Scuba diver goes missing off Catalina Island

[MaxBottomtime]

The color of a BC is immaterial, but somebody going in the water with no BC would catch the eye of even the most disinterested of observers.

On some California boats a diver wearing a BC would stick out like a sore thumb.
Gallery of California Backpack Divers : 1999-2001

 

[Steve_C]

Is there really any excuse for going OOA?

No, but hunting for something (lobsters, fossils, china, brass) at depth does that to a lot of folks. We have a local dive that is a tooth dive. Lots of fossils. Depth is 100 ft. The boat reminds everybody on each trip to watch their air. But OOA occurs more frequently at this site than others. Folks get wrapped up in the quest, they get a little narced with tunnel vision, they loose track of time and air. When I dive it I find myself making a conscious effort to keep checking the air and it does require a bit of an effort.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

So if she

It's a point that after one prior accident it should make her a safer diver and pay close attention to air supply, or it could mean she did not learn the lesson and got herself into the same situation, we don't know. With one prior accident we don't know, if she had two then a reckless pattern would emerge.

Still, running out of air is high on the list of possibilities as we know she was very involved in trophy lobster hunting and could have been distracted. Another possibility high on the list is runaway negative buoyancy with subsequent narcosis.

So if she did something twice in 12 yrs that would be a pattern. If you say so,,.. But you never answered the question ...what relevance does the prior one have to the recent fatality and more directly, why bring it up here?? Is your intent to denigrate the decision making skills of the decedent? Is your point that the boat operator was negligent to even allow her to dive on their boar after the first accident? I'm confused about why this information is included in this thread?

 

[Steve_C]

Not sure I understand why you are upset dD. Observation was made that she had an OOA in her past. Observation was made that she was known as a serious lobster hunter. Perhaps that is irrelevant. Perhaps not. Does provide a possible scenario for what happened based on things she had done before (ones that we know of).

 

[KevinG58]

This is troubling indeed. It's like when you hear about police officers falsifying statements just to get convictions. Shakes your faith in people knowing that they don't know right from wrong and will use or not use information to shape their reality. Very troubling indeed.

Troubling, but not surprising, is it? Just because someone shows up with an "expert badge" doesn't mean they shouldn't be questioned about their methods, even their qualifications. The good folks outnumber the bad, but until you poke around a bit you don't know which you may be dealing with.

 

[Hatul]

On some California boats a diver wearing a BC would stick out like a sore thumb.
Gallery of California Backpack Divers : 1999-2001

I wasn't aware there were people diving with no BCs today. How do they deal with buoyancy change from wetsuit compression? Perhaps they're only doing shallow dives?

 

[scubadada]

This incident was written up in the February issue of Undercurrent. The full article is only available to subscribers, a teaser is available in the public domain The Sun Diver Loses Another Diver: Undercurrent 02/2016

I would encourage subscribers to read the entire article

 

[Dive Time Remaining]

Just curious if anyone reading this has caught a single lobster within recreational dive limits at Ship Rock this season? Even the boats will tell you Ship Rock is not known for lobster. I have dove it recently and can confirm, not a single one. Not to say someone wouldn't try, but.....

 

[merxlin]

This incident was written up in the February issue of Undercurrent. The full article is only available to subscribers, a teaser is available in the public domain The Sun Diver Loses Another Diver: Undercurrent 02/2016

I would encourage subscribers to read the entire article

Rather than drive up their subscriptions- can you paraphrase their take on this and if there is anything in the article that hasn't been discussed in this thread?

 

[MMM]

Rather than drive up their subscriptions- can you paraphrase their take on this and if there is anything in the article that hasn't been discussed in this thread?

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

The only "new" content I can see in there is material I have already removed from this forum because it violates the special rules for this forum...that is, issues unrelated to this accident. If I have to remove those again, as per the warning I posted some time back, I will also be removing access rights to this forum. So be careful what is brought back here. Marg, SB Senior Moderator.

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