What do you do when the anchor line breaks free?

[rjack321]

Dunno. At least when this happened to me (in the OP), I let out enough line so there was enough scope, and sat on the bag on the surface, making myself buoyant after finishing deco.

Our definitions or "current" are significantly different here

 

[rjack321]

And even scootering into the current under a bag, might not be preferable if other divers don't have scooters and have to drift. Scootering into the current might just separate the group more, but it depends on current and how long the hang is, of course.

If a group without scooters was on a bag, then the scooter people could stay close to them. But scootering with an SMB up is pointless and there's too much going on to really be safe. Plus you can also end up going places and directions which either don't make sense to the boat skipper or separate you even worse from other groups and SMBs. Just drift it at that point and all the SMBs will stay as close together as plausible (sometimes not very close)

 

[johndiver999]

If a group without scooters was on a bag, then the scooter people could stay close to them. But scootering with an SMB up is pointless and there's too much going on to really be safe. Plus you can also end up going places and directions which either don't make sense to the boat skipper or separate you even worse from other groups and SMBs. Just drift it at that point and all the SMBs will stay as close together as plausible (sometimes not very close)

I almost never scooter without the scooter being tethered to a long floatline and big float on the surface. In 3 kt currents, it can be a lot of fun, LOL. So if I didn't have that, I assume I could tow an SMB without much trouble if I kept the line taunt, but we agree, just stay together as you drift off, each person or team having their own smb.

 

[rjack321]

I almost never scooter without the scooter being tethered to a long floatline and big float on the surface. In 3 kt currents, it can be a lot of fun, LOL. So if I didn't have that, I assume I could tow an SMB without much trouble if I kept the line taunt, but we agree, just stay together as you drift off, each person or team having their own smb.

You were on a boat that was formerly moored to a wreck. You have an SMB up and who knows about everyone else, presumably since bringing an SMB was a requirement (?) of the charter they have one up too. Which direction are you going to scooter mid-water and why?

 

[billgraham]

Scootering on a wreck dive always seemed crazy to me, unless you were using it (Apollo, Mako style) to dig a hole for artifacts. The largest shipwreck off Long Island is probably the Oregon at a little over 500 feet, the San Diego is a similar length but more intact. It is possible to swim around the entire shipwreck on one dive if you're good at that sort of thing. I would say you need two big reels and at least one bag if not two for Northeast wreck diving. You can typically hear the dive boat start up when it breaks loose, so if you hear the engines start, it's a clue that something might be wrong. Take a good long look at the tie in when you get to the bottom of the line and try to memorize what the area looks like. Don't tie a reel off to the line or the chain or the grapnel, tie it nearby. Good luck and safe diving!

 

[Zach The Diver]

Now we had a problem. We had to ascend. We already had a good bit of a decompression obligation. And for every minute we spent at 115 feet, that number was going up. My buddy “shot a bag” – she sent a submersible marker buoy (SMB) up to the surface by attaching it to a line and filling it with gas, and then securing that line to the wreck. That gave us our own anchor line, and we could start our ascent on it.

This did three things – it helped us make a controlled ascent with deco stops, it kept us from drifting away from the wreck (and the dive boat), and it alerted the crew as to where we were. This was especially useful in my case, since I was on a rebreather and therefore, I wasn’t sending as many bubbles to the surface as the other open circuit divers. The boat crew watches for these “boils” as a sign of a diver below.

I had about 23 minutes of decompression, and it was not easy. Unlike a heavy anchor line tied between the dive boat and the wreck, this thin piece of cave line bobbed and swayed in the current, especially once three of us were doing decompression on it (another diver used our line to ascend). I finished my deco, but then I found that the top of the SMB was about 5 feet under the surface, due to heavy current pulling it sideways. I didn’t want to just leave it and head for the surface, because I didn’t know where the boat was, and once I did that I would have been at the mercy of the current. I could have shot a second SMB from that point, but instead I just swam the line in the direction of the current, straightening out the angle from the bottom until it was straight enough for the SMB to be above the water. Then I surfaced. The crew knew exactly where I was and threw me a line to get me back to the boat.

