Anybody catch Discovery Channel tonight?

[diverbob]

That had a story on there about a woman who was taking some pictures underwater, and didnt realize it, but was being swept away from her boat by the current. She surfaced, and had her video camera still running, and it pretty much showed her just barely floating on the surface. Obviously, for me sitting in my living room watching this, it is a lot easier to sit here and say this is what she did wring, and this is what she did right. I guess none of us know what we would really do until we are in this situation. But upon surfacing, she started panicking, screaming for help. With the camera still running, you can see sharks starting to gather under her. Once she came to her senses, and when a big wave came and lifted her up, she caught a glimpse of land, and started swimming towards it. I noticed first of all, she didnt even have a snorkal on, so she was swimming at the surface with her reg on. In the recreation scene, they never once showed her or mentioned her inflating her BC. She said that dropping her weights wasnt an option, because then she would be too buoyant, and wouldnt be able to kick with her fins because they would be out of the water. Well, she was finally rescued, and 10 years later, they showed her going through this physical fitness plan to get ready to get back into the water where all this happened. She wound up going back, and diving there again, which I assume is a good thing, defeating your fears, but if you havent dove in 10 years, I would think you would probably want to get in some non-stress related dives to get the rust off, so to speak.

I was just curious if anyone else watched this, and noticed these things as well, or noticed anything else.

 

[mempilot]

That had a story on there about a woman who was taking some pictures underwater, and didnt realize it, but was being swept away from her boat by the current. She surfaced, and had her video camera still running, and it pretty much showed her just barely floating on the surface. Obviously, for me sitting in my living room watching this, it is a lot easier to sit here and say this is what she did wring, and this is what she did right. I guess none of us know what we would really do until we are in this situation. But upon surfacing, she started panicking, screaming for help. With the camera still running, you can see sharks starting to gather under her. Once she came to her senses, and when a big wave came and lifted her up, she caught a glimpse of land, and started swimming towards it. I noticed first of all, she didnt even have a snorkal on, so she was swimming at the surface with her reg on. In the recreation scene, they never once showed her or mentioned her inflating her BC. She said that dropping her weights wasnt an option, because then she would be too buoyant, and wouldnt be able to kick with her fins because they would be out of the water. Well, she was finally rescued, and 10 years later, they showed her going through this physical fitness plan to get ready to get back into the water where all this happened. She wound up going back, and diving there again, which I assume is a good thing, defeating your fears, but if you havent dove in 10 years, I would think you would probably want to get in some non-stress related dives to get the rust off, so to speak.

I was just curious if anyone else watched this, and noticed these things as well, or noticed anything else.

Drag camera and 30lbs of weight. Wrong. Drop the camera and it's drag. She was at the surface for a long time before she realized she could swim for shore. The thought of dropping her weight and extra gear should have come first. With the extra bouyancy of the thick suit, she could have left all her scuba gear once out of air, since it's just drag at that point. The physical expenditure would have been a fraction of what it ended up being. Without the weight and gear and deflating the bc, you can turn sideways and kick with no problem. We do it in mock rescues in dry and wet suits with no other gear on other than mask, fins, and snorkel. She's very lucky, or this story was hyped up to promote "Open Water".

What happened to shark week being about education on sharks and less about shark attacks on people? They used to show researchers and their data collection efforts and observations. Now it's movie drama.

 

[Otter]

Should have been a 5 minute side note to some other activity, but Open Water the movie was sponsoring it and sense it tied into their plot....we got an hour of kick boxing and psychology.

I am not trying to be unsympathetic to her situation, but I was really hoping for more...not sure, what. Now the Tiger Shark episode afterwards was both enlightening and had some great underwater footage of Tigers.

My biggest fear is that with these two, Open Water and Animal Planet's 12 days of Fear ( I suspect a revisit of the early 1900s problem on the East Coast the inspired JAWS) that we may have a return to a slaughter the sharks OR the uninformed population trying to save us from diving.

Lets hope we have progressed far enough in the last few decades.

 

[diverbob]

I agree...there is no way that should have been an hour long show. I think if nothing else, it could have been a 30 minute program on what not to do.

The show on the Tiger sharks in Hawaii was pretty interesting.

I am interested in seeing that movie Open Water. I did catch a small interview with the actress (I cant remember her name) and she did say she was scared to death of sharks going into this project, but she came away with a better understanding and respect for sharks, in place of her fear. Hopefully the movie will have the same response with the people that go see it.

 

[jbd]

I saw the program about the woman with the video camera about a year ago. What I thought was interesting was that the camera caught some very interesting video of shark behavior. While the woman was highly stressed the shark came into view which increased her stress. This brought the shark closer and if I recall the shark became more agressive in its actions. At some point it seemed to me that the woman "gave up" i.e. no more screaming, no more kicking etc, etc. As soon as that happened the shark lost interest and left.

If this was about the same person going back again then you may have gotten an edited for current programming version which left out a lot about the shark.

 

[jbichsel]

I watched "Primal Scream" last night also. While I'm sympathetic to her situation, I found several things just plain nuts.
1. She had supposedly been diving for 17 years with over 6,000 dives, and was the junior diver of the group. To me, having so many divers with so much experience, diving in an area known to have such strong currents, there was a serious lack of 'buddy concern' in the entire group.
2. For someone with that much diving 'experience' to not have sense enough to have a snorkel at least packed in a BC pocket, speaks volumes about lack of proper diving practice.
3. The entire group was at fault for not having better discipline on procedures.

There's more, but I'll stop for now.

As to her 10 year absence, I believe that she continued to dive and photograph for several more years until PTSS caught up to her. I think she was not diving for something like 3-5 years while she started her restaurant.

I'm sure there is quite a bit we weren't shown since this was just another sensationalized, over-hyped, scare-the-uninformed piece of 'entertainment'. It's sad how even good TV is becoming "idiot box" TV.

 

[matt_unique]

Yeah I wondered many things as well. How many people essentially solo dive in the Galapagos? If she had lot's of experience filming sharks she should not have been concerned about them attacking her. I also wondered why she did not choose another point on land to try to reach shore.

Of course who knows what anyone would really do under those circumstances. The fact is Shark Week is popular because they sensationalize some aspects/history of sharks. If they marketed the fact that they don't attack humans except in rare cases of mistaken identity and how important they are to eco systems, etc. Some of this is covered during some of the shows but all the hype is about the deadly beasts that fly out of the water crushing everything in their path. It's too bad.

--Matt

 

[EVEYPR7]

I saw this also, thought it was a littled rigged up, but, the tiger shark program was great. I too was dead scared of sharks, even when I saw them in the aquariums, Thank God my fears have grown to respect. Especially when I dived in the Bahamas the week of 07-03-04, my first encounter with a reef shark in the water, it swam around the group around six times, and I didn't react or panic. I was so mesmerized that I couln't keep my eyes off it. It was really beautiful. I respect these creatures more than ever and I think its wrong to kill them, after all it's there world that people keep invading, they were there first.

 

[cudachaser]

There was too much screaming going on

 

[BIGSAGE136]

Pure Hype. Worst start up of Shark Week yet.