The current practice of training people to be underwater tourists who need to follow a DM just doesn't work well for an under water tourist who doesn't have a DM to follow.
Diver Missing - Aliwal Shoal
- Thread starter ShoalDiverSA
- Start date
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hantzu701
Contributor
MikeFerrara:
ouch!
hantzu701:
After all it's only 100 divers a year...right? Statistically nothing.
stallion
Guest
Unfortunately it has to be an incident like this that brings to light the need to make it manditory for any diver wishing to dive Aliwal Shoal or Protea Banks to posses a SMB with other signalling device (whistle, mirror) etc. Both sites are far offshore in waters that are known to have strong currents.
Just some extra insite to the diving at Aliwal Shoal. Nearly all dives are done off large RIB's. The DM carries a reel to which a surface bouy is attached. The skipper follows the bouy and picks up the divers as they surface (hopefully near the bouy).
Thorough dive briefings are always given before the boat even leaves the beach (well in my experience thats happened) and the emergency procedure described by ShoalDiver is given in the briefing.
Now to the diver surfacing alone all I can ask is where was her buddy? Be it she had some sort of trouble or was simply at the turn point of the dive (low air, NDL reached...) her buddy should have surfaced with her. Unfortunately the trend seems to be if your dive buddy is not your pal, or someone you know then most just say bugger you chum, I still got gas in the tank, I paid for this dive & i'll come up when I'm good and ready. Maybe its time to start having two DM's (like roturners suggestion), one to guide the other to make sure people don't surface alone. Can't be that hard to implement surely?
Just some extra insite to the diving at Aliwal Shoal. Nearly all dives are done off large RIB's. The DM carries a reel to which a surface bouy is attached. The skipper follows the bouy and picks up the divers as they surface (hopefully near the bouy).
Thorough dive briefings are always given before the boat even leaves the beach (well in my experience thats happened) and the emergency procedure described by ShoalDiver is given in the briefing.
Now to the diver surfacing alone all I can ask is where was her buddy? Be it she had some sort of trouble or was simply at the turn point of the dive (low air, NDL reached...) her buddy should have surfaced with her. Unfortunately the trend seems to be if your dive buddy is not your pal, or someone you know then most just say bugger you chum, I still got gas in the tank, I paid for this dive & i'll come up when I'm good and ready. Maybe its time to start having two DM's (like roturners suggestion), one to guide the other to make sure people don't surface alone. Can't be that hard to implement surely?
OP
ShoalDiverSA
Contributor
stallion:
The sad thing is that we have been here before. A few years back, a couple went missing on the Shoal - they found her body in the Eastern Cape, he was never found. Everyone pays lip service to having learnt from the experience, yet SMB's are not mentioned as part of the required dive gear for the Shoal.
stallion:
You're spot on with this one. It seems that a few more minutes of bottom time is more important than diving safely. I have found this attitude with buddies that I get paired up with on the beach. They are taken aback when I ask for their fin and mask colours on the beach, and actually want to carry out a buddy check on the boat. To add to this, the concept of staying within a reasonable (safe?) distance from your buddy is out the window too. A hard and fast rule of ascending in buddy pairs will go a long way to remedying this. This should form part of every briefing - it doesn't at the moment (in my experience).
Will keep you posted of developments - if any.
Cheers,
Andrew
SA-Diver
Contributor
Two unfortunate things happen on Aliwal Shoal and all along our coastline all too often.
- Very few divers carry or use SMB's.
And even divers carrying SMB's very seldom know how to deploy
the SMB's from depth, which means that they deploy them on
the surface, which might be too late if there is a strong current.
- Divers often get buddied with someone they have never dived
with before, and solo ascents happen way too often.
Kobus
- Very few divers carry or use SMB's.
And even divers carrying SMB's very seldom know how to deploy
the SMB's from depth, which means that they deploy them on
the surface, which might be too late if there is a strong current.
- Divers often get buddied with someone they have never dived
with before, and solo ascents happen way too often.
Kobus
MikeFerrara:
You've probably heard the news about John Bennett already. Apparently he got in trouble and got separated from his buddy, essentially solo. There are parallels to be drawn here and it think it's unfair to say that it's all about training or touris divers. A diver having difficulties needs to be escorted. It applies to inexperienced and experienced divers alike.
R..
SA-Diver
Contributor
I agree with Diver0001.
On the type of dives we do on places like Aliwal Shoal, divers enter the water as buddy pairs. They should do the dives as buddy pairs, and end the dives as buddy pairs.
On the type of dives we do on places like Aliwal Shoal, divers enter the water as buddy pairs. They should do the dives as buddy pairs, and end the dives as buddy pairs.
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