Our Sabang Canyons Salmon Run (aka the Dive of Death)

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wow sounds like an ordeal :eek: .... can we have all those number now in metric? :)

Is it possible those downwellings are kinda eddie currents? Is it tidal?

I have recently kitted out with a safety sausage (its a big one) and a whistle thingy that goes onto my BC inflator, thats after a few stories in the news of divers not connecting with boats after surfacing. eeek
 
wow sounds like an ordeal :eek: .... can we have all those number now in metric? :)

Is it possible those downwellings are kinda eddie currents? Is it tidal?

I have recently kitted out with a safety sausage (its a big one) and a whistle thingy that goes onto my BC inflator, thats after a few stories in the news of divers not connecting with boats after surfacing. eeek

-----
Those nasty "downcurrents" are typically caused by some structure in the immediate area. As water flows over a rock (for example) the disturbance causes a turbulent flow of water. The water in effect "rolls". If you swim at the same depth and laterally you can get away from the downcurrent. Typically, a diver will attempt to swim up through it....not good! Bad mistake. Remember, air management and a cool head, at this point, is what will save you life. The standard "drop weights" is the first action once you realize BCD inflation is not working. Now, inflating a BCD has its own hazards as well. Once you come out of the downcurrent you have to dump air....and fast. Your diving groups/buddies should always attempt to stay together. In the event you get seperated, the standard look for 1 minute, go to safety stop for 3 minutes then surface is in effect. As long as both of you understand the plan then accidents can avoided (if you follow THE DIVE PLAN).

Now, how can you prevent getting caught in a downcurrent?

1. Ask the locals about the dive site and it HAZARDS
2. Take a Discover Local Diving with your local PADI Dive Center
3. Watch the swimming marine life and look for which way they are facing. Are they just hanging there and finning?
4. Use sand to sprinkle ahead of yourself before you swim past large rocks (Ethei Robrigado technique at Verde Island).
5. Before you get into the water use an empty 2 liter plastic bottle on a string and throw it off the boat to see which way it drifts to determine current's strength.

Just some ideas and thoughts for your next dive.
 
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Is it possible those downwellings are kinda eddie currents? Is it tidal?

there are number of times we've motored by Canyons and you can see the currents on the surface just bubbling like a cauldron of soup... :D
 
It was 3 PM, and so it must have been ebbing. The direction of the current was away from shore, towards deeper water.

When there's a strong ebbing current and the bottom slopes down after you leave your site, the water flows out and downhill at the same time. If it's 4 knots sideways it might be 1 knot downward depending on the slope of the bottom, and how far you are from the bottom.

Because the Fishbowl is at 90 ft (27m), when you leave and the current is ebbing, you get swept out, and into a downwelling, below 100 ft (30m) in blue water. The other 3 times we did Fishbowl there was always a downwelling, but not too bad, unlike this one time.

Basically you watch your depth gauge like a hawk, and don't be shy about filling your BC. But be ready to dump the air FAST so you don't shoot up when it lets go. And fin hard if needed, but not so hard that you can't keep it up for more than a minute, and not so hard you're burning through your air super fast. And keep your breathing deep and regular, don't hyperventilate. You might need your air for an extended safety stop, or worse, a deco stop. And be ready to dump your weight belt if you reach say, 140 ft (42m) and are still descending.

If you ditch your weight belt it will be near impossible to do a safety stop and you will have to watch for signs of DCS, and your computer will probably lock you out. Suck on emergency oxygen...

Your biggest problem if you're taken super deep is how quickly you use up air, and/or if you get seriously narc'ed and relax... til the cows come home. I get narc'ed rather easily and that's why I considered my depth gauge was malfunctioning instead of thinking that I *really* was being swept down.

Having said that, it can't go on forever because the deeper the water gets and the farther you are from the bottom, the weaker the downwelling gets. Our DM said he once got brought down to 180 ft (55m) (!!) and got a 12 minute deco stop.

You can tell there's a strong downwelling too because your air bubbles are torn into little pieces and being swept down, and you can hear the water rushing past you.

It's hard to stay together in turbulent water - my DM had 20 lbs more lift in his BC than me, so I had to fin pretty hard to stay with him.

Cheers.
 
To the metric guy:

We got scattered to a max depth ranging from 121 ft to 140 or 150 ft IIRC. (37m to 43 or 46m)
Will know better when we use Excel to overlay all the data from our computers. Should be fun.
 
I dove Fishbowl at least 5 times while I was there, and Canyons... I lost count... I never hit any downwellings! But I was diving with instructors who really know the currents there and when not to dive those sites! Several times he changed hi mind when we got there and decided on another easier site because of the state of the currents. It's a tricky area and it's best to know what you are doing around there!
 
Wow... I am in PG now... havent done the Canyons yet, but I\ve heard about the currents over there... Hope the Norwegian did OK...
Best

Martin
 
My buddy and nearly met our maker on that dive back in 1998, here's what I wrote about it 3 years ago - see any similarities?

Glad that we're all here talikng about it...

A story with a few lessons I’d like to share.

Someone commented on another thread how mischance tends to snowball and I believe this is a good example of that.

I was diving in the Philippines on a ‘fast’ drift dive at maximum depth of 34-36m. Called ‘The Canyons’, it’s a must drift-dive for anyone diving Puerto Galera and is great on Nitrox. By this time I had probably already dived it 10-15 times over the years.

