider's web of lines criss-crossing each other from people swimming in all directions trying to find the wreck and (b) people have a choice of ascending (assuming conditions allow it) along the shot line sent up from teh bottom -- in case of problems for example -- or to swim back to the anchor to ascend.

I don't think there's any point in shotting a wreck with the "hope-for-the-best" technique and then sending divers down it unless/until you're sure it's on the wreck. You're just going to create confusion and waste people's time if you do that.

The last team out would have to clean up.

If you're worried about the anchor moving then I suppose you could use one of those cork-screw sand anchors to start out your guideline but personally I would just use the anchor unless conditions were abysmal because that just adds another step/complication.

R..

P.S. I just re-read your post. You could use this same technique using the "anchor" or "shot-line" approach. There is no difference aside from the possibility of physically picking up the shot and moving it.... The point being that the first team get's it set up where it needs to be and the last team brings it back.

 

[TSandM]

That's a great idea, Rob, and thanks for it; I think we can use it on some of our dives off our own boat. Send a team down, and have them blow a bag from the wreck itself. On the other hand, in some of our sites, surface current means you pretty much have to pull yourself down the anchor line anyway.

 

[Diver0001]

It just occurred to me that there is another important function of the shot line that I didn't mention. If you don't mark the end of the guideline on the wreck side with *something* (it doesn't need to be a shot line but visually that's easy to recognise) and a bunch of people are laying out guide lines over the wreck for themselves then someone who wants to return to the anchor might not be able to distinguish the end of the guide line from just any other line that someone laid out over the wreck.

So my point being that you really need to mark it with something, even if it's just a ribbon or one of those cave markers on the end of the guideline.....

R..