AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Caye Caulker Snorkeling Accident

Jesse is consistent in normally not having any relevant comments on the topic or unable to comprehend the issues. Unless someone else has written it and he can cut and paste it, his contribution to the discussion is to speak derogatory of others. Which I would think he should start a different topic specifically attacking, in this case me. That would allow me to respond to his idiotic and worthless comments without this one being hyjacked. That is unless you are not suppose to do that on the message board.

PS: is it accurate to judge a person's intellegence based on their written words, or would that be unfair to Jesse?

That would take Jesse totally out of the game.

Twice a day, every day, the outgoing currents rip through Hol Chan. It's tidal and if you look up the rule of twelfths it explains slack water at the tides turn, when there is no current at all and then three to four hours later when the most water volume flows and current is at it's peak. High and low tides are widely published, so an indication of when the current is running is easily worked out. I see no reason why the Hol Chan Rangers can't have a flag system on the Ranger Boat indicating when the current is at it's peak.

Hol Chan current is also greatly affected by wind as when more water comes over the reef in large waves it has to exit back to sea somewhere and that is through the Cuts of which Hol Chan is the narrowest for miles. So on windy days it can be greatly magnified and is less predictable.

Generalising and not specifically talking on this tragic incident, if people were better informed of what to do if caught in a current a lot more people around the world would live through an incident like this. It is human nature to try and swim back where you came from and it is physically impossible for even an Olympic Swimmer, let alone an overweight out of shape average person to do this. It tires you out and you get into trouble very quickly. I speak from experience getting caught in a really bad Rip Tide in Northern Sumatra and was very lucky to survive as I did everything I possibly could have wrong.

O.K. my two cents worth again. I agree with Phil. When there is an outgoing current at Hol Chan it is simply a Rip Tide. The higher the tide and stronger the winds generally mean a stronger outgoing current in the channel during out going tides. All the water that comes over the reef is trying to find it's way back out through the channels. This is not all that easy to predict. For some reason this not widely understood by a lot of the guides. The tides published are for Belize City. I believe San Pedro is about 50 minutes earlier. There are many factors that can effect the strength of the current - such as large ocean current and upcoming weather changes. Generally the ocean reacts faster that the air does to weather changes. This is why some type of mechanical current indicator would be great - it's hard to know what's happening without technical information. I guess the rangers could "dive in" every hour to check conditions but I don't see this happening There are plenty of areas in the park that can be snorkeled without entering the "danger zone". If there were zones of safety indicated and enforced then the park would very seldom need to close to snorkelers.
I also believe that times have changed and now all snorkelers should be required to wear a snorkeling vest. At least if they need it they can blow it up and be safe - if they don't need it, then keep it deflated and it's not encumbering. Times are changing and the tour operators must change with them. It only takes a few incidents like this for the safety reputation of an area get internationally tarnished. Belize can not afford this to happen.
Sorry for running on for so long but this was a horrible incident that should never have happened - simple as that. It's time to put rules in place to keep it from reoccurring.