Todays dive trip

[Dryglove]

I took a trip to the river to do some diving today.There isnt really much to see and is freezing cold but i do manage to have fun. My wife is pregnant right now and cant dive so she sits on the shore and keeps an eye on me. I figure if worse comes to worse she can tell the rescue divers where to find my body if something happens...lol.

About 20 minutes into my dive my wife notices a boat strolling down the river fishing. Before i go on let me tell you i had a dive flag out by where i was diving in plain sight. The guy was in front of the boat using a trolling motor. He notices some bubbles so he strolls over to check it out. My wife tells me later that he was stretching his neck like crazy trying to see what was making all the bubbles. As im moving around he is following my bubbles. I am of course unaware of what is going on cause i couldnt hear his little electric trolling motor. He follows my bubbles around for a few minutes poking his head over the side trying to figure out whats making these bubbles. I can imagine whats going through this guys head.

My wifes thinking this guys gonna spear me or run me over. Visibility was only about 10ft while i was about 20-25 ft under. Finally the guy looks over at my wife sitting on shore and yells what is this. She says its a diver. He says "yea whats that" thinking im a big fish or something. She promptly yells across at him its a S C U B A diver. He goes ohhhhhhh!! cool!!! Then he yells back i hope i didnt run him over and promptly moves down the river.

My wife told me the story after i got back to shore. She had me rolling describing how this dude was poking his head around trying to see what was down there. She said at times he was scratching his head and had the most confused look. Then once she told him her husband was scuba diving he had the stupidist, "im a dork smirk on his face as he drove off." I guess it proves to show even though i had a dive flag in plain sight, he had no idea what it meant.....lol.Safe diving everyone!!

 

[Rooster1]

One of our regular dive spots St.Clair River has a lot of boat traffic, so much, that the channel is considered an overhead environment. There are markers for the boats to stay in between, but on every dive you will see pleasure craft coming close to shore and in where the divers are. The dive flags are there in plain day light for all to see and the boaters will still come to close to the dive flags. The laws here say at least 200ft the boaters should stay away from the flag but I don't think a lot of the boaters know that.

 

[Manogr]

Although it may sounds funny the whole story with this confused dude we should be really carefull and woried with the fact that many boaters or fishermen don't know the diving flags or are not careful about us !

Especially during the summer in the Greek island many "vacation" boaters as well as fishermen are really really dangerous for the divers security...


God help us

Manogr

 

[Jef]

I was talking to some co-workers about looking for a divers-down flag faceplace for my cell phone and they had no idea what that was. Here in the midwest most folks don't know what the flag means.
By the way, does anyone know where I can get a dive flag face place for a nokia phone? It's a long shot I know.

 

[jbd]

I had a PWC'er use my dive flag as something to play with. I was near the end of my planned dive and air supply. I waited about 25 minutes for he/she to leave. I've been to a couple of other places where the boaters come right into areas that have several dive flags out.

I'm now a member of the United States Power Squadron, which is a boating safety and education organiztion. I taught a couple of classes last year and used the opprotunity to highlight the fact that there are divers in the water these days. The "Boat Smart" course does mention the diver down flag and the international Alpha flag but since its taught by boaters it doesn't get stressed much.

I would like to encourage the divers here to locate your local chapter of the USPS and offer to speak at one of their meetings or at least speak for a few minutes at a "Boat Smart" class about the diver down flag and any state regulations that may apply.