AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area Open Water again?

azbob,
it's easy to lose divers as they get on/off a dive boat. The more people onthe boat, the easier it gets. Many operators will "tag" each diver as they get into the water. As an example, they'll assign each tank with a number tag and record those numbers as the divers get into the water. Then, after everybody's been down for a half hour or so, divers start getting back onto the dive boat and the divemaster checks to see that everybody who got off gets back on.

The first time I saw this was during a night lobster dive with about thirty divers. Some divers blew through their air quickly and were back on the boat right away, while others hunted lobsters methotically and conserved their air, getting back to the boat after an hour. The divemaster kept track of everyone and the operation had a rescue plan that could be implemented if anyone got lost that night.

Now, other operations count heads in other ways or not at all. In Cozumel, for example, several divers are lost every year. The Gulf Stream is born there, in the straights between the Yucatan and Cuba. It's easy to lose divers in the current, and it happens more often than you'd think.

Once, while diving off Bali, we came upon a monster dive boat sponsored by Quicksilver, the Australian swimwear manufacturer. There had to be at least 100 divers on this barge. I can't imagine how they kept track of everybody.

Myself, I carry an EPIRB. That's an emergency locator beacon, the same gizmo that is installed in every aircraft and life raft. If I go missing, I can fire up the beacon and my chances of drifting for days are drastically reduced. It's the best $100 I ever spent on safety equipment.

Dan

I'm glad we don't have problems like this in Belize. The average diver isn't trained well enough in self rescue to survive problems that occur from large groups and strong currents.
correct me if I'm wrong but Belize operators don't have large groups so that no one would not be missed and our currents don't sweep divers out to sea. We don't have to tag them or call the roll. however I have said several times at the end of the dive before we pull away from the site " Anyone not here raise your hand", and got a laugh from the 8 divers on board.

Thanks, Elbert a very clear explanation.

I've dived in places where there's a 3 knot surface current. It's very easy to get lost in that. In fact there was an incident in (I believe) Indonesia a few weeks back when divers were lost at sea for a day or so, then washed ashore on a tiny island populated only by Komodo dragons, which are huge, aggressive, and man-eating. Amazingly all survived with all their bits.