Death in Cocos from shark attack

[Miguel Mantas]

If being open minded, and flexible to exploring new ideas and approaches to issues clearly as alarming as two experienced divers, one a dive master being severely injured and a customer under their care being killed paints one as you describe than so be it.

This death has been one of a series of previous other close encounters and shark attacks in the Cocos dating back over the years, it's now resulted in the culmination of the death of someone. It's a pretty serious thing and shouldn't be treated as lightly as "just the risks you take" or try to be nullified with the typical "mistaken identity" or the other rationalizations the dive industry promotes about "rarity". The Cocos dives are not sold as extremely risky with the chance of severe injury or death occurring on your dive due to the unpredictability of diving with Tiger sharks. I don't ever recall any marketing even mentioning you'll be diving with tiger sharks, the marketing I'm familiar with touts whale sharks, hammer heads and mantas and the only requirement is an open water certification which opens the gates to plenty of newer divers who have limited to no experience with anything approaching tiger sharks.

These are exactly my thoughts...we cannot determine procedures based on the most experienced participants. Risk should always take into consideration the more oblivious kind of people that can happen to show up...that is how you deal with potentially risky subjects in every other field of activity...

 

[drrich2]

From Undersea Hunter’s website:

“
General Info
Dive Experience for Cocos Island
Cocos Island presents the same diving challenges as any other Pacific, Indian or Red Sea diving location. Cocos, however, is not recommended for inexperienced divers because it is an open ocean destination that requires advanced open water diving skills.

Please note, the minimum required level of certification to dive at Cocos is Open Water and we strongly recommend having at least the Specialties of Deep & Night Diver. We also recommend having a minimum of 25 hours of diving experience.

Most dives are at depths deeper than 60 feet / 18 meters. At Cocos currents and visibility can be entirely different in just a few hours. Please note, the dive guide will always be the final authority as to whether a passenger can do any specific dive.
”

Some seasoned, capable divers ‘only’ have an OW cert. Given the time and cost commitment, I suspect the large majority of Cocos divers are fairly seasoned and should know to do a little research.

That said, those of you who’ve done a Cocos trip, have you seen a ‘green’ customer? Just how inexperienced are some of the customers?

Richard.

 

[John Bantin]

Why not wait until the actual facts emerge?

 

[drrich2]

I hope they do. Anyone have a sense of how likely we are to see some kind of official conclusion report? And from who?

Richard.

 

[kelemvor]

Why not wait until the actual facts emerge?

I hope they do. Anyone have a sense of how likely we are to see some kind of official conclusion report? And from who?

More often than not the details never come out. When they do, it's often many months or even years later. There's been a variety of reasons cited for this on almost every A&I thread ever posted on scubaboard.

 

[DanBMW]

From Undersea Hunter’s website:

“
General Info
Dive Experience for Cocos Island

That said, those of you who’ve done a Cocos trip, have you seen a ‘green’ customer? Just how inexperienced are some of the customers?

Richard.

I've only been there once and all of the divers on our boat were very experienced. It is not the place for a new, inexperienced diver who cannot take care of themselves. Everyone going knows this and they are only there for the sharks.

 

[Kay Dee]

Feeding frenzy, LOL, you obviously grew up watching way too many shark movies in the 70s.

LOL all you like Mr Bellows, but unlike yourself, obviously, I've actually seen it with my own eyes, nor did I waste my time watching movies in the seventies, as I was having waaaaaaaay too much fun actually surfïng waves and sailing in different parts of the world back then to even bother watching movies.

And guess what, unlike yourself who by your own words are a "regular at the pub", I still even today don't feel the need to live life vicariously by talking BS about, or watching movies of events I have actually seen in real life.

 

[Kay Dee]

DOUBLE POST. REMOVED. ;-(

 

[Kay Dee]

@John Bantin

If Kevin Denlay wanted to remain anonymous, his SB profile surely betrayed him. As did his avatar and initial posts.

I think John may have been being more than just a little sarcastic there Cert. ;-)

But I was called 'KD' as much or more than Kevin by my friends in later years, hence the same sounding Kay Dee moniker here is all. Besides, when I signed up here I never expected to be having so much fun that I'd be back so often, and hence then feeling I should 'out myself' by actually filling in my profile to have, shall we say at least some, and only some, 'background credibility' about which I speak.

 

[ChrisM]

TBH, those requirements don't sound that onerous to me (frankly they're probably not enough.. maybe). OW only but they recommend deep and night, but so what, So you've done one deep dive and solved a puzzle, and you know how to turn on a dive light.... 25 hours for even a very low SAC rate is, what, 40 dives? I wouldn't be that impressed with that C.V.

At any rate, on our trip we had a non green diver that got separated from their buddy and freaked out at Alcyone. Came up in tears. It's a tough place to dive even with experience and you have to be independent (or be willing to be). We all dropped in at Alcyone and found our own spots, ascended as NDL required. Not always together and no ascent line of course. There were some mellow dives, and then some hairy dives. (same with galapagos, most of us dumped in the water and went solo to our planned depth for the planned time, planning on moving up and meeting shallower... hey if you want to get near hammers LOL....)

We had one Alcyone dive where our underperforming panga got a bit overwhelmed by the following swell, when the water got to our knees the driver ordered us out when we made it to the Alcyone buoy. Rainy, 3-4 foot swells, couldn't see land. Threw our gear over board, geared up in the water over a large school of hammers.... luckily by the time we ascended weather cleared a bit. And the panga was floating, thank god.