San Juan - Not Just Another Downwelling

[DandyDon]

Always nice to see a pic of hotties now and then here...

 

[firstdive2005]

I don't know, but my option was to get TO the wall. I could visually see his bubbles going down and to head away from the wall was NOT an option.

Hi Jen-Thanks for your replay, it's nerve racking to read since I've been in a few of them. You never forget your first.
You say that leaving the wall and swimming to the blue was not an option, had you not had the gas volume you had then you would be in serious trouble as you blow so much gas pulling and kicking up the wall. I was taught, right or wrong that fear of leaving the wall to get away from the welling is the hardest part in the self-rescue. The welling needs resistence to flow along, thats the bottom above the wall and the wall itself. The width and breadth of the flow can very of course but they do have a finite size. It is an option to leave the wall to escape the flow. One needs to know that you will go up or down with the flow until your out but you will get out. All the wellings I have been involved with felt like they where the most powerful each time. That game had to be removed from my head. Especially the up wellings, those scared me the most. All I could think is my head is going to blow up. Gotta use all ya got to stay calm and use cesa skills at the same time as trying to kick out from the wall. But it is an amazing sense of relief when you swim out of the current. It feels like an elastic band that was attached to ya just snapped.
The upwellings I experienced where at dives close to Nanaimo, Canada. I also got hit by two downwellings there. I have been in several downwellings at Coz, the same place you did and Santa Rosa. The ones at SR where very easy to escape. I helped a dive buddy get out of one once, he was fortunate that I saw him at the wall, I swam after him and got him to swim with me from the wall. He had very little gas left when we surfaced. It was his first my third.
I am sure that other sites can have different conditions in the welling nature. I am sure there are others that have their self rescue techniques with wellings but all the very experienced divers that I know that have experienced these currents all have taught me to escape from the wall to the blue and not to inflate or dump. Some of the crazier ones have said it can be fun, you get a free adrenaline rush. These guys like to jump out of perfectly good planes.
Truly your conditioning from all your dives gave you the sense to calm yourself and think it through. Thanks for putting it out there. Your advise on having and being able to use an SMB is too important. kev

 

[JenLoves2Dive]

I hear you Kev. I think you still need to read the situation individually. This is not the first downwell I've even been in, As a matter of fact, in the 15 years I've been diving in Coz, I've been in quite a few over the years, however, it was undoubtedly the most powerful and quite large. I talked it over with Gabi, Opal and Matt and several other DMs there on the island and and given my location,we felt it was the best option to go to the wall. Yes, I agree, in most instances you do want to get away from the wall, I did think that it would subside once I got to the top, which has been the case in the past on that site and I was mistaken.

When you coming back to Coz?

 

[Mawg]

She passed up the dive, and sure enough within 15 - 20 minutes everyone had aborted. The more you know..[/QUOTE]


In Nov. of 01, we were diving on the East side with a DM I had come to know and trust in Cozumel over the years. When we were finished and headed back,he asked if I wanted to do a night dive on Barracuda.I said you're kidding me , right? He was serious. He said they would wait until it got dark,descend to about 100 feet or so, hang onto the reef and wait for Marlin and sailfish to swim by. This was not a hard decision to make. We did not to go.

I've been diving in Cozumel since 1993. And in that time, I know of or have been told about several accidents that cost people their lives. One was a night dive where a diver was killed by a boat prop. Some were very experienced divers and some were not. My mantra is safety first then have some fun. If I want to have the caca scared out of me, I'll take up base jumping.

 

[Chuckitall]

Hey Jen, you still in
Coz, we will be there Fri.

 

[JenLoves2Dive]

Darn sorry I am going to miss you guys!! I didn't know you were coming to Coz. I would have stayed! lol I have some people staying at my place through Monday, so if you see lights on, it's not me. Sorry I will miss you all in Coz, yet again. Who ya diving with and where are you staying? Have a great trip. You should go up north. There have still been plenty of eagle ray sightings!

 

[gcbryan]

People do night dives there...
Barracuda Reef, Cozumel

Just curious....any idea how close to the wall you had to be to get caught in that downcurrent? Can it sweep you to and over the wall from some distance away or do you generally need to be near or over the wall to get in that situation?

Thanks.

It is caused by current hitting the water and having no where to do but down. You would have to be on the deep side of the water to be affected.

If you were on the other side of the water you wouldn't be swept to and over the wall because that's not the direction the current would be flowing.

 

[InTheDrink]

Jen, good going on all of you. Sounds pretty terrifying and you all dealt with it just fine.

The only time I came across *mental* currents it was all I could do to cling with both hands to the wall. Not much would convince me that there is a better course of action so I would definitely back your course of action - and add extra gusto for blowing off it to head with the current. That must have been a difficult decision.

Was your dive site in a channel by any chance?

J

 

[skicolby]

I talked it over with Gabi, Opal and Matt and several other DMs there on the island and and given my location,we felt it was the best option to go to the wall. Yes, I agree, in most instances you do want to get away from the wall, I did think that it would subside once I got to the top, which has been the case in the past on that site and I was mistaken.

It's always hard to know what the best decision is in a situation like that, but you made the tough choices and survived, so kudos to you! Thank you very much for describing your incident so people like me can learn from it!

I've been going through various scenarios in my mind about what I would do in the same situation, knowing what I now know about your experience. I guess you feel that you were so close to the wall that it was your best escape route, even though it sounds like you might swim away from the wall in other circumstances.

Hypthetically, if you ever found yourself in a similar situation in the future (on the wall to escape the downwelling), would you try to climb up the wall again or might you instead shuffle sideways along the wall to escape? My thinking is that by climbing up you might never escape the current, but by shuffling sideways you might have better odds of getting out past the edge of the current and perhaps it would be less strenuous than climbing straight up the wall into the teeth of the current? Was the current so strong because it was being funnelled through a narrow cut in the reef, meaning the side-ways shuffle could get you out in a relatively short distance?

If the decision to swim to the blue is made, is the proper technique to swim up and out (let's say a 45 degree angle) in an aero position with your side (rather than your stomach or back) facing the wall? By swimming up and out, rather than straight out, and by presenting a narrower profile to the current, I'm wondering if one would stand a better chance of not getting pushed as deep during the process of trying to escape the downwelling. I keep envisioning the ferrying technique that I have done in whitewater kayaking.

I don't know the answers, but as a new diver thought I'd throw these out there for comment. This story strikes home to me, as San Juan was my eight-ever open water dive after certification. Barracuda was my seventh. No need to go over the logic of that choice of dive sites again, as it has already been discussed at length on this board).

 

[skicolby]

It is caused by current hitting the water and having no where to do but down. You would have to be on the deep side of the water to be affected.

If you were on the other side of the water you wouldn't be swept to and over the wall because that's not the direction the current would be flowing.

When I dove Barracuda and San Juan, we made sure to stay away from the edge of the wall for the reasons you mentioned, but I'm wondering how much of a safety margin is enough.

If you were near the wall, but on the shallow side of it and suddenly got hit by a strong current I would imagine that you could get swept to the wall fairly quickly at which point you could be in the downwelling before you know it. I guess you'd need to be especially watchful near cuts or channels in the wall in areas of strong current.