Strong currents, if swept away, what to do?

[TSandM]

Just to amplify supergaijin's post: If you are shore diving, do your homework. Find out everything you can about the site from whatever resources you can, including local dive shops, other divers, internet reports or posts, websites, or books. Learn whether there are likely to be currents, and if so, whether they are predictable and how to choose the safest time. If you get to an attractive site on a weekend and NOBODY else is diving there, that's cautionary. There may be a good reason! The best way to avoid having to cope with a problem is to avoid the problem in the first place.

If you do get in the water and current begins to build, be a constructive chicken. The time to abort a dive is when you can still get back to shore, not when you can no longer hold position.

We dive current-sensitive sites all the time in Puget Sound. I've made mistakes on timing and gotten my butt handed to me; I've been in strong currents trying to sweep me away, and one downcurrent that was absolutely scary. It's WAY better to avoid the problem than to deal with it! But there is almost always a solution, in our water, if the diver keeps calm, although it may involve several hours in the water and a lot of swimming. Places like the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea may not be as friendly (we almost always have land in sight).

 

[danvolker]

When you know there is a big current, you can take advantage of it....aside from the norm of drift diving with boats we use in S fl, I can do a shore dive going in at the Southermost end of the public Beach on the Island of Palm Beach, and plan my exit with a second car being parked a mile north, at the Breakers Hotel.....which would mean we would be eating lunch there so we could get away with this.
If you have a big current, you don't want to be fighting it...plan on USING IT.

 

[vladimir]

I used to carry a dye pack, a 25-foot rescue streamer, and a personal locator beacon. (I was once adrift for the better part of an hour in the Celebes Sea.) I still bring a signaling mirror, whistle, and of course, a surface marker buoy.

 

[scubadada]

Most of my diving is drift. It you don't have the flag and lose contact with it, you deploy your SMB, make a normal ascent with safety stop and get picked up by the boat in routine fashion.


If I were to be swept away from an anchored boat, I would deploy my SMB from depth, make a normal ascent without a safety stop and then use my Dive Alert and/or signal mirror at the surace in addition to making my SMB as visible (tall) as possible. If I found myself in this type of condition at all frequently, I would buy my self a Nautilas Lifeline.