What do you think?

[SkipperJohn]

Fellow captains, in the Cozumel area there is a very interesting thread.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/313548-pool-closed-today-commentary-wednesdays-squall.html
Basically a strong storm rolled through actually sinking several boats and forcing others to abandon their divers as they ran for shelter.
What's your opinion on this?
I know they should have never sailed, but I'm willing to bet listening to weather reports is not on their agenda. This being Cozumel with 90% of the diving happening less than 4 miles from shore.

 

[Panga Man]

I dont know much about the area from a Captains stand point only from a diving standpoint so I might not be 100% accurate. With that being said, does anyone know what there buoys recorded for that day? I know that when Im going offshore SC I check all the buoys north and south of me so i know what is coming. Is this available down there?

To there credit though, it seems as if everyone was caught off guard so it must have been one of those pop up type storms that are unpredictable.

 

[CaptEsteban]

I was in Cozumel many years ago, when the same thing happened. It was late afternoon, & the boats had to seek shelter. [ OR they would become a casualty, too ] . As soon as the unexpected storm passed, 5-10 times as many boats were out there looking for the few groups that were left. Divemasters had taken care of all of them & there were not any casualties.
STILL scary !

 

[SkipperJohn]

even on my recent trip we had a squall headed our way. The captain took the boat to a mooring to weather the storm. Turns out it never came and we had a pretty good dive anyway.

The issue is, what are the captains obligations to the diver. While there are many moral obligations, I dont know if there are any written regs. Once they are off the boat isn't the captains primary responsibility to the boat? To second that, what good would a boat be if it sank? Or if the captain had to run the engines to prevent sinking and ended up harming a diver!