Sorry to hear of the loss, of course - warmest wishes to the family. I'm sure his son/dive buddy was frantic at losing his on dad in the water, searching thru the dark night, and such.
No wish to try to place any blame on anyone here, but only to seek learning and emphasis previously accepted safety procedures, that last story you linked had two bits of info that bothered me...
"Johanning apparently drowned some time after surfacing with one of his sons, said Phil Aspinall, coordinator for Virgin Islands Search and Rescue. The two came up together, but his son went back under to look for the third diver with them. Johanning was gone when the others resurfaced." I hate 3 diver teams. I've done them, but usually felt simply twice as challenged at watch out for both of them, while less secure that either was watching out for me. Looks like the accident started when the team broke down, only to have an experienced diver die after surfacing. We do not know if he had air in the tank or had dumped his weights, do we? If he'd dumped his weights, I don't guess his body would have been found on the sea floor?
And I have been the one who went back to look for a missing diver while the one I suface with left the water. I have to wonder why the 3 did not surface together, but only speculating and questioning here as I don't know the conditions. My incident was surfacing thru a crowd of divers in Santa Rosa NM, losing sight of one, not finding him on the surface. I used my pony to search, while the other diver exited not having enough air to descend - only to learn later than the missing diver had left the water alone. He also left the site immediately, and we have not spoken in over two years since.
"Authorities believe Johanning had to swim against a strong current through choppy water to reach a dingy that the men took to the dive site. One theory is that he went back under to avoid the rough water and couldnt make it back up." This seems to be yet another accident where no one stayed on the boat, with that becoming critical to the situation. I have done that once with a couple of nice SB local divers, but was concerned enough to discuss the approach in detail - agreeing we would stay together first and foremost, and what our exit stradegy would be if we could not get back to the boat. Both of these dives were very close to land with houses on Puget Sound - much tamer than their location, I think.
Dive team failure and untended boat in a remote location. Any differing thot...?
JVD seems to be just east of Tortola, with Green Cay and Little JVD between...