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Thats what two drunk guys asked me while I was diving in Michigan on an inland lake. I had been down about 50 feet and was aware there were boats zooming around above, but on my ascent I stopped at about 15-20 feet and relaxed for a couple minutes and as I did a boat drifted right up to my flag using a little trolling motor. I came to the surface about 20 feet away and somewhat politely asked what was wrong, and they said they were just wondering why there was a tube floating with a flag in it, they thought it had got away from shore and were going to take it into the beach! Just thankful I took my time coming up!
Its amazing how many boaters don't know what a dive flag means. There was an incident at a lake near me where a boater saw a dive flag of a shore diver. He pulled the flag up, cut the line, and took it to water patrol, not knowing what it meant. Water patrol made him show them exactly where he found the flag and then promptly arrested and slapped the boater with a massive fine. When I was in highschool, we had to take a boaters safety class to get a license to operate a boat. Anyone born before a certain date was grandfathered in. I think everyone should have to pass the test. Its pretty easy. Read a book and take a written test.
I couldn't agree more, I took my boaters safety in Michigan and had to do the same. I definitely think we need to do a better job with education and safety.
That really sucks. I'm lucky most of my diving isn't done in high boat traffic areas and the few spots I go with boats see more divers, so they know what it means. I guess I need to remember to be extra careful in new, heavily boat-populated dive sites.
Diving around boats is extremely dangerous. A few years ago, we had an intoxicated teen, driving wealthy daddy's HUGE powerboat, motor over to investigate our small dive boat. He hit a diver and killed him. The diver had approximately 450 logged dives.
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Originally Posted by Joeyk
