Off to a lousy start, looks like a year from hell.

[Greg D.]

PADI needs to change the "Rescue diver" course name, to save your buddy diver that is not qualified to do rescue/recovery diving. friggin idiots! Good luck with the SS when it gets there. Must be tough knowing all those people Gary. Good luck!

 

[Rick Inman]

PADI needs to change the "Rescue diver" course name, to save your buddy diver that is not qualified to do rescue/recovery diving. friggin idiots! Good luck with the SS when it gets there. Must be tough knowing all those people Gary. Good luck!

Actually, if you have really taken the PADI Rescue class, you should be educated enough to know that the best thing you can do is stay away and let the experts do their work - that you are not trained or qualified.

Just last Wednesday my buddy and I went for a dive in this lake, and there was Gary's team training in the low-vis water. How many other divers can say they are as prepared do do the search in this lake with these current conditions?

None.

 

[Cacia]

what is SS?....oh Sonar, I think I asked that last time. sorry.

 

[james croft]

what is SS?

Side-scan sonar.

 

[suthnbelle]

Last week our county had an overboard call out. (I'm with the team in the neighboring county) 71 year old man fell overboard right in front of his wife who was on the lakeshore. Real sad. There have been two drownings in the past month for Mecklenburg County and they have found the bodies using the City's Fire Department dive team's $50K side sonar scanner. Maybe one of our team members will hit the powerball lottery and get one for our team. Can't help but dream.

BTW, I did lake exercise training last week with the AGA and actually had a blast. What girl in their right mind says that about 0' vis? LOL I thought I knew bad vis...now I know bad vis. Having to put your spg to your mask to read it and at the end of the dive that wasn't even working. Yep, it was fun.

 

[ReefGuy]

Gary, how do you search water that deep? We're fortunate here in that the waterways in the county are at most 20'-25' deep, and the water rarely (if ever) drops below the 50s. The only thing we really need to be wary of are the gators.

 

[Gary D.]

Gary, how do you search water that deep? We're fortunate here in that the waterways in the county are at most 20'-25' deep, and the water rarely (if ever) drops below the 50s. The only thing we really need to be wary of are the gators.

With a good starting point and good visibility it wouldn't be a problem. But right now we don't have either. I think we are at about a square mile area and I know the visibility is flat out zero. 43df surface to bottom.

Just got a call from the Marine Sgt. who has been out of town for a couple of weeks. Welcome back.

I'll be working Marine on Wed. with the SS. Briefing is at 1000 and we should be on the water by early afternoon. Hopefully it should be a rather quick one if our suspected area is even close.

Gary D.

 

[ReefGuy]

So you don't search deep water in low vis? I've read where you talk about how bad the vis is in the area you work, I assumed that the vis was like ours. Where our call outs tend to be the vis is so bad you can't read your gauges even when you put them against your mask.

Here, fortunately, we can arc search 95% of the time, and being in shallow water, we have plenty of time to search. I was just wondering how that could work in deep water with no vis.

With a good starting point and good visibility it wouldn't be a problem. But right now we don't have either. I think we are at about a square mile area and I know the visibility is flat out zero.

 

[Gary D.]

So you don't search deep water in low vis? I've read where you talk about how bad the vis is in the area you work, I assumed that the vis was like ours. Where our call outs tend to be the vis is so bad you can't read your gauges even when you put them against your mask.

Here, fortunately, we can arc search 95% of the time, and being in shallow water, we have plenty of time to search. I was just wondering how that could work in deep water with no vis.

We do if we have a reasonably small area, acres maybe. This one is most likely over a square mile. Way to much to even think of trying. Average depth there is over 100' and averages around 130'. Risk is just to great this time.

Gary D.

 

[Gary D.]

We just finished the Pre Search Briefing with everyone that is going to be involved and those with useful information.

Well, where’s Batman when you need him? Our search area is now roughly 1 to 2 square miles if not bigger. So it looks like this may take a while. Who knows, we might just get lucky early.

Gary D.