Diver lost in Cozumel today

[Darol]

Don said: Oh it happens many places, more so than not. The key is to be a prepared and competent diver, or for newbies to hire private DMs the first day.

Well said Don, what a difference it may have made.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Some conflicting stories..........from here:
Acworth woman disappears scuba diving in Mexico | www.wsbtv.com

“The people’s bubbles are kind of staying in place and when they reach a certain point they go down instead of up so they had some strong currents that day,” said Schoonover.
Turco said where the bubbles get sucked down is where Cassin gave him a signal that she wanted to go back up to the boat.
" I turned to let the dive master to let him know that we were going up and when I turned back, I didn’t see her. So I assumed that she started to go up without me,” said Turco.
When Turco and the dive master with Sand Dollar Sports surfaced, Cassin was nowhere to be found.
“They think she got swept away under the water,” said Schoonover.

This indicates they lost contact with her at depth on the wall where the current was taking the bubbles down. It is very reasonable to conclude the current was a contributing factor to her demise. It also says nothing about how he may have seen her at the surface.

Now from here a first hand account of someone on that very same boat:
Diver Missing - Cozumel Forum - TripAdvisor
Post #101

The dive guide from their group approached the husband to ask him what happened and he said he saw her surface.

It is debatable if she actually reached the surface or was lost at depth.
Also from that article:

The crew of the Sand Dollar made it perfectly clear, in our pre-dive briefing, that the currents were present and that they were moving north to south, away from the wall and (with serious emphasis)DOWN. "Watch your depth! If you feel your ears popping or see the other divers above you, get back up to the max depth which is 80'! Do not leave your dive buddy and keep your eyes on your dive guide!)

It has been stated previously that both divers had very few dives but that has yet to be confirmed. There are some very disturbing things from that briefing.......
The DM concluded that they would dive at this site that had the current running backwards and sometimes down the wall. It also instructed a max depth of 80ft and that a combination of all these factors would indicate a dive NOT for any novice divers. It is unknown if he knew the dive experience or actual qualifications of each of the 22 divers but IMO he darn well should have known. The DM DID NOT mitigate risk properly for this dive PERIOD and IMO both he and the dive shop were negligent. He knew the currents were difficult and gave a briefing that would allow novice divers beyond the recommended depth for open water of 60ft placing their lives at risk. To say that whatever agency he represents should be notified and he should be severely disciplined is an understatement.

There were a number of contributing factors to this accident and although it is possible she drowned or had a health related issue, it is very reasonable to assume the current played a part in the accident itself and caused her disappearance.

 

[boulderjohn]

If there is doubt about the accuracy or veracity of the posts I linked to, you would have to take that up with the authors. I have not seen anything "official" to either corroborate or refute these accounts. The similarity of accounts and in particular the details and first-hand nature of the first one leads me to believe it is probably true.

Just to be clear, I as not challenging you in asking for the links--I wanted the information. I was surprised--apparently naively so--that I had not heard more about those incidents.

 

[WSOPFAN]

I was just searching the archives of the Mexican news for the other story about a diver's death the same same day as this. I did not see it before or now doing the search but it still might be true and just not reported. However I did come across this little tidbit of info I missed:
Google Translate

Similarly explained that last Tuesday he had a meeting with all the dealers of Tourist Services, such as diving and snorkeling, where they were asked to take further training with their staff and the care with tourists, since in these There is now a strong current in the sea and currents are found, which has been with the harbor pilots who are responsible for giving out to the cruise and are moved abruptly by the weather.

The harbor pilots reported to the Port Captain recently before this accident that they were experiencing very strong currents so the Port Captain met with all the tour operators and warned them to take good care of the tourists given the strong currents. In other words, they were warned about strong currents and to exercise special caution with the tourists. It looks as though the warning was not taken seriously enough in this case.

 

[Mike]

I have no illusions that this happens in many places, and i appreciate MMM's post. However, there seems to have been several recent accidents involving bad judgement (my opinion only) by DMs, Ops, and of course the divers themselves. Yes, I'm sure this happens in many other places, but there is a large pro-Coz crowd on SB and it seems(again my opinion) like every other a&i thread deals with Coz. And for every Coz thread in this forum, there are a half dozen spinoffs.

My opinion of Coz, based solely on these threads, is that even though the diving may be great it has the potential to get way beyond my experience level rather quickly. Then there's Don's 2nd favorite saying

I like to dive in Cozumel, but I also dive at a lot of other places, I'm far from a Cozumel zealot, so let me give it to you straight.

Drift diving in Cozumel is some of the easiest diving we do. You dive in, you pull the lever back on your lazy boy recliner and you drift along watching the show. You can drift along at 20 feet above the reef, above your group, you can kick a few times and go off to the sides of your group, you can go down and skim over the surface of the reef 6 inches above it, you can stop by kicking a bit and move out of the current, you can hole up behind some reef structure... in short you're totally in control the whole time, it's simple, it's easy and it's made for lazy divers.

With that said, Cozumel is no different then anywhere else. You better ask some questions and listen to the dive briefings. Good ops do divers choice, where the dive master polls the divers where they want to go. If 6 people want to do the Devils Throat and you turn your back, ignore the conversation, fiddle with your dive gear, guess where you'll probably end up? If on the other hand you don't want to do that dive, all you have to do is say so. Say I've done it 10 times, don't really care for it. Say, I'm a newbie I'm not qualified. Say, I'm just not comfortable at this time, this is my first day diving, maybe toward the end of the week. The response will always be. Okay, no problem how about we dive.... Columbia.. yeah, let's dive Columbia...

