Two “almost” close calls

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Stone

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We live in Valparaiso, FL and dive out of Destin,
Saturday, 3 May

It was getting dark over the coast, but we figured we had time for one more dive. The wind had died, and the anchor chain was just laying in a pile on the bottom (about 80 ft). I set the anchor by hand and we made a circuit around the barge. When I got back to the anchor, the line had shifted 180 degrees and was hung up on a barge cleat (obviously, we dropped anchor in the middle of a wind shift). We called the dive, but my wife had found a bed of flounder, and was happily using her spear shaft as a pokey pole. My third buddy went to retrieve my wife about the same time the anchor chain started up the side of the barge. I held the chain on the barge cleat until my buddies showed up. I knew the weather was threatening, and should have tied the anchor off to the barge. If the wind would have shifted 90 degrees instead of 180 degrees, we might have been following a furrow in the sand to find the boat.

Sunday, 4 May

After a great dive at about 85 ft, I left my gun on the reef so I could move the anchor away from the rocks. At this time I had about 1000 psi. I signed for my wife to get my gun, but she thought I was telling her to go back to the reef and shoot something. When she came back to the anchor without my gun, I sprinted back to the reef to get it. By now, my SAC is way up from filling my BC, swimming with an anchor, and retrieving my gun. When we got to the safety stop, I was down to about 200 psi. We hadn’t gone into the yellow, so I could have blown off the safety stop if necessary, but Candy always has 500 psi more than I do at the end of a dive, so I borrowed some air from her. Even though it was about as routine as a dive can get, the high activity at the very end of the dive used up every bit of my safety margin in a couple of minutes.
 
Close calls yes. Diver contributing to problem, yes. But also things that every diver should be prepared for, unplanned, preventable, survivable. Good job, which barge?
 
I understand and agree. Also, know the barge well...
 
Dead Boat Diving, essentially Solo Diving, diving in Threes

Yep, the above combos can make for some interesting dives.


Charlie


p.s. You didn't explicitly say the boat was unmanned, but if it were, then a dragging anchor isn't big deal since you can just surface from the barge and get picked up.
 
Charlie99 once bubbled...
Dead Boat Diving, essentially Solo Diving, diving in Threes

Yep, the above combos can make for some interesting dives.


Charlie


p.s. You didn't explicitly say the boat was unmanned, but if it were, then a dragging anchor isn't big deal since you can just surface from the barge and get picked up.

Not that they dived effectively as a team but what's wrong with a team of three?
 
We weren't diving solo. Max separation was about 15 feet at the end of the dive when I swam a little ahead to check out the anchor. The team of three worked to our advantage. Candy was concentrating on the flounder, I could stay with the anchor, and the third buddy made Candy aware of our intention to call the dive (and helped her bag the flounder).

Dead boat diving has been discussed thoroughly. We prefer two up and two down, but sometimes we leave the boat unattended.
 
Oh man, you guys were fortunate. I'm glad it worked out ok.

We were out there Saturda... it got UGLY offshore.

We did one dive pretty far out on one of the LCMs (16 miles out or so), and when I came up from it and looked at the radar, I made the decision to turn and run for the house, much to the chagrin of some of the other guys on board. We had originally intended 3 dives when we left the dock....

We ran through the pass just as the ugly stuff was heading for offshore, and watched it build on the coast offshore thereafter. Passed the Sea Cobra on the Bridge Rubble on the way in, and it looked like they were fixing to get NAILED (I assume they were anchored up with divers down at the time - not really all that good of a choice given the conditions - I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to come up 15 minutes later with the lightning that was popping around at that point!)

I took some ugly looks for the call to turn the boat and head in, but it definitely was the right one. I've gotten pretty good over the last couple of years in "reading" the radar display for storms over land and heading towards offshore in terms of figuring out which ones will peter out, which ones will pass harmlessly to one side or the other, and which ones are going to turn into an ugly mess and trap you in open water.

That was one nasty-looking storm on the radar, and running through the wall cloud just a few miles offshore while it was still building and heading out towards where we were just confirmed my gut feel at the time I first saw it on the LR display.
 
Genesis once bubbled...
Oh man, you guys were fortunate. I'm glad it worked out ok.


The lightning was well away from us (although that is small comfort if you catch one that travels ten miles), and we just got a little rain during the 15 minute run back to the pass. The bad stuff looked like it was over Navarre. By the time we got back to Boggy Bayou, the sun was out and the birds were singing.

I mistook the wind-shift for lack of wind. I would hope my anchor (Danforth) could reset, but I've recently heard that a Bruce may be better. Regardless, I'll be tying into the wreck unless the weather is perfect.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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