How is Fiji so different from that, except that the search for the divers started much earlier? We know Dan and Danielle went missing in an area of open sea with strong currents on a day when wind and sea conditions were unfavorable both for spotting people in the water and for their survival. Dan had done that dive many many times before, and the usual procedures were followed by the boat, but the other divers reported that the current was going a different direction than expected on the other side of the reef. Currents in the passage are usually fairly predictable from the tide tables, but that day they weren't
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MaryMuir,
Thank you again for the detailed answers. You shared a lot of elements and what you say about conditions that day makes some sense of what happened. What is referred to here as a current dive is what we call a drift dive. When you go into the water you know that you are going to travel a significant distance. For this type dive, done in many places, the boat generally follows the divers doing the drift dive. Usually a leader carries a line to a float on the surface; the boat follows behind keeping the float in sight. Sometimes, if conditions are good and with groups of divers the boat will just follow the bubbles and the leader will gather the group at the end of the dive and then send a signaling device on a line to the surface. Its pretty clear from the description that the ocean was too rough to follow bubbles and that wasnt the plan here anyway.
Its interesting to hear that this is not at all how this dive was planned and I take it that it was done this way many many times as a practice, if I understand correctly. The boat drops them off, leaves and goes somewhere else and then picks them up later in some expected destination? Was that point out in the open ocean far away from any islands or reefs? How far apart are the drop off point and the expected link up point?
Again thanks, you are a wonderful friend. Please note I mean no disrespect with these questions but am still trying to understand how this happened. One of the things we do as instructors and dive leaders is to learn from every accident or incident. Sometimes we change techniques. Sometimes we gain other knowledge. Some times we just learn new respect for conditions.
The grief of families and loved ones is incredible. There is no way around that.
There is also a great frustration for fellow dive professionals to see this happen to people doing what we love to do. Not knowing what went wrong greatly compounds it, but not to compare with that for the families.
BC
MaryMuir,
Thank you again for the detailed answers. You shared a lot of elements and what you say about conditions that day makes some sense of what happened. What is referred to here as a current dive is what we call a drift dive. When you go into the water you know that you are going to travel a significant distance. For this type dive, done in many places, the boat generally follows the divers doing the drift dive. Usually a leader carries a line to a float on the surface; the boat follows behind keeping the float in sight. Sometimes, if conditions are good and with groups of divers the boat will just follow the bubbles and the leader will gather the group at the end of the dive and then send a signaling device on a line to the surface. Its pretty clear from the description that the ocean was too rough to follow bubbles and that wasnt the plan here anyway.
Its interesting to hear that this is not at all how this dive was planned and I take it that it was done this way many many times as a practice, if I understand correctly. The boat drops them off, leaves and goes somewhere else and then picks them up later in some expected destination? Was that point out in the open ocean far away from any islands or reefs? How far apart are the drop off point and the expected link up point?
Again thanks, you are a wonderful friend. Please note I mean no disrespect with these questions but am still trying to understand how this happened. One of the things we do as instructors and dive leaders is to learn from every accident or incident. Sometimes we change techniques. Sometimes we gain other knowledge. Some times we just learn new respect for conditions.
The grief of families and loved ones is incredible. There is no way around that.
There is also a great frustration for fellow dive professionals to see this happen to people doing what we love to do. Not knowing what went wrong greatly compounds it, but not to compare with that for the families.
BC