My buddy for the dive was an guy in his mid-to-late forties and a good friend, and I was in my mid-twenties. He and I had buddied up a few times before, and made a good partnership. I knew he could use up his air quite fast (a bit overweight and a smoker, as I am in fact, but I’m younger&#8230:wink:, but then again, when you are aware of something you take it into consideration on a dive. For his part, he knew that I generally like to dawdle and investigate small things and was prepared to put up with me. Like I say, we were friends.

Anyway this was not intended to be a ‘dawdling’ dive, the tide was truly ripping through when we arrived by boat at the site, and you could see massive turbulence just from the surface. Our DM (an instructor & tech specialist) had dived with us 15-20 times, knew our styles and levels of competence very well. He took a look at the surface and told us that with this sort of current, there was a serious chance of becoming separated just on the descent.

We discussed it amongst the group (me, my buddy, the DM and the other guy, who was also quite an experienced diver. The conclusion was that we would go ahead with a quick swimming descent, and try as a minimum to maintain the buddy teams – any diver on his own would do the usual minute’s search before aborting. Intact buddy teams would continue with the planned dive.

Basically, we were after a fast drift and this was too good to miss as long as we accepted the basic buddy safety system – just as well we did.

To cut a long story short, my buddy & I got cut-off, but carried on with what was a spectacular dive (think Superman zooming through the Grand Canyon…well not quite, but you get the idea). All went to plan right up to the end when we had to do a blue water ascent with safety stop.

At the end of the dive, the bottom is sandy and & slopes downwards quite rapidly, you’re still being carried by the current, but now away from land into the main channel, and within minutes, you lose all points of reference.

After only a minute or two of blue water, I realized my buddy seemed a bit disorientated and was holding his gauge console and tapping it. He did not look distressed, so I swam over to him slowly and turned the gauge to face me.

We had planned to start ascent when either of us hit 70 bar / 1000 PSI, and knowing that it was likely to be him rather than me, this was what I expected to see, all I couldn’t figure out was why he hadn’t just signalled me. BTW we would have been perfectly safe waiting for 50 bar, but a little caution is a good thing.

His pressure gauge showed about 30 bar - not good, but overall we’re still in OK shape, I’m still on 95-100 bar, is what goes through my mind. For a minute, I was actually pretty happy with the situation – I had trained for emergencies and problems, and I was actually going to get a chance to put training and planning into action, a shared air ascent would be almost inevitable.

His console was one of the combined computer / pressure / compass designs, so while I’m looking at the pressure, I glanced down at the depth gauge and did a double take. We were at 53m / 175ft and sinking fast.

Not a lot of planning went into what followed immediately. I grabbed him and inflated my BC while swimming, not in order to surface, but to get to shallower water. This was not a situation I’d expected to happen.

Normally very careful about depth, how the hell could I have dropped like a stone?

The answer was twofold: -
a) nobody expected us to be carried as far as we had been by the current, certainly not as far as the down-draft that exists at the end of the ledge, so nobody had ever mentioned that it existed, and
b) We were narked. Simple as that. My buddy couldn’t figure out what his gauge was telling him, and I had got to the detached phase where I couldn’t see that any problem existed. We lost a couple of minutes that could have been fatal because we were stoned.

After the initial burst to about 20m / 66 ft his tank ran dry and he switched to my spare. At this point, I can’t remember exactly how much air I had left.

It had cost me a lot to pump into the BC, not to mention dragging my buddy up to about 35m / 120m where he seemed to click back to normal, kicking fast, and against the down draft.

We managed to maintain eye contact all the way up, not so difficult when you’re buddy is facing you and holding on to your BC’s shoulders so tight you feel they might tear! Not quite sure what our best course was, we went with my buddy’s suggestion to stay at 5m until the tank was next to empty, the ascend slowly to the surface until it actually ran out.

We must have stayed at 5m for 15 minutes or more – long enough for us both to calm down and have a look around. And to look up…

We had gone down in sunshine on a lovely blue-sky day, when we finally surfaced, it was grey, raining, we were about a kilometre from where we should have been and we couldn’t see the boat.

As the wind was already quite strong, the waves were going straight in our faces and we were kicking to stay up. There was just enough air to inflate my BC about half way before the trusty tank was finally exhausted, but we tried to use it on my buddy’s air horn to attract attention, which managed a plaintive fart that you’d not have been able to hear in church.

All told, we were actually in almost as much danger as we had been underwater, this storm was just starting to kick in, we were both tired, scared and as completely invisible to the boat as the boat was to us.

We managed to manually inflate our BC’s, so at least we could float. Taking stock, I couldn’t believe that so much could go wrong – bad weather, dive plan completely out the window, worried about DCS, no air left, no whistle, no sausage….HANG ON A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By pure chance, I had found a sausage on the bottom during the previous day’s dive. No-one had claimed it, so I’d stashed it in the BC pocket and it was still there! WOOHOO!!!

Using the last dregs from the tank plus a couple of breaths from both of us, we got the thing inflated and within 5-10 mins, we were on a boat with an oxygen tank taking turns, shivering and shaky, but safe and heading back to the bar for a hot chocolate with just a little brandy in it – don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it…

Anyway, through luck and a bit of level-headedness we both made it alright. I still dive regularly and will be taking my diving to Trimix next month. My buddy and I haven’t seen each other for a while, and I get the feeling that he doesn’t dive much anymore.

Funny thing is that I still think he’s a great buddy – one of the best I’ve dived with. What’s more is that we were together when everything seemed to go wrong and he never panicked, not for a moment. I’d dive with him again tomorrow.
 
.....and I did Canyons with my wife two years ago and the current was zero....really great dive but bizarre when we are used to the INDY 500 down there.
 

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