Missing Diver off Daytona

[nalagem]

I think he was trying to catch up after his buddy went down with the rest of us..A girl was hanging out at 25' trying to clear her ears and he was seen behind her on the anchor rope..When she came on down, he wasn't there anymore..Visibility was about 30' to 40 ' No one was sure if he went back to the boat or made it down to the wreck.but no one saw him on the wreck..

 

[Wendy]

Not to point blame on anyone, but this is exactly why me and my friends have the rule, that if your buddy has to surface, you surface with them. We dive as teams and you don't leave your buddy. If one buddy thumbs the dive, the buddy thumbs the dive. No questions asked. And if you don't feel 100% then don't dive, there is always another day to dive.

 

[baitedstorm]

I couldn't agree with you more Wendy. I think the biggest mistake is lack of communication between divers. When I dive in a group, I still have my assigned buddy, but I make sure to ask plenty of questions like, if someone needs to come up, do we come up as an entire group or just as individual buddy teams. This is always established before hand. I recently had the privilege of diving with some fellow SB-ers and having this plan put in action made the dive very enjoyable. I knew what to expect, no one took off without someone else knowing where they were. I just wish more divers would learn communication skills are as important as their regulators

 

[Charlie99]

Pye returned to the boat when he couldn't catch his breath and later resumed his dive, Davidson said.

(Emphasis added). It doesn't sound like a good start to a dive.

 

[icyman]

IT is a shame, I keep seeing a trend on these things though. In almost all of these fatalities in the last few post on it its a solo diver. Until I joined this board I had no idea of the amount of divers that die in scuba due to diving solo..Condolences.

Sounds as though he was stressed, and should have just sit the dive out. There is nothing wrong with sitting out a dive, all kinds of factors are working against you when diving if you feel stressed sit a dive out, better to do that and dive on the next dive. I would much rather someone sit out a dive, than me saying "he sure seemed like a nice guy" at your funeral. Again condolences to the family.

 

[TrainerAW]

I agree totally. My buddy and I don't go down seperately. Only together. If one of us can't make it because of ears, equipment, etc. then we both surface and wait. I usually go in first, because he has the camera. I wait at about 5-10 feet depending on vis. If he can't make it. I go back. That's the nice thing about a buddy that you have been diving with since the beginning. You almost don't need signals. You know what's going to happen. I don't ever want to dive alone.

 

[TTSkipper]

I once had a somewhat similar situation and dealt with it very sililar to what it sounds like this guy tried to do. This is the story.

I went out on a boat without a buddy and rather than getting stuck with one buddy of circumstance I got stuck with 2, the threee of us were the only one's on the boat that came without buddies. The dive was to 60' the Iberia wreck. We were all gearing up together and I asked if everyone was ready to jump in "yes" was the reply I got so I went in 1st. Needless to say they were not ready and I waited int he water for what seemed like 5 minutes holding the granny line in moderate swells the whole time getting bobbed up and down and getting banged against the hull of the boat. The bobbing and banging against the boat started getting to my stomach with some queezyness and then my head which made me start to breath pretty hard. I followed the granny line back to the stern, we had dropped in on the starbord side, and stood on the ladder for a few minutes to calm down. Once I was calm I look up and all I see of them is their bubbles. I was ready to go, I dropped in the water went under, I felt totally fine and followed the granny line to the anchor and dropped pretty quick since I can clear my ears quickly. I found the 2 buddies about 10 feet from the bottom and we did our dive.

I learned a few lessons from this:
1. Try at all costs to bring one of your regular buddies with you on a boat dive
2. If you get stuck with a buddy or buddies of circumstance then make sure that you communicate all of the plans including what happens if someone has to call it at the surface or call it anywhere else.
3. If you get teamed with 2 buddies of circumstance who also do not know each other, then maybe you are better off not diving or maybe even diving with another buddy team who does dive together regularly so that they will pay a little more attention to you because they probably have a better sense of how their other partner dives to begin with and can predict some of their behaviour.

Just my story and thoughts,
TTSkipper

 

[diverbob]

I was diving with a group of 10 divers off daytona yesterday morning and one of our divers never came back up..We were diving the alexander about 11 miles off ponce inlet..Visibility was good,but a little breezy and choppy on the surface..He was last seen on the anchor rope at 20 ft. on the way down..No one saw him on the wreck so we don't think he made it down.. We spent most of the day looking for him..Here's a link to the news report
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Local/03AreaEAST09081304.htm

I cant get that link to work. Can someone please paste the story into a post? Thanks in advance.

 

[diverbob]

I dove with Sea Dogs back in May. They seemed to have a pretty good idea what was going on with everyone at all times when I was there. I did find it odd that they sent down a single DM, and everyone else could just follow him, or if you had your own buddy, you could pair up and do your own dive.

 

[greyface]

drbill - I have many, many dives with "that operation" , and they are top shelf.