Horror stories of exiting a dive on rocks in big surf

[peterbj7]

Reminds me rather of a shallow skills dive during my IDC off the shingle beach at Brighton (England) in November back in the '90s. Getting in wasn't a problem, though there was a lot of surge and the shingle is almost like quicksand. Doing skills in a monstrous surge was a lot of fun, but hey this was an IDC and no-one wanted to say they couldn't do it. Getting back out was the killer. The shingle beach has a short and sharp incline which is particularly steep where the waves are breaking on it. Combined with the very soft nature of the shingle and the tremendous undertow this made getting out well-nigh impossible. The process took me over ten minutes and all the other candidates similar lengths of time. The CD was quite a slight woman and she had no chance, being tossed around like a cork in a storm. After the rest of us were all out she had made nil progress, so we all took off our gear and went back to help her. Working together we managed to get her and her gear out in around 20 minutes. In the process two sets of gear that had been dumped on the large shingles at the top of the slope, well back from the drop-off, were undermined and slid down into the water. In total getting us and all of our gear out of the water took longer than the hour we had been under. There were no big rocks around and no danger of getting hit, but drowning was an ever-present risk.

 

[porgyhunter]

Hey selche....Can I trust this guy AfterDark? I got a PM sat. from AD to dive ROCKport on sunday AFTER a SNOWSTORM. I know he is used to crazy rocks in RI and the same is true on the north shore of Mass. I thought of negotiating those rocks covered with snow and ice and it gave me the willies

 

[AfterDark]

Hey selche....Can I trust this guy AfterDark? I got a PM sat. from AD to dive ROCKport on sunday AFTER a SNOWSTORM. I know he is used to crazy rocks in RI and the same is true on the north shore of Mass. I thought of negotiating those rocks covered with snow and ice and it gave me the willies

Sissy You saw the e-mail sat. I sent it days before the storm was predicted. Snow covered rocks? Ya might think I asked you to dive Cathedral Rocks! Haven't lost a buddy yet.

 

[knowone]

Why not fins on while you claw? If you get picked up off the ground what are you going to do?

The only thing fins are good for in those zones are as shock absorbers
when you're praying to wedge yourself into the bottom without snapping
your foot off if you get sucked off.

If you're going to have to walk 100 yards and then step off a shelf that is sometimes dry and sometimes covered in water, you may as well get used to no fins until you find a special underwater place to put them on tumbling about.

Bobbing around on the surface next to rocks is bad, fins or no fins.

On exit there's usually a calmer spot under there near the edge somewhere
where you can be in calm crapping yourself contemplation taking fins off
counting swells judging surge, looking for footholds and then when you figure if you wait any longer you'll be there all day, you propel with feet out of the water over the humps and bumps and then run.

And maybe tumble some and then run, but not really running, and looking as though everything that happens is part of the mission, if people are watching.


Every dive, with seemingly identical circumstances, wearing the same configuration, in the same place, having practised until your brain falls out, having done it hundreds of times before, has its own bag of idiosyncrasies out to trick you.

You just have to be Madder (Alfred E. Newman) than the dive.

With a much bigger bag of tricks.

Diving is one of them

 

[Lobzilla]

Hey selche....Can I trust this guy AfterDark? I got a PM sat. from AD to dive ROCKport on sunday AFTER a SNOWSTORM. I know he is used to crazy rocks in RI and the same is true on the north shore of Mass. I thought of negotiating those rocks covered with snow and ice and it gave me the willies

Even worse is the maroon algae slime that appeared on some of the North Shore rocks during the last month. How long is that going to stay? (Please don't tell me "for the whole winter")

 

[BoltSnap]

knowone,

My Goodness, I can almost understand you now.

 

[AfterDark]

Even worse is the maroon algae slime that appeared on some of the North Shore rocks during the last month. How long is that going to stay? (Please don't tell me "for the whole winter")

The black slim is there year round, the maroon slime I don't know.

 

[xjeslesx]

Did a dive at Pebble Beach in Rockport, MA. Entry isn't bad, steep grade of softball sized rocks, you can pretty much walk forward and in a step or two be up to your chest. After an hour or so we attempted to end the dive. The surf had kicked up to about 2 1/2 or 3', and there was an undertow. With the waves pushing us forward and the undertow pulling us out it was similar to a washing machine. I took my fins off in chest deep water and planned to walk in with the assistance of the waves at my back. I got knocked down by a wave, stood back up and immediately got knocked down again in waist deep water. I wouldn't have been concerned except for the fact that I was carrying a spear and it came very close to spearing me in the gut. After the second knock down I threw the spear and my fins to the shore and crawled out of the ocean. Must have been a funny sight, and I was laughing myself but if I had gotten speared it would have turned very bad very fast.

 

[Selchie in LB]

Hey selche....Can I trust this guy AfterDark? I got a PM sat. from AD to dive ROCKport on sunday AFTER a SNOWSTORM. I know he is used to crazy rocks in RI and the same is true on the north shore of Mass. I thought of negotiating those rocks covered with snow and ice and it gave me the willies

They sell ice crampons for fins! Trying to remember that url link

& the slime, best to use the ice crampons there too

 

[porgyhunter]

Hey AfterDark.....What do you mean....''Haven't lost a buddy....Yet!'':shocked2: