Had some trouble outta Jax today

[awthacker]

We had a really weird incident in the EF area today. We did two drops around TW, then came in for a third dive. We came in to find someone else on the site we wanted to dive, so headed a mile back out to the Moody culverts. There were two boats nearby, but neither was on the culverts. Then as we approached, one of the boats (with dive flag up), which appeared to be at rest maybe 300 yds from the site, began to head directly towards our bearing. It seemed like an aggressive move to cut us off from our destination, and we were forced to slow to idle, and so we eased within 20 ft of the vessel to see what was going on. They yelled that they had a diver in the water and we questioned where their diver was and if they didn't mind if we did a dive on the culverts or if they were about to do so. He yelled again that he had a diver down and pointed out a previously unnoticed white styrofoam marker buoy. Now we realized they had a diver under us and had left him and for a few hundred yards, so they had to race back and defend him from us when they saw us approaching. Meanwhile, their diver surfaces right next to us while we were idling in reverse away from their vessel, and pushes off our boat with his gun. He scowls and mutters something about divers below. I can kind of understand why he was frustrated with us, having been underwater and not realizing that his boat had abandoned him some 300 yds.

Later, while cleaning the boat I found a nice scratch along my hull where their diver intentionally ran his speartip across my hull. The vessel in question was a 25-28 ft Shamrock with a cabin and had three guys up top. No name on the vessel. It's probable that some of the guys on that boat read this forum or that someone here knows of that boat. I'd never try and get into any kinda mess out on the water and think any misunderstanding can be resolved. Because this was a project restoration boat, the scratch caused no real damage because I plan to paint my hull later. But I do wanna know why a 50 some yr old man (the diver) would take that course of action... even if we had been at fault. Speak up so we can put this behind us. Here's the scratch and here is my boat.

Aaron Thacker
482-2129

[Bulit7]

Blame it on the dickhead at the helm Aaron.
The diver did what pretty much any one of us could have done in such a situation.
The fact that he was diving with a Styrofoam ball aint good either.

[Spear CR]

Good on you to stand up and say so.

Hopefully he will do the same.

No reason to fuss about an honest mistake, on both sides.

My hook and line buddies have left me before only to surface with them within air whistle distance only.

Some people don't know.

[elsanto67]

Damn, i was hoping he didnt use his spear when he pushed off, but I guess he did. Those guys running the boat are retards, the diver just sorta got caught in the middle, still no excuse for messing up your boat. I still can't figure out why they would drift so far off a diver in the water.

I was there, and the boat was nowhere near the diver down position. he got up on a plane and made a 2 minute run to cut us off to say there was a diver down.... The worse part was that they acted like we were the dumbasses.....

It's guys like them that give divers a bad name, and I just hope next time their diver uses his safety sausage when surfacing, cause you can't count on the damn dive flag when it's 300 yards away....

[DAVUS]

Wow!! I be pissed if my boat got that far away!! Not cool.. What if there was an emergency????

[Serpent6]

Dear Awthacker,

In my 39 years of diving you accomplished a great distinction of being the first to ever run me over. Yes I may be classified as a older diver but it did take you two passes to accomplish it. As I was making a safety stop near my buoy and you passed only a few feet over me at a HIGH rate of speed. This is nothing new and we all have had folks run too close at times. Since it was time for me to come up and there was clearly traffic above, I clipped my orange safety sausage on the tip of my gun. Little good that did since you guys never looked back. When I surfaced you were in reverse at pretty good clip and I had just enough time to turn to hit your transom, instead of your prop. You guys never knew I was around until I passed from aft port quarter, under the boat and up on your abeam port side.

My crew was completing picking up a diver (down current) when you approached them. After talking to them, you put it in reverse and struck me. You covered 300 yards pretty quickly if I was that far away from the boat. Your situation awareness is as about as good as your judgment of distance. It is consistent with what you consider ’idling’.

The ‘scowl’ was due to the fact, you did not ask if I was Ok, or offer to render assistant if I was injured. Your only comment was that my boat captain should stay closer to the divers before you took off. You could have told him yourself, he was close enough. Even if the boat was far away, it is inexcusable to back over a diver on a clear-calm day. Learn from this and practice safer boating. The next diver may not be as old or forgiving as I.

[Bulit7]

Just goes to show that this stuff can happen to anyone, even a seasoned diver that knows what he is doing.

300 yards is a long way from your vessel serpent. Its open season when that far away.


I have a few suggestions:

1. Approach any vessel with a flag up very slowly and look for markers that may not necessarily be safety reg compliant.

2. Use a marker that is identifiable to others. A styrofoam ball does not cut it.

3. Use a sound signalization device attached to your bcd so you can call or signal other boaters.

4.Monitor channel 16 and hail other vessels on a known site of your approach, direction and intention.(approaching vessel)

5.Monitor channel 16 and hail approaching traffic. Identify your vessel and alert traffic of location and approximate location of divers.


There really is zero excuses for not having a diver use a dive flag float, especially if there is no current on shallow dives. Had the diver used a readily identifiable dive flag as per Florida Boating Code, this situation would never have happened.

We all can probably learn from this.

[elsanto67]

Originally Posted by Serpent6

Dear Awthacker,

In my 39 years of diving you accomplished a great distinction of being the first to ever run me over. Yes I may be classified as a older diver but it did take you two passes to accomplish it. As I was making a safety stop near my buoy and you passed only a few feet over me at a HIGH rate of speed. This is nothing new and we all have had folks run too close at times. Since it was time for me to come up and there was clearly traffic above, I clipped my orange safety sausage on the tip of my gun. Little good that did since you guys never looked back. When I surfaced you were in reverse at pretty good clip and I had just enough time to turn to hit your transom, instead of your prop. You guys never knew I was around until I passed from aft port quarter, under the boat and up on your abeam port side.

