Quero's profile says she dives an Aqualung Zuma for travel and tropics. If so, it is a lightweight, back inflate, weight integrated BCD. If I recall correctly, it has 35lbs of lift. It also has inherent positive buoyancy.
If the weight estimate of 26 lbs is the total weight of lead and steel cylinder, it is not as grossly overweighted as first assumed. The rig should have easily floated itself as well.
The first photos of Quero which were posted in this thread show a large bubble in the suit. The next show a highly inflated wing/bladder. Given Quero's overall experience, I would say that she was getting things figured out with her new drysuit, correct weighting and weight distribution, and adjusting over the course of a very few dives. The fact that she continued to swim off to take more pictures, demonstrates that she was feeling confident.
(It also demonstrates a lack of communication. Just to play devil's advocate, it is possible that from her perspective, her buddy wasn't staying with her as she pursued her quest to photograph the leafy sea dragons?)
There must have been significant frustration within the group as to who was leading a team of 4, or two teams of 2, or two totally separate teams of 2. It seems like there was a battle of wills going on during each of their dives. Sounds like miserable diving, with the most miserable outcome possible.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt and taking her experience into consideration, I feel that something very unusual happened in the last minutes of the dive which rendered her unconscious or incapable of ditching weights, performing a CESA or continuing her swim underwater to a shallow enough depth to stand.
We can't underestimate her experience, skill, knowledge and ability. The water wasn't all that cold, and diving a drysuit isn't a huge learning curve.
After having read every single post in this thread, I'm still at a loss as to what truly happened. There are good theories on the chain of event and good discussions on buddy team protocol, but I don't believe that it was necessarily a result of bad choices.
Whatever the cause of the catastrophy, we can all agree that had she planned the dive as a solo dive, she would have at least had redundant systems in place to independently deal with problems.
Had she been a responsible team member as planned, the likelyhood of her buddy being available at the time of crisis probably would have saved her life.
If the weight estimate of 26 lbs is the total weight of lead and steel cylinder, it is not as grossly overweighted as first assumed. The rig should have easily floated itself as well.
The first photos of Quero which were posted in this thread show a large bubble in the suit. The next show a highly inflated wing/bladder. Given Quero's overall experience, I would say that she was getting things figured out with her new drysuit, correct weighting and weight distribution, and adjusting over the course of a very few dives. The fact that she continued to swim off to take more pictures, demonstrates that she was feeling confident.
(It also demonstrates a lack of communication. Just to play devil's advocate, it is possible that from her perspective, her buddy wasn't staying with her as she pursued her quest to photograph the leafy sea dragons?)
There must have been significant frustration within the group as to who was leading a team of 4, or two teams of 2, or two totally separate teams of 2. It seems like there was a battle of wills going on during each of their dives. Sounds like miserable diving, with the most miserable outcome possible.
Giving her the benefit of the doubt and taking her experience into consideration, I feel that something very unusual happened in the last minutes of the dive which rendered her unconscious or incapable of ditching weights, performing a CESA or continuing her swim underwater to a shallow enough depth to stand.
We can't underestimate her experience, skill, knowledge and ability. The water wasn't all that cold, and diving a drysuit isn't a huge learning curve.
After having read every single post in this thread, I'm still at a loss as to what truly happened. There are good theories on the chain of event and good discussions on buddy team protocol, but I don't believe that it was necessarily a result of bad choices.
Whatever the cause of the catastrophy, we can all agree that had she planned the dive as a solo dive, she would have at least had redundant systems in place to independently deal with problems.
Had she been a responsible team member as planned, the likelyhood of her buddy being available at the time of crisis probably would have saved her life.
together that day and decide to be their guardian angel? Sure, unless it's pissing them off. And maybe there's an element of self preservation at work there, too: if diving with a buddy they may be your only redundancy, so even if it means ruining your own dive following them closely is really the only way to stick to your own dive plan. But I don't think anyone that hasn't been hired for such a purpose has any obligation whatsoever to do that.
((((
