Zak Jones

[caveseeker7]

If the manufacturer or a rep of theirs is allowed to be present usually only as an observer. The best place for analysis of any UBA is CSS in Panama City, FL. Testing, including life support equipment, is what they do, and anyone will be hard pressed to find people with more experience doing that job.

 

[Tollie]

While we don’t know the proximate cause of the accident (equipment failure, maintenance or other problem) we do know that while on a fun dive, Zak was diving a rebreather, and accepting the higher level of risk associated with using this gear compared with OC. I have a recollection on these boards of an instructor dying in a pool while testing out a rebreather.

Occurring during the course of the dive was a significant team separation. I don’t know if the outcome would have been different if the team members were to have been diving at arms length in wingman formation but clearly they were not and a fatality occurred.

As an Instructor, the entire episode is really sobering for me. I think we get so well established in our comfort zone that we imagine the ordinary rules of safe diving (team separation) don’t apply to us.

Really tragic and for a Pro Dive grad like myself a special jolt.

 

[Psdiver99]

Having been in the diving industry since the age of 16 and watching my father and uncle both dive with the old style double hose reg system telling them be careful brings me back to what my mentor told me "keep it simple". Words to live by then but with the advent of technology and the desire to learn new things we as humans will always step beyond keep it simple.
Zak was one of the those who pushed the edge but respected the edge as well. I have watched Zak tear down his complete system and rebuild it in our garage along with me working on my own gear. We were taught by the best in this sport and for him, he took it the next level.
Fear not my fellow divers we will know the full story and we will learn from this. The sad part of this and with any dive loss we have loss a member of a close family to us all. A fellow diver has fallen and his loss will be felt for many years.
The best way we can all honor his spirit is to be patient.
One last parting thought. Those who were taught through A&E Aquatics and underwater sports in Federal Way Wa. may remember their first openwater class was at Redondo beach. This is where Zak helped me and many other instructors for openwater classes. Some of you may also remember the pipe boat you first saw underwater, well this was mine and zaks (plus a few other divers)plan to build an underwater park for beginning divers.
For all northwest divers, the highest degree in remembering Zak in our way is to unoffically dedicate Redondo beach dive site as "Zak Jones Underwater Park" I also know thruout the years many divers have placed objects underwater mainly to attract more life to the area I know because we were in the thick of it doing night dives placing items without people knowing. Zak love diving there and we had so many dives there, we knew that dive site as well as the back of your hand, so with that I would like all of the NWdivers who know this dive site to follow suit by renaming this dive site "Zak Jones U/W Park".
Thank you for letting me go on like this, I miss him so very much. Psdiver99

 

[baitedstorm]

Thank you for letting me go on like this, I miss him so very much. Psdiver99

That is exactly why this thread is here. Every time someone remembers him here, we all do. What a wonderful way to keep his memory thriving (Zak Jones U/W Park).

I would love to hear some of those dive stories I know ya'll have to harbor if you frequently dove with Zak... Lord knows I could use a laugh right now

As for Pro Dive and their statement, I agree with Psdiver99, we have to be patient, Frank is a man of his word and said he'd let us know (keep the faith my friend, this all takes time), I pretty sure there's a lot on the table right now with this investigation and more so then ever, we shouldn't start pointed fingers at anyone.

 

[Rossiapacifica]

There has been talk of several memorials......

It might be productive to petition the City of Des Moines, WA (Redondo is currently in their jurisdiction) to "officially" name the park after Zak. Who would be willing to undertake this activity? Its possible, but might take a lot of work.

Rossiapacifica

 

[Skoobadiver]

I just returned from a nice dive trip on Kona were we saluted our lost friend, and am consoled by the warmth and depth of all the responses to Zak's life.

I was Zak's last "Cold Water" student here in the Northwest. I had the fortunate pleasure of completing my DSAT Tech Deep and Gas Blender courses from Zak just before he made his move to Florida. We had many more dives planned; and I will miss him on each and every one of them. Zak was always a big stickler for doing it right (no dir pun indented) and doing it well. We had many conversations about how to be an inspirational instructor and asset to the diving community; and I think he completly embodied both of those aspirations.

