How to ignore a dive flag?

[caymaniac]

While diving in Lake Mich., at a local area known as the "Rocks" off a power plant warm water return. I had a dive flag on a 60 ft. line in 35ft. of water when I felt a whole lot of pulling on my hand from the flag above, some jerk in a boat pulled my dive flag out of the float and left with it, I never did get it back.:wacko: What the nerve of some people!

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

 

[MSilvia]

I was doing a training dive in a pond at 45 fsw, and a guy insisted on fishing from his rowboat right near our flag. There were a lot of old beer bottles (quite possibly from the same jackass) lying around the bottom, and after a few failed attempts to reason with the fisherman one of the divemasters descended, gave us the "watch me" signal. He then picked up a bottle, flipped it over, and filled it with air from his secondary reg. He let it go and it shot up like a rocket! After several of us took a few tries, an audible thud was heard as one of the bottles struck the rowboat's hull.

After the dive, we were told (between spurts of choked laughter) that you could see bottles jumping several feet out of the water all around the boat, apparently causing the boater a good deal of distress.

Probably not very safe or responsible, but it was gratifying.

 

[SueMermaid]

woooohahahaa!
That is brilliant.

On my last dive trip in Key Largo, we were anchored and dumping divers off the side, and a bunch of kids that were obviously lost came barrelling up to the boat, despite the huge dive flag flapping on top and two in the water. I thought the captain was gonna blow an aneurysm.

 

[Wreck Ranger]

I talked to guy in N.C. that was almost buried in the sand by a barge. His buddy left his car in neutral and the car coasted down the pier into the sound. He put out a floating dive flag. The guy, being a diver figured he would go and look for it and sure enough he found it. About the time he found it he heard a boat coming toward him. As soon as he did he felt something hitting his tank and pushing him into the bottom. He panicked but couldn't do anything since he was pinned to the sound floor. As the barge was ending it's pummeling and the tug was coming up he dug his hands as deep as he could as to try not to get sucked up into the props. Of course his hands could only hold so much force and as he was feeling his body lift up he only missed the props by about 3 feet or so.

Bottom line: He broke 1 finger and his tank was pretty scratched up. He is still alive and well and diving. Pretty crazy story and I wish I knew the guys name now, it would have made the story even better.

Wreck Ranger

 

[AzAtty]

DO NOT post directions on how to make a potato gun on ScubaBoard

Ben (ScubaRoo)

Damn, Ben. I was going to post my DIY instructions for making depleted uranium Anti-PWC spearheads and the HP-driven PnuemoBooster speargun fitting.

 

[Zagnut]

I'm definately gonna have to try that trick!

OK, I never had it happen to me while diving, but one time me and two of my fishin' buddies were back up in a remote cove of Lake Ray Roberts doin' a little bass fishin' off my buddies boat and a jetski kept buzzin' all around us. We yelled and gave him the finger and all that, and he just ignored us and kept doin' it. So we all tied on the heaviest lures in our arsenal (for better casting distance) and started to try to catch a jetskier. After about his third or fourth pass by us (he had just passed and was about 100 feet away from the boat and moving away from us) my buddy hit him square in his lifevest with a "Little George" lure! Little Georges are small and heavy and are good for accurate casting at a distance or into a high wind. Well, my buddy sets the hook and yanks this dude right off his jetski! Maybe not the smartest thing for us to do but IT WAS SO COOL!

When the guy got back on the jetski, he slowly rides up to the boat to ask us, "Just what the hell do you think you are doing?" At this point I figure there's gonna be some fightin'...I've never fought someone from the deck of a bass boat before.
We told him we were fishing and that we were there first, we have to fish where the fish are and he can do that anywhere on the lake. We had made it obvious with the yellin' and the middle fingers that we weren't happy about him buzzing us and we remedied the situation the best way a fisherman knows how and we wouldn't stop, so he might as well get lost.

The guy then pulls the lure out of his vest and handed it back to us and then left!.. I couldn't believe he actually gave us our lure back!

Again, it was probably not the best of judgement on our parts... a Little George to the head.. what with the velocity of the lure, not to mention the velocity of the jetski as it passed, and the treble hooks and all...if it would have caught his ear or face instead of his life vest it could have been a bad scene....but Damn! It was funny to watch my buddy yank this jack@ss of his jetski from about 100 feet away...

beer and gas... $40.00
a Little George lure... $3.75
Watchin' a jack@ss fly off a jetski... PRICELESS!!

 

[dcostanza]

AzAtty,
would you consider pm'ing me the instructions... Will it fit a 48"Biller with a break-away tip? Sounds like a fun project...

Best Regards....

Don

 

[scuba-punk]

In Pennsylvania, operators of jetskis (or other personal water craft) are required to take a "Safe Boating" class (AND pass a written exam. Unfortunately, you don't need to take the class to drive a big boat that can really do damage...

I took the class a few years ago for the heck of it, and the game warden who gave the class was a diver. He made certain to go over the diver down flag and distances during his presentation. The only question on the test regarding the diver down flag was a picture of it asking what it was (mind you, this is a multiple guess test). After speaking to some the class on the way out, i had a number of people ask me what that flag meant (when they saw the diver down flag license plate on the front of my car) as we were leaving (they couldn't remember where they saw it - um, 30 minutes ago in class, knucklehead!). Some days you just can't win...

-Frank

 

[jlyfsh]

Zagnut once bubbled...
I'm definately gonna have to try that trick!

beer and gas... $40.00
a Little George lure... $3.75
Watchin' a jack@ss fly off a jetski... PRICELESS!!

Love it, just love it. We lived on a wide canal on the Gulf and often had kids/drunks buzzing in late and tearing up boats, divers, fishing line. Late one afternoon a bud sets a couple of lines from one side of the canal to the other, tying 'em off to trees, weighted so they floated below the surface for passing boats. As the hour grows late we hear the roar of engines coming in way too fast. He walks out pulls up the line, boat goes flying by, trees bend, and within a few slips you hear the unmistakable sound of engine failure. It took about a week or two but the boats learned to idle properly after that.:boom:

 

[Big-t-2538]

DO NOT post directions on how to make a potato gun on ScubaBoard
Ben (ScubaRoo)
[/B]

What if we call it a vegetable launcher....I think I can draw up some schematics