Flower Gardens Incident...A Gut Check?

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Beachman

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I just returned from diving the Flower Gardens on the Spree last Wednesday, the day before Rinn had a diving death which was posted previously. The follow-ups to that post seem to have focused on legal liability implications, which is fine, but I'm starting a new topic because I'm interested in focusing on diver responsibility as it relates to the shops and the boat operators....regardless of the legal implications. After all, aren't we all interested first in diver safety?...our own and that of our fellow divers?

The profiles on the FG reefs are square at 80' -100', and on the rigs are multi-level 80' - 90' then 40' - 50'. Our group had 28 divers, and all but 4 were on Nitrox.

In my opinion the diving is not difficult:

1. Average BOW skills are adequate for most dives, although all dives are over 60'.

2. Except for the oil rigs, the bottom is always there and there are typically many divers on the reef to assist in emergencies. On the rigs there is a lot of structure to prevent disorientation, although the bottom may be 300' or more.

3. Navigation is not a problem with 100'+ viz and all the diver activity in the area of the down line.

In my opinion, however, the diving is very, very demanding:

1. Up to 5 dives a day, i.e., 7:00 am, 10:30 am, 2:00 pm, 5:30 pm, and 9:00 pm.

2. Currents which can go from near zero to ripping in 30 minutes (read while you're down there).

3. Surface conditions that can go from 1' waves to 4' waves in a few hours (read last dive was OK, but next one may be rock and roll).

4. Depending on your "seamanship", loss of a lot of sleep on the 110 mile ride out the first night (read boat leaves the dock at 10:00 pm and your first dive is at 7:00 am the next morning...hope you took your dramamine), and maybe you don't sleep so good on a boat the 2nd or 3rd night either.

So what is a "qualified" diver for the Flower Gardens? Here's my humble opinion:

1. Someone in good physical condition...no couch potatoes please! FG diving can be relaxing, but when you need it you better have it. Currents, waves, repetitive dives, loss of sleep, assisting a buddy, helping someone reach the tag line....you name it, you better have it when it counts.

2. Someone with good self discipline. No one HAS to make 5 dives a day. No one HAS to make the oil rig dives if they are uncomfortable with bottomless blue water. No one HAS to do a night dive in strong current conditions. No one HAS to make an entry into 5' waves.

3. Someone who has open water ocean experience and is comfortable in that environment. If you haven't felt surface wind surge and bounce hanging on a line for your safety stop, or haven't navigated a reef within your abilities to return to the ascent line, or made an exit on a ladder bouncing 5' up and down after removing your fins on the line, then you're not ready.

4. Someone that has experience in currents and is comfortable in those conditions. If you don't know how to find the lee side of structure on the bottom, or swim 6" off the bottom directly into the current to reach the ascent line, or know the feeling of ascending on a line where your mask fills with water if you turn your head into the current wrong, or how to time that last move to the ladder with your fins off in 4' waves, then your not ready.

You will notice that I didn't comment on how many dives you should have or what level of certification should be required. I have known instructors, and darn good ones, that may not be good candidates for the Flower Gardens because they lack the experience in these conditions. I also know AOW divers with 25 dives, all in fundamentally similar conditions, that are more than qualified to dive the Flower Gardens.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rinn explains what to expect in great detail before the boat leaves the dock, and offers a 100% refund to anyone who is uncomfortable or feels their experience is inadequate before the trip. They also give the most thorough dive briefings of conditions before each dive I have ever witnessed, and caution folks to stay out if they have any doubts. I never heard the word "safety" so many times in 3 days in my life. So where does responsibility lie for making any given dive? I say with the diver.

I don't see how the boat operator can, or should, screen divers in or out. What is the criteria?

I don't see how a dive shop can screen out a diver, UNLESS they know them well enough to evaluate their open ocean water experience and physical condition. I know many shops don't know the folks they are booking that well.

I say let's all dive together as safely as possible, and let the chips fall with the lawyers as they may. That part is secondary to us all evaluating our own abilities correctly and coming back happy campers.

Have I missed the point by focusing on the divers?....or should I be more worried about legal liability issues? I believe the latest Flower Gardens incident should be a gut check for us all.
 
Hello,

I think (could be wrong here) that it's a 2 part system. I.e. the dive shop/operation and the diver. Some hard question needs to be ask here like WHY was that guy allowed on this type of advanced dives with out some type of records. Today to many dive outfits are just out for the $ and fail to serve the divers needs and the divers are getting the raw end of the deal.

Ed
 
I cannot comment too much on your report, but I just wanted to say, "Hi"!