And although I have a hard time writing this without getting really sad, I would like to share a story about our last deep certification dive here in the northwest. We had to complete a decompression dive to 165' on open circuit air, and he wanted to celebrate while we tooled around getting narc'd. Zak always made it a point that he was a big Narc Weenie, and really didn't enjoy going that deep on air, and preferred tri-mix as his gas of choice for anything over 130'; but for the class he would be there for me. So to celebrate our last dive here before his move, my last required dive for certification and his last cold water dive for a while he suggested we open a can of root beer at the bottom and drink it. Heck, I didn't know any better and said sure! Well, it was a cold and dark night when we finally got into the water, and we completely forgot the root beer or any celebration. We dropped to depth at 165' where it was very dark, very cold and nothing more than mud and a bunch of really big spotted prawns staring at these two bubblemaking strangers. I was very narc'd and concentrating very hard at keeping my composure as I saw Zak reach down and grab one of those prawns. As I'm watching he then proceeds to rip it's head off, peels the thing, pulls his reg out and starts munching down on raw prawn. After a couple of chews he swallows the mess, smiles, puts his reg back in and motions to me to do the same! Well, like I said I was a little tipsy, and thought; "What the hell, this must be the celebration! Sushi at a buck sixty-five!" So I chase a prawn down, rip his head off, peel the bloody thing and take a bite. Yech! Salty, nasty, squishy...I almost blew chunks and forced a swallow just so I could get my reg back in my mouth and breath again. I look over at him and he is just crying in his mask he's laughing so hard. I'm loopier than a teenager on MD 20/20 and start laughing so hard I can barely keep my reg in my mouth. We get back to the surface and I start into him about that being the nastyist thing I had ever eaten and didn't see how he could do it. He just looks at me and says "I don't know what got into me, I was narc'd out of my gourd and I just knew I had to celebrate, and thought sushi sounded good; I didn't think you'd do it too!"

Ahh, I will miss him....Zak, take care buddy; until we meet again.

Ken

 

[surfbummer]

I just returned from a nice dive trip on Kona were we saluted our lost friend, and am consoled by the warmth and depth of all the responses to Zak's life.

I was Zak's last "Cold Water" student here in the Northwest. I had the fortunate pleasure of completing my DSAT Tech Deep and Gas Blender courses from Zak just before he made his move to Florida. We had many more dives planned; and I will miss him on each and every one of them. Zak was always a big stickler for doing it right (no dir pun indented) and doing it well. We had many conversations about how to be an inspirational instructor and asset to the diving community; and I think he completly embodied both of those aspirations.

And although I have a hard time writing this without getting really sad, I would like to share a story about our last deep certification dive here in the northwest. We had to complete a decompression dive to 165' on open circuit air, and he wanted to celebrate while we tooled around getting narc'd. Zak always made it a point that he was a big Narc Weenie, and really didn't enjoy going that deep on air, and preferred tri-mix as his gas of choice for anything over 130'; but for the class he would be there for me. So to celebrate our last dive here before his move, my last required dive for certification and his last cold water dive for a while he suggested we open a can of root beer at the bottom and drink it. Heck, I didn't know any better and said sure! Well, it was a cold and dark night when we finally got into the water, and we completely forgot the root beer or any celebration. We dropped to depth at 165' where it was very dark, very cold and nothing more than mud and a bunch of really big spotted prawns staring at these two bubblemaking strangers. I was very narc'd and concentrating very hard at keeping my composure as I saw Zak reach down and grab one of those prawns. As I'm watching he then proceeds to rip it's head off, peels the thing, pulls his reg out and starts munching down on raw prawn. After a couple of chews he swallows the mess, smiles, puts his reg back in and motions to me to do the same! Well, like I said I was a little tipsy, and thought; "What the hell, this must be the celebration! Sushi at a buck sixty-five!" So I chase a prawn down, rip his head off, peel the bloody thing and take a bite. Yech! Salty, nasty, squishy...I almost blew chunks and forced a swallow just so I could get my reg back in my mouth and breath again. I look over at him and he is just crying in his mask he's laughing so hard. I'm loopier than a teenager on MD 20/20 and start laughing so hard I can barely keep my reg in my mouth. We get back to the surface and I start into him about that being the nastyist thing I had ever eaten and didn't see how he could do it. He just looks at me and says "I don't know what got into me, I was narc'd out of my gourd and I just knew I had to celebrate, and thought sushi sounded good; I didn't think you'd do it too!"

