wspalding
Contributor
While drift diving yesterday we briefly (for 20 minutes or so) had a lost diver. Kudos to the captain for his knowledge of the currents and his ability to locate this diver. This diver appeared to be diving solo (planned to stay with the divemaster), but got separated from the group and opted to surface rather than stay at depth. The issue however, was that he didn't carry a smb and had been at the surface for over 50 minutes before we located him and picked him up. So, this diver was a long ways (I think about a mile) from where the rest of us surfaced, had no marker for us find him, and was in a high boat traffic area with no signalling device to alert boats that a diver was in the water. I heard the crew state several times, do NOT enter the water without a smb. This was stated by the captain as we were on our way out to the dive site, and the crew asked more than once whether everyone had a smb. I'm glad that this was just a brief scare for everyone on the boat and that he ended up having no issues, but I hate to think about what could have happened to this guy.