Joewr
 
I could not agree with you more Beachman. I think the only person who can tell if a diver is ready for the conditions you described, is the diver him/herself. My replies about legal liability were for the posters who seemed intent on saying that Rinn Boats or a dive shop were at fault for allowing the diver to go on the trip. I think the ultimate responsibility for a diver's safety has and always will lie with the diver regardless of what the legal system chooses to say. I do think the diver should have had a stern talking to if anybody checked his log book, and maybe he did receive such a lecture? Maybe he had 50 unlogged dives that we don't know about. Either way, with all I have read and heard about Rinn Boats safety precautions, the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that the diver was not unaware of the hazards posed by the dives he was preparing to do. If he was unaware of the difficulty of the dives it is because he is deaf or was not listening during the dive briefings. In either case, the only person responsible for his choosing to dive after hearing the briefings was himself. Trying to blame anybody else for an individual's personal choice to get into the water when the conditions were clearly out of his league is ludicrous. Yes, maybe Rinn Boats could begin checking logbooks...would it help?...probably not. The idiots intent on getting on and diving when they shouldnt will just fake their books. And as I explained ad nauseum in the other threads, all they would succeed in doing is making it easier to sue them next time an idiot dies.

My condolences to the family of the diver involved. I don't mean to demean their loss by the direct nature of my posts. However, I really despise the way our society tries so hard to find a way to place blame for tragic accidents and deaths anywhere but on the victim(s), when in many cases, they richly deserve the blame for their demise.

TxAgs92
 
I agree -- it's a shared responsibility.

I know it's easy to sit here at my PC and say that a diver should be smart enough to avoid a dive where conditions are over his/her head. BUT -- I think ALL of us at one time or another have done a dive that was beyond our abilities. We survived and hopefully learned from the experience.

It's a big gray area -- how much experience, training, and skill development does someone need to have to dive 60 feet, 100 feet, 130 feet? As the comments above reflect, the answer is different for every diver.

On the other side of the coin, it sounds like the diver who lost his life out at the FG was out of shape, overweight and had not been diving for some time.

BTW -- what did this particular diver tell the captain regarding his experience/abilities?
 
The first time I tried to book a trip to the Flower Gardens no one told me it was not a novice diver trip. I was not warned at the outset that this would be a better dive for someone with considerable more experience than what I had. That trip and several others were cancelled. Then I was told repeatedly it was not a trip for new divers. The dive shops that book the trips only see the $$$ involved. They either don't know or don't care what is required of that trip. I admit if I was to lay out $250 and drive to Freeport from Dallas it wouldn't be likely someone could talk me out of diving. I'd have to see for myself if I could handle it. Divers are a cross section of the general population. Many have the attitude... It can't happen to me.....
I agree with everyone its diver responsibility. We all have to be aware of our own abilities and limits its also our responsibility to learn about the dives that we are going to do and find out if there are any hazards or special risks associated with this dive.
As I said in another post... we can't always protect people from themselves. Divers will continue to dive past the reaper sign that is posted at the front of many caves. Some will continue to come out alive... some won't.

Tom
 
Beachman, good post! As one who has gone out to the Flower Gardens twice, I agree that, while the diving is not difficult, it is demanding and do require that you have a good presence of mind. In other words, you can not be intimidated by the conditions or the environment and you must be able to make your own decisions on whether to dive or not based on the conditions and/or the environment. And stand by them.

I am not sure whether it is proper to tell "new" divers that they can not go out there. I know that they have taken recently-certified divers out there without any problems, in fact, there was several on my first trip out there and they all handled themselves very well. Conversely, I have been around "veteran" divers who could barely handle calm and perfect conditions.

I do think that the shops need to advise folks on how it is out there. So do all of us (including me). Beachman, your post was probably the best description I have ever seen of how it is out there so hopefully, folks will save it for future reference.

Regarding the recent lost diver incident, I mentioned on this board that a good friend of mine was on the trip and on the same boat. From what he said and from what I have been able to gather from all of my resources, no one did anything wrong. It was just a unfortuate event.
 
Hey Beachman,

I concur with your take on the matter. If the risks are put out plainly on the table, then it is up to the diver to make sure he comes back alive. After all, you can't put a price on your own life, so you have the most to lose! Better to be a candy a-- diver (hi words, not mine), like my good friend Joewr, and be alive to admit it, then to try and prove something that no one is even concerned about.

Now I mentioned Joe and with good reason. He knows his limitations (he doesn't like the cold) and dives within them. He has nothing to prove to any of us, and his GREAT attitude reflects that. I would wager that if more people took that kind of no-nonsense approach to where/when they dive, we would have even fewer fatalities.
 
Hello,

One problem with this. If the dive boat states things like (true story here!) "currents are very minimal and conditions are good" and when the divers went into the water the currents was so strong you turn your head to the side and your mask is riped off, we was blown off course (on the wreck) and seen divers swimming as hard as they could INTO the current and was going BACKWARDS (not to mention that the boat ancored incorrectly) and the *ONLY* divers who surfaced correctly was the ones we helped. The rest surfaced about 1/4 mile away and about 10' off the bow of the fishing vessels with there FISHING LINES DEPLOYED with *NO* ascent line, they just poped to the surface (computers stated the ascent was over 100%)

Ed
 
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