Ahh, I will miss him....Zak, take care buddy; until we meet again.

Ken

Holy cow, thats a hoot!!!!! One of the best Zak stories yet.

 

[baitedstorm]

:laughing: the funny thing is, the whole time I'm reading your post Ken I'm not only laughing my butt off, but I can see him doing it in my mind..... :laughing: guess you'll never look at a prawn the same way again after that night......

 

[Tienuts]

Skoobadiver's post about Zak crying in his mask from laughing brought back a few good stories. A real quick one:

In a search and recovery class, one diver was so intent on his task, he had no idea of what was going on around him. Zak and I clipped a 100 lb lift bag on the back of the diver's BC without his knowledge and took turns filling it with small puffs of air. Eventually the diver started to rise up and starts trying to dump air from his BC. After a few minutes of total cunfusion (for the lift bag diver) we unclipped him.

Stupid story really, but I remember looking at Zak and saw the tears in his mask, and him holding his gut from laughing, which made me laugh even harder.

 

[Scuba UN]

Hi all,
Most of the Pugetsound divers that know Zak also know he loved to go over to Neah Bay on Momorial day weekend. It's kind of become a tradition, we spend the weekend there and the first fish we get are eatin that night at the camp with everyone close to us invited. Those of you that have seen the DVD where we are at the camp cooking.....That was the first day fish feed. Next morning Zak says you ready? Lets do Duncan Rock! This is a location in the mouth of the Pugetsound and the Ocean...It moves about Billion gallons of water a second past this rock.. You miss it, next land fall Mother Russia! But it is one of the BEST dives you could think of doing. Bolders the size of houses stacked on top of each other.
So here we are at the rock, I am a new boat owner at this time with very little knowledge about boat life. Zak says well lets just anchor to it, WHAT!!!!!!. Oh sure you put out all the scope you have and we'll go down the line hunt around and come back up the line.. Lucky for us tide was starting to come back into the Pugetsound... Next land fall Some place in Canada!!! Did I mention a Billion gallons of water per second?
Ok Boat is anchored with all the line I have on board. We get ready and off we go. There was three of us, we all drop down to around 70' get ourselves settled and off we go hunting for Ling cod and Cabizon. We split to go around this house size rock and meet on the other side. I am with Jerry and i should mention Z is useing Megie his RB. Jerry and I shoot a couple fish on our way and get to the other side and no Zak. Well I thought no Zak! No bubble blowing SOB. Some of you know what he did, he has done it to you too. I have only done this dive about 4 times...big area open ocean.. you never know right? Well Zak was above us when we came around our side of the rock Just watching his (peps) swim along blowing bubbles. you know it's coming....he swims up behind me and grabs the back of my freakin leg as hard as he can!!!! Sh.. there goes 500 pounds of my air Plus my dry suit is wet in the crouch now! I look at him like i'm going to felay his ***. He is laughing so hard, then just removes his reg and smiles and says lets go this way.
Well we make it back to the boat without any issues and motor back to camp yuking it up all the way home. Later he says,THAT WORKED OUT WELL, I HAVE NEVER ANCHORED AT DUNCAN BEFORE. He smiles at me.... I do love that guy. i will miss you Zak. UN ( say it like this you..n) Uncle Norm.