Dangerous Crossing

[Dave Dillehay]

Several weeks ago, in a thread about diving the bull sharks on the mainland, I cautioned divers to avoid trying to make the crossing in small boats...no matter the weather report. There are many reasons for that and I won't go in them now. But today, a small local boat with a single engine attempted a crossing to see the bull sharks, with paying diver's on board.

Mid channel it sunk leaving all divers and crew in the water, drifting towards Cuba. Fortunately a large yacht finally came across them and no lives were lost.

It is not that making the crossing from Cozumel should not be done, just be VERY careful when choosing a boat and operation to do so.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[Christi]

My very best wishes to everyone! I am so glad they are all ok!

 

[cicopo]

I guess it's fair to say they won't try that again but they just might want to thanks whatever God they believe in for the help.

 

[Mike]

Operation in question was? You can spell it out in pig Latin if you need to...

 

[Darol]

Everyone O.K. and a new wreck to dive...... Karma?

 

[mediumone]

Doesn't seem like you're joking. But I have to ask ---For real, Scuba Mau?

 

[deborahdelamar]

For real and it's likely that we will see a first-hand report of the incident posted here in the near future. Thanks to the folks of the yacht Ice for their huge role in this rescue. And to the Mexican Navy.

 

[TomZ]

Wow. Just Wow.

I't extraordinary how often Scuba Mau and Opal's Dream are mentioned here, both good and bad. Weird.

 

[Mike]

The possibility for an accident exists equally for all dive ops no matter what and there is nothing they can do about that. The probability is what they can directly effect. Single outboard increases your probability of an accident, taking it out from a close distance to shore such as crossing a channel further increases it again. Single motor goes down and you lose the ability to point the bow into the weather, waves and wind will automatically turn the boat and expose the broad side which can destabalize you to the point of capsize.

I was told more than once that the reason the harbor master closes the port so often and quickly is because the safety margin for so many of Cozumel's dive boats is so razor thin. I think it got exposed if you were paying attention a few years ago when that storm blew in so quickly during the afternoon and so many dive boats had big troubles very quickly and some got swamped and sank. You just have to be aware outside the US that the same levels of regulations and protections don't exist and lax safety is all around you.

Just be careful of the 'what me worry?' syndrome on vacation, just as we are supposed to be smart enough to avoid 'trust me dives', we have to apply the same thinking to other things we are going to do.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Not sure which is worse.......the owner for thinking it was ok .......the captain for thinking it was ok........or the divers who thought it was ok to try to cross a channel known for rough seas in a glass bottom boat with that many people on board. They are lucky they all survived.

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