German woman dies diving Cozumel

[Flipper Chick]

Oh, good grief!
A camera! Today's cameras are so small and simple there's no reason not to carry one all the time, from dive one. Or from snorkel one!
Back in the days of iron men and wooden ships we all made our very first dive with a speargun. Not many used it on the first dive, but we all carried one. A modern camera's nothing.
Lambasting COZ dive practices on this one is quite a stretch (to say nothing of being off-topic with tales from other times and other divers that have absolutely nothing to do with this accident). From the eyewitness account in the second post, this unfortunate lady was the victim of something other-than-scuba, and just happened to be underwater when it happened.
I'd bet even money that when the ME's done that's what we'll find out.
E

Remind me never to be your dive buddy. If you honestly think and believe that it is safe to be able to dive with a camera right from the get go you need to give your head a shake. It is a total distraction at a time when new divers should be working and focusing on their skills. I am not even going to bother arguing this point anymore. I agree with the other post that you should have at least 50 dives under your belt before you even THINK about bringing a camera on a dive with you. But hey don't listen to me. I'll keep collecting all the camera's I see on the bottom from all the new divers who panic when the littlest thing goes wrong and drop their camera's to do more important things like save their own life. Anyone want an underwater camera cuz I have lots of them for sale that I found for free.

 

[RogerAGrimes]

I know nothing of this particular scenario, although I was diving at 70' in Cozumel a few days ago...and there was zero current. I've dove Cozumel a few times over the years and each time they have been blasting current dives. This time neither of the two sites visited had any current. The Mexican DMs said this was expected during this period of time (i.e. season?) each year. Water vis was a little down (compared to past years) at slightly past 100 feet at 70' and maybe 60-80' of vis at the shallower reefs. Waves were up a bit due to the wind, at 1-3 ft depending on the time of day...but overall not bad. I only mention this because conditions were fairly good for a new diver and probably didn't contribute to the incident.

 

[gkwalt]

This boils down to the watered down training OW students get. Many students don't learn the basic like dive tables, they are able to become certified if they don't drown after the required number of dives, or they can do regulator retrieval. Does the sky diving industry require that student be able to just fall out of an airplane before becoming a certified skydiver? As an instructor I work with an agency who believes that students are a mechanism to support a LDS. If you certify a student as a wreck diver, you can sell them a reel and a light. Yes, I want to have as many folks as possible share the thrill of diving. But I feel that we as an industry need to tighten the requirements for certification. Although I'm an old fart, I remember when I did OW training I learned about the Navy tables and deco. In fact, to get an "advanced OW" card, I had to do a deco dive and make an OOA ascent from 60'! The question is (and I don't have the answer) how do we make the training more rigorous without limiting the number of people who can become in a sport that we love?