Some of the newer divers did not ascend on a line, but made a free ascent, surfacing significantly downcurrent from the dive boat. I was told that they did not have whistles or a GPS/radio unit). They did have SMBs, but only one of them deployed it on the surface as a “safety sausage”, and one diver used a signal mirror. Fortunately, the crew was able to see them (having realized that the anchor line had broken) and were able to maneuver to pick them up.

These divers had no deco obligation, and they made a direct, free ascent (hopefully not too fast!). But even with this direct ascent, the current was enough to blow them far from the dive boat in the few minutes it took them to hit the surface. Now imagine if I hadn’t been able to maintain contact with the wreck through the SMB line. Unless I was willing to skip deco and take that significant risk of injury or worse, that would mean drifting in a strong current for 23 minutes! I would have surfaced far from the wreck and the dive boat, with a good chance of being lost at sea. I do carry a GPS device, two whistles, a signal mirror and a surface dye marker for such a possibility, but it is MUCH better to ascend on a line.

One final point - it is CRUCIAL to follow crew instructions when reboarding the dive boat in this situation. Unlike the usual process, the boat’s engines will be running and the propellers may be turning. Do NOT try to swim to the boat when they are picking you up, but wait for a line to be thrown to you. The crew will likely be maneuvering while keeping their eyes on multiple divers, some of whom may be untethered. If you are on an SMB, just stay there until the drifting divers can be recovered. Don’t make it more difficult for the crew during this process.

So here’s to the captain and crew of the Gypsy Blood for knowing just what to do in that emergency. And here’s to my buddy for shooting that bag and tying it off well to the wreck (I also carry two SMBs, a reel and a spool). In retrospect we did make one mistake – not figuring out what the diver was trying to tell us on our descent. He later told us that he was concerned about the line breaking, and he was trying to tell us that. This was a lack of situational awareness on our part, so something to keep in mind for the future. We were fortunate that everything worked out well, but there is always room for improvement.

Excellent post. Sounds like you did exactly the right thing.

Ascending in the absence of an anchor line is no big deal… as long as you and the dive boat are properly prepared for this eventuality.

 

[PBcatfish]

Silly question here -

If divers frequently go down that mooring line, does nobody inspect the mooring on a regular basis?

 

[TrimixToo]

Silly question here -

If divers frequently go down that mooring line, does nobody inspect the mooring on a regular basis?

In the instance I was involved in (as a diver, not captain or crew), a big chunk of the tie-in point broke off the ship from a combination of corrosion and metal fatigue. The whole thing was encrusted in marine growth, making any real inspection about impossible. The chunk that came off was maybe 3' x 5' big and had been attached to the rest or the wreck in three or four places.

 

[Tracy]

Scootering on a wreck dive always seemed crazy to me, unless you were using it (Apollo, Mako style) to dig a hole for artifacts. The largest shipwreck off Long Island is probably the Oregon at a little over 500 feet, the San Diego is a similar length but more intact. It is possible to swim around the entire shipwreck on one dive if you're good at that sort of thing. I would say you need two big reels and at least one bag if not two for Northeast wreck diving. You can typically hear the dive boat start up when it breaks loose, so if you hear the engines start, it's a clue that something might be wrong. Take a good long look at the tie in when you get to the bottom of the line and try to memorize what the area looks like. Don't tie a reel off to the line or the chain or the grapnel, tie it nearby. Good luck and safe diving!

Scootering on a wreck can be great on high visibility days. You can get off the wreck at the edge of seeing it and circle it. It is amazing how many artifacts or entire debris fields that have been overlooked for hundreds of years because they were out of site of the wreck.

 

[missionmtb]

IMHO a scooter is safety equipment for a dive like this, primarily. It allows you to efficiently egress from and approach your topside, efficiently recover from a navigation mishap, all but eliminates current as a hazard, reduces the likelihood of overbreathing your scrubber, and increases your ability to rescue other divers. I've come to find in my own diving that the scooter's use on the dive itself is ancillary. Early on I was determined to zoom around the entire dive with my DPV like I needed to justify the expense rather than stowing it when appropriate.