You're responsible for yourself. Listen, ask questions, don't go along if you're not comfortable, it's that easy in Cozumel, nobody will beat you up, nobody will drag you along on a dive you don't want to do. And the diving itself is easy and fun. Good fish life thanks to the dive masters continuous culling of lion fish. Majestic and massive coral structures. Relatively benign conditions most of the time.

I'm not a Cozumel groupie, what I've written is the reality of Cozumel, it's going to be some of the easiest diving you've ever done.

 

[jd950]

Just to be clear, I as not challenging you in asking for the links--I wanted the information. I was surprised--apparently naively so--that I had not heard more about those incidents.

No problem. Sometimes it is hard to discern the "emotion" behind a statement on forums.

 

[Valwood1]

Drift diving in Cozumel is some of the easiest diving we do. You dive in, you pull the lever back on your lazy boy recliner and you drift along watching the show. You can drift along at 20 feet above the reef, above your group, you can kick a few times and go off to the sides of your group, you can go down and skim over the surface of the reef 6 inches above it, you can stop by kicking a bit and move out of the current, you can hole up behind some reef structure... in short you're totally in control the whole time, it's simple, it's easy and it's made for lazy divers.

I'm not a Cozumel groupie, what I've written is the reality of Cozumel, it's going to be some of the easiest diving you've ever done.

Those statements generally are accurate, and reflect experiences at about any dive location when the conditions are good -- or at least, not difficult. But it's a mistake to think -- ever -- that you'll always be in total control of what goes on. And it might be a good idea to imagine what you're going to do if you're drifting peacefully along Santa Rosa wall and suddenly find yourself caught in a downcurrent that won't allow you to swim toward the surface, and the bubbles are blowing down so you cannot read a gauge or your computer. My guess is that the diving won't seem nearly as easy, or nearly as as much fun.

 

[Mike]

Those statements generally are accurate, and reflect experiences at about any dive location when the conditions are good -- or at least, not difficult. But it's a mistake to think -- ever -- that you'll always be in total control of what goes on. And it might be a good idea to imagine what you're going to do if you're drifting peacefully along Santa Rosa wall and suddenly find yourself caught in a downcurrent that won't allow you to swim toward the surface, and the bubbles are blowing down so you cannot read a gauge or your computer. My guess is that the diving won't seem nearly as easy, or nearly as as much fun.

Did you see this part?

Relatively benign conditions most of the time.

But it's a mistake to think -- ever -- that you'll always be in total control of what goes on. And it might be a good idea to imagine what you're going to do if you're drifting peacefully along Santa Rosa wall and suddenly find yourself caught in a downcurrent that won't allow you to swim toward the surface, and the bubbles are blowing down so you cannot read a gauge or your computer. My guess is that the diving won't seem nearly as easy, or nearly as as much fun.

I'm sorry I just don't buy into any of that.

 

[flots am]

Drift diving in Cozumel is some of the easiest diving we do. You dive in, you pull the lever back on your lazy boy recliner and you drift along watching the show. You can drift along at 20 feet above the reef, above your group, you can kick a few times and go off to the sides of your group, you can go down and skim over the surface of the reef 6 inches above it, you can stop by kicking a bit and move out of the current, you can hole up behind some reef structure... in short you're totally in control the whole time, it's simple, it's easy and it's made for lazy divers.

That's how it should be, but unless you have a private DM, what actually happens inside the park is that the DM and other divers need to stay together because the current flows at different speeds at different depths. If they're at 80' and you're at 20' chances are good you won't be able to rejoin them until you're back on the boat. Since you're supposed to stay with the DM inside the park, this presents a problem.

Also, I've never been there when the DM didn't stop and hide from the current behind a rock to show everybody some pet critter, leaving all the other divers trying to maintain position instead of drifting. This is a ton of work.

Just a plain drift dive would be awesome, but I've never actually had one of those in Coz.

flots.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Those statements generally are accurate, and reflect experiences at about any dive location when the conditions are good -- or at least, not difficult. But it's a mistake to think -- ever -- that you'll always be in total control of what goes on. And it might be a good idea to imagine what you're going to do if you're drifting peacefully along Santa Rosa wall and suddenly find yourself caught in a downcurrent that won't allow you to swim toward the surface, and the bubbles are blowing down so you cannot read a gauge or your computer. My guess is that the diving won't seem nearly as easy, or nearly as as much fun.

I agree........I have seen people describe the conditions at Santa Rosa as bad if not worse than Barracuda. BTW I saw a few references to inflating your BC to escape the current and that it was bad. I was on a dive once about 10 years ago at Barracuda when there was a bad down current. I inflated almost to max of my 40lb. limit and I did NOT shoot up to the surface rather it slowed my decent leveled me off and as soon as I felt myself going up I slowly dumped until I leveled off above 80. I think some posters do way too much commenting from a total lack of actual experience. Dumping your weights is discussed IMO dangerously too often as a solution to this type of current. For me dumping my whole 6-8 lbs plus a few in ankle weights I doubt would have as much effect but for those of you who carry much, much more than that, it could have a very dangerous effect. A down current can have a very panicky effect on an unsuspecting diver as you are not used to having to put that much air in your BC or wings just to try and stay neutral. That is exactly why novice divers should not have been near a wall on this dive or ever.