I see how the politics in this situation can be detrimental to the divers in the long run due to the "big picture" and hope that those involved will be able to smooth this situation out.
I have 2 observations now that the channel usage is explained and I have seen the video.
1) Regardless approval for channel usage, there is still no excuse for any boat to ignore a dive flag, let alone 2 of them.
2) If it is a narrow channel that has barriers on its sides, why are divers in the middle and not crossing further down on the north or south side where they will be spending less time inside the narrow barrier. I don't see why one of them surfaced inside a narrow channel on top of that situation
3) The surface markers used appear to be way too small and if the dive flag is slightly folded, it just looks like a red marker. We use the larger round yellow floats with a larger dive flag on top of that around here. Those 2 small dive flags almost look like channel markers (although one should have been green if they were)
I am not giving an excuse to the sailboat diver with #3 above since I am a diver but those flags/floats are just simply too small in my opinion.
We use these:
I have 2 observations now that the channel usage is explained and I have seen the video.
1) Regardless approval for channel usage, there is still no excuse for any boat to ignore a dive flag, let alone 2 of them.
2) If it is a narrow channel that has barriers on its sides, why are divers in the middle and not crossing further down on the north or south side where they will be spending less time inside the narrow barrier. I don't see why one of them surfaced inside a narrow channel on top of that situation
3) The surface markers used appear to be way too small and if the dive flag is slightly folded, it just looks like a red marker. We use the larger round yellow floats with a larger dive flag on top of that around here. Those 2 small dive flags almost look like channel markers (although one should have been green if they were)
I am not giving an excuse to the sailboat diver with #3 above since I am a diver but those flags/floats are just simply too small in my opinion.
We use these: