Three divers Dead in Northern California
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These were free divers, correct?
fisheater
Contributor
Wow! The power of the ocean should never be underestimated.
OP
A little more info on Northern California AB diving. It is all free diving in a sometimes very challenging environment.
Abalone Diving on the Sonoma Coast | Scuba diving and skin diving California and beyond
Abalone Diving on the Sonoma Coast | Scuba diving and skin diving California and beyond
After several decades of experience with the main-stream "Ab diver" of Northern California, these incidents do not come as a surprise.
Their understanding of what they're doing (apnea diving) isn't much. They mostly dive horribly overweighted. A dive buddy is someone on the other side of the kelp bed, or, someone you drove to the coast with.
Any mid-level spearo or someone with real freediving experience can limit out with huge abalone; all you have to do is be able to get down deeper than 20', because the usual ab diver is lucky to get below 10'.
Time after time we get people that come into the shop looking for a "7 mil wetsuit and a 40 lb belt" because that's what their "very experienced" abalone diver friends told them to get.
...Sad.
All the best, James
Their understanding of what they're doing (apnea diving) isn't much. They mostly dive horribly overweighted. A dive buddy is someone on the other side of the kelp bed, or, someone you drove to the coast with.
Any mid-level spearo or someone with real freediving experience can limit out with huge abalone; all you have to do is be able to get down deeper than 20', because the usual ab diver is lucky to get below 10'.
Time after time we get people that come into the shop looking for a "7 mil wetsuit and a 40 lb belt" because that's what their "very experienced" abalone diver friends told them to get.
...Sad.
All the best, James
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Except for the apnea/shallow water black out issue, all the rest, in terms of overweighting a lack of understanding regarding trim and bouyancy control and no common sense, applies to many, many certified scuba divers. I'm most familiar with free divers who are also spearfisherman here on the east coast, and they frequently are superb divers. If the California abalone divers are similar to the many marginally competent ill-equiped divers who descend on lobsters in Florida during short periods of legal lobster fishing there, motivated almost entirely by gathering of as much spectacularly delicious seafood as possible, then I completely understand your point.
brnt999
Contributor
I happened to see an episode of Bearing Sea Gold last night. They have divers maning the suction hoses they use to suck up gravel (gold) from the bottom.Safety looks to be an after thought.Its easy to understand how people caught up in the greed of getting more gold/lobster/abalone kind of lose their common sense.
jIM STEELE
Contributor
one was a free diver or snorkeler he was from pacifca a retired fire man he was 66 the other man was from sf and was washed of the rocks he was a rock picker or tidepooler the other I do not know we lose about 4 to 8 people every year on our north coast.
---------- Post added April 30th, 2013 at 09:43 AM ----------
check the sf gate cronical news on line papper
---------- Post added April 30th, 2013 at 09:47 AM ----------
we had 15 students in monterey this weekend it was flat
---------- Post added April 30th, 2013 at 09:43 AM ----------
check the sf gate cronical news on line papper
---------- Post added April 30th, 2013 at 09:47 AM ----------
we had 15 students in monterey this weekend it was flat
Bob DBF
Contributor
First, freediver used, in the not so distant past, to include anyone not tethered like a hard hat diver. These terms have changed meaning in my lifetime, that is why SCUBA diver was used for distinction. Oh yeah, somehow SCUBA changed from an acronym to a noun, go figure.
fdog has it summed up pretty well, 15' or 15 seconds is my definition of most ab divers skills. It is the ultimate trust me dive for way too many people, I am actually pleased more divers don't meet their end hunting Wile E. Abalone.
Most of the deaths are from heart attacks from strenuous activity, the Sacramento syndrome, going at low tide when the entanglement hazard from kelp is at the greatest, and of course being knuckleheads.
Fisk Mill Cove, where the rip was blamed for one of the deaths, is one of the places I Abalone dive and it is the only place I had the coast lifeguard watch me and my buds, twice, you can't fight the rip but there is away around it, or my backup plan on the coast is to move south and in to shore. There are two enemies Ab diving, exhaustion and hypothermia so plan your dive.
The one time I was in real trouble Ab diving, as I was running out of options, I dropped my weight belt with my last thought being that I was not going to be another dumb Ab diving SOB dead, with his weight belt on. It turned out better than I expected.
Bob
------------------------
Ab diver '75 to present.
fdog has it summed up pretty well, 15' or 15 seconds is my definition of most ab divers skills. It is the ultimate trust me dive for way too many people, I am actually pleased more divers don't meet their end hunting Wile E. Abalone.
Most of the deaths are from heart attacks from strenuous activity, the Sacramento syndrome, going at low tide when the entanglement hazard from kelp is at the greatest, and of course being knuckleheads.
Fisk Mill Cove, where the rip was blamed for one of the deaths, is one of the places I Abalone dive and it is the only place I had the coast lifeguard watch me and my buds, twice, you can't fight the rip but there is away around it, or my backup plan on the coast is to move south and in to shore. There are two enemies Ab diving, exhaustion and hypothermia so plan your dive.
The one time I was in real trouble Ab diving, as I was running out of options, I dropped my weight belt with my last thought being that I was not going to be another dumb Ab diving SOB dead, with his weight belt on. It turned out better than I expected.
Bob
------------------------
Ab diver '75 to present.
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