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is there a law in California that says you must have a dive flag when diving? if so, is it open water (ocean) only?
are there any other safety laws (in Cali)?
thanks!!
Most states have laws which require divers to ascend within a set distance (usually 50 -100 feet) of a diver down flag. Some states additionally specify the minimum size of the flag. The laws usually apply to any body of water that could have boats and is not wholly surrounded by the property owned by a single non-covernmental entity.
In addition, federal and international laws require boats to display the day shapes, ball-diamond-ball, in a vertical line during the day and the light signals, red-white-red, at night. If the vessel is too small for it to be practical to display the day shapes (less than 39' LOA), she may display a one metre square, ridgid replica of the international "alpha" flag as a substitute.
Last edited by captndale; January 30th, 2007 at 03:36 PM.
I search and couldn't find a law for California that required the flag. Maybe someone else can find it.
I found that there was a state bill that was introduced last year that had distance requirements for boaters to keep from the flag, but it was withdrawn.
California is a bit funky when it comes to the use of a dive flag.
For inland bodies of water, we regularly use one (i.e. Folsom, Stumpy Meadows, Lake Spaulding, Tahoe), but it's not required. I last took the California Boater Safety course in 2001 after the purchase of our 27' O'Day, and the documentation at that time mentioned using a dive flag is recommended and that there was pending law that would require it. It doesn't look like anything since then has been passed though.
I have a friend that was harassed by law enforcement who claimed he was in violation for not displaying a flag, but when it went to court, the judge threw it out because the law stated the use of the dive flag was a recommendation (not a requirement). They tried to argue that the Federal Laws trumped the California laws, but the judge wasn't hearing any of it. This was on the Sacramento River, and it happened while one of the guys from Dolphin Scuba was solo diving for bottles and what not. He had a boat anchored above the location where he was diving, and law enforcement first thought he was up to no good (stealing boats, drug running, who knows what).
Beyond that, the dive flag is a good idea around our neck of the woods, but be careful, not many boaters even know what a dive flag looks like much less know what it means. We regularly use dive flags with SMBs as back ups, and have on occasion had to chase off jet skiers who decided to use our gear as a slalom course. Folsom is really bad when it comes to this, and seems to get worse up near Rattlesnake Bar. It's a good idea to listen for boat traffic before surfacing, or head in closer to shore before popping above 5' depth.
Now Nevada is completely different. I've been ticketed in Nevada for not diving within 100' of our flag. We brought it with us, dropped it off at the outer markers of Sand Harbor, and kicked out to the left of the bay for over an hour. A Game Warden ended up ticketing us after following us most of the dive. A group of local divers met with the Park officials and the Warden on our behalf after we were ticketed, and from my understanding, it's kind of a hit or miss situation now. You may or may not get ticketed based on if the Warden feels like it. In our situation, this Warden had to save a husband / wife team of divers that panicked during a dive the day before we were there. He was out to make a point with us, and said so while he down graded the ticket a bit to save us some cash.
Regardless of whether it's a law or not, IMO it's a good thing to have in California with some of the boaters we have around here, but it doesn't mean you'll be safe or have the right of way (so to say).
Boaters don't respect them (by staying 100 yards away) and often the flag "lures" dumb drunk boaters in.
One of the posters in Deep Dixie Divers had his flag stolen by a boater on the surface while he was towing it in a lake.
In Destin (Florida) at the jetties we dump our flag in a trough and leave it for the dive. The channel there is full of boats and they don't repect it and follow the law, so why give them a target to dump beer bottles as depth charges at the divers as they pass by....
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Boaters don't respect them (by staying 100 yards away) and often the flag "lures" dumb drunk boaters in.
One of the posters in Deep Dixie Divers had his flag stolen by a boater on the surface while he was towing it in a lake.
In Destin (Florida) at the jetties we dump our flag in a trough and leave it for the dive. The channel there is full of boats and they don't repect it and follow the law, so why give them a target to dump beer bottles as depth charges at the divers as they pass by....
We've had similar experiences at Folsom where boats will pull up along side an SMB, and attempt to take it from the diver that's attached to it. On this particular situation, the boater argued with us that dive flags were required by law, and that the SMB did not meet the requirements of a dive flag. He thought the SMB was trash, and was being environmentally friendly by pulling it from the water. Mind you, there was a rather large group of us on land yelling at the boater to get away from the SMB long before he reached down to take it, but I don't want to confuse the boaters motivations with facts.
Other reasons for not taking a flag include depth, distance from shore, lakes that have a 5 mph speed limit for boats, entries where you enter and exit in a safe location and stay down the rest of the time, etc.
In general, this notion that a dive flag will protect you in some way is false, and because the California laws do not require a flag, not many boaters even know what they look like. As I mentioned before, we've had jet skiers use our SMBs and dive flags as a slalom course, and find that at times, surfacing next to the dive flag is more dangerous than surfacing closer to shore. We'll often leave the flag in place, head to shore underwater, and then kick back out to retrieve it.
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Originally Posted by Teamcasa
