Unknown Strange Day

[Jafo19D]

This past weekend I went diving with a DC that I've used several times now in Cartagena.

The DM used to work for this DC but had left Colombia to work in Mexico and now he's back but not yet as a full time employee. Nice guy and everything but there were some troubling things.

1) When I arrived they were sorting people out. One guy said he had 10 dives and that his last was 2 years ago, I thought for sure that he would make this diver do a refresher course but no, they let him dive with us. I said something to another DM and he agreed with me but they never made him do a refresher.

2) On the first dive Saturday it was the DM, the guy who didn't do the refresher course and a lady who also had 10 dives but wihose last dive was months ago and not years. We went somewhere with a strong current and I don't know why they chose this spot considering the experience level of the other 2. While fighting the current the lady just vanished, one minute she was right beside us and then next poof. Visibility wasn't great and we couldn't see her bubbles. We searched for her for maybe 10 minutes before the DM handed me the buoy he was dragging around and signaled for us to stay put while he searched for her. That sucked because that marker wanted to drag me off so that sucked. 5-10 minutes later he shows back up but without the missing diver. Surprisingly he signals to just continue the dive. About 5 minutes later she appears out of nowhere.

Turns out that when she got separated she couldn't get our attention because she didn't have anything like a knife to or rattle. After trying to find us she surfaced (w/out a DSMB) in a high boat traffic area and eventually got picked up by the dive boat. The captain followed our bubbles and had her jump back in when they were above us.

Once back on the boat the DM didn't say anything, just acted like it was all normal. I took the 2 aside and told them that she could have been hurt by a boat or pushed out in the current and that they should always carry a DSMB. I also said that they need to have something to get people's attention and pointed to my light and knife - I don't think they got it.

 

[tmrqs]

So essentially a regular Tuesday in the magical world of diving and natural selection at its finest.

 

[LI-er]

So essentially a regular Tuesday in the magical world of diving and natural selection at its finest.

I thought the same. Not at all strange. Especially in um.. lesser developed countries where the rules are either loose or don't exist.

Excellent outcome: Experienced and confident diver handles the unexpected separation well and carries appropriate signaling equipment, preferably a dsmb and reel to avoid surfacing into the path of an oncoming boat. Along with audible signaling devices such as whistle or air pressure driven device that can be heard from a distance. Even better the diver carries a bailout bottle as they are now diving solo. This describes me of course.

Typical outcome: Unequpped diver stays relatively calm and finds their way to the surface and gets picked up by a boat. Any boat.

Bad outcome: diver panics and bolts for the surface, suffering from an embolism or surfaces in the middle of a channel and gets scalped and ends up in a chamber or the local morgue or the local hair salon.