My crew was completing picking up a diver (down current) when you approached them. After talking to them, you put it in reverse and struck me. You covered 300 yards pretty quickly if I was that far away from the boat. Your situation awareness is as about as good as your judgment of distance. It is consistent with what you consider ’idling’.

The ‘scowl’ was due to the fact, you did not ask if I was Ok, or offer to render assistant if I was injured. Your only comment was that my boat captain should stay closer to the divers before you took off. You could have told him yourself, he was close enough. Even if the boat was far away, it is inexcusable to back over a diver on a clear-calm day. Learn from this and practice safer boating. The next diver may not be as old or forgiving as I.

That is a pretty blatent stretching of the truth. Your crew was sooooooo far away from you, and we were forced to back up because your captain cut us off and only gave us the option to back out. I don't think you have your facts straight, because it was your boat that slammed into reverse, we were merely idling. The last time I checked, the law states that idle speed is allowed within a diver down flag.

If you knew we were over you, why did you surface there? why didnt you blow a whistle? it's hard to look in all directions when you have a crazy captain about to hit you with another boat while he is yelling at you for his mistake. Maybe next time use a red marker like most normal people do so someone else besides you knows where it is.

Trust me, we felt bad, because it wasnt your fault, it was your captains. and we even talked about how they weren't gonna tell you the truth after we left about how f-ing far away from you they were. Still gives you no right to do what you did, we had no clue you were coming up at the back of our boat, you probably thought it was your boat.

BTW, you were nowhere near your buoy either, but that really doesn't even matter. I could tell by looking at you that you were fine.
Our captain was completely apologetic to your crew, i was not so much. It was an honest mistake that could have been avoided by a little better prevention on the part of your crew, such as the above mentioned red marker, and staying by your divers while manning the boat. Or you could have actually inflated your sausage while doing your safety stop, which isn't a bad idea while drift diving near a lot of other boats.

[rubberduck]

The only dickheads and retarded people on here is the person running ur boat that was headed for the jug that was a white 2 1/2 gallon jug the reason u could not see the jug was because the way u were sitting in ur boat heading for my jug at a high rate af speed and I was picking up another diver that was down current from the jug I assumed when I started heading for the jug u would of atleast slowed down but u did not so yes I did have to head for ur boat so u would not run over my diver like u did. You should consider ur self lucky cause if it was me u would have a hole in ur boat not a scratch.

[Bulit7]

Originally Posted by rubberduck

The only dickheads and retarded people on here is the person running ur boat that was headed for the jug that was a white 2 1/2 gallon jug the reason u could not see the jug was because the way u were sitting in ur boat heading for my jug at a high rate af speed and I was picking up another diver that was down current from the jug I assumed when I started heading for the jug u would of atleast slowed down but u did not so yes I did have to head for ur boat so u would not run over my diver like u did. You should consider ur self lucky cause if it was me u would have a hole in ur boat not a scratch.

Sorry to say this but a 2 gallon jug dont cut it. You are wrong. Your dive protocol is wrong and consider yourself lucky that your diver is not dead or injured due to your negligence.

State law requires the use of a DIVE FLAG ! Not a jug.

Abide by the law

[kwspearfishing7]

Elslanto67 did you read his post his crew was picking up another diver that was doing a drift that's why he was so far away from his boat I'm a dive boat capt it happens and when a another boat tells you that they have a diver in the water under you, you should put you motors in neutral right away untill you have located the diver in question



Serpant6 you should have had been using something else besides a white ball for a marker like safety sausage or floating dive flag

You both are at Fault and are lucky no one got hurt

[elsanto67]

Originally Posted by Bulit7

Sorry to say this but a 2 gallon jug dont cut it. You are wrong. Your dive protocol is wrong and consider yourself lucky that your diver is not dead or injured due to your negligence.

State law requires the use of a DIVE FLAG ! Not a jug.

Abide by the law

Thank you bulit. There is so much crap floating in the ocean, you actually think that a white 2 gallon jug is gonna stop someone? You know you are in the wrong, and no one in their right mind is gonna back you on it. They have laws for a reason, when all else fails in an argument, refer to the law, and you just admitted your mistake.

YOU MADE THE MISTAKE! We had to adjust to compensate for YOUR mistake, don't confuse what really happened....

[deich]

Im gonna have to agree a 2gal jug.. WFT??? had y'all had a dive flag the OP would nt have much of a case, but a 2gal jug. Really?

Y'all may want to look into a dive flag in the future to avoid your own deaths..

[elsanto67]

Originally Posted by kwspearfishing7

Elslanto67 did you read his post his crew was picking up another diver that was doing a drift that's why he was so far away from his boat I'm a dive boat capt it happens and when a bother boat talks you that they have a diver in the water under you, you should put you motors in neutral right away untill you have located the diver in question



Serpant6 you should have had been using something else besides a white ball for a marker

You both are at Fault and are luck no one got hurt

Yes I did, and I realize that. We were trying to avoid a colision at that point.... It's either back up, or run into a boat that just cut you off. When I surface near my boat, I always keep an eye on the prop, even when I know the captain. I don't surface near a boat in gear, but that's just me, IDK, maybe that's stupid of me....

[elsanto67]

Originally Posted by deich

Im gonna have to agree a 2gal jug.. WFT??? had y'all had a dive flag the OP would nt have much of a case, but a 2gal jug. Really?

Y'all may want to look into a dive flag in the future to avoid your own deaths..

And white on top of that..... there is a reason that dive flags, markers, buoys, and sausages are NOT white!!! Cause you can't see them. Yeah, it was obvious as hell to them cause it was their marker and they knew where it was. I never even saw the marker until they physically pointed at it.