Taveuni Fiji - Aqua-Trek Nightmare

I'm with you in some repects Jeremy, I think communication is the key to this scenario.

Steve

I totally hear you loud and clear and let me also say I too am glad everyone was ok and wish the couple many happy and safe dives in the future.

Steve, you are right ... the choice to rejoin the dive after surfacing was just that - a choice to be made by the diver and based on his or her judgement and the conditions. Personally, particularly with a strong current, there's no way I'm going chasing bubbles of divers I can't see on a site I've never dove ... but that's me. I can respect that a spouse or other loved one - particluarly one less experienced - in that group could significantly influence the decision. My wife does not dive, but someday I hope my son and daughter will.

I still think they are being too hard on the dive master. They made her job very hard by first ignoring her advice and then trying to audible a new plan underwater and expecting her to understand all the nuances.

"Plan the dive, dive the plan." Any time you stray from a dive plan without a rock solid new one, you risk exactly the kind of confusion that clearly resulted on this dive.

i read the accounts of those involved, and tried to put myself in the shoes of the dive guide because i'm positive this is going to happen to me one of these days when i lead some divers on a trip.

here's my 'analysis' and conclusion:

facts

1. i have 3 divers around the other side of the coral formation in a strong current.

2. i have another diver with me

3. all 4 divers are pretty deep, and cannot hang around for 15 minutes without aborting the dive.

4. i have another diver who just went up to the boat and didn't come back.

the logical thing i'd do is to quickly pop back up the boat (i hate see-saw profiles!), check if the lady is at the boat. but i'd really want all 4 divers in the water to be together, so i send the guy to join the other 3 ladies first before i head up to the boat.

when i get up to the boat, the boat man says "yeah she came up, then went back down to look for you guys."

now, i didn't see the lady on my way up, so i have no idea where she went. assuming there was a dive briefing and she knew the dive plan and general direction, she could have carried on the dive. i still have 4 divers down at 80 ft in a strong current. my panties are starting to feel a little twisted here. so i tell the boat guy to keep an eye out for the missing lady, i'm going to get my 4 divers in the water and maybe carry on with the dive and see if i can find her along the way.

i descend again and catch the other 4 divers still waiting there and see no sign of the missing lady. it's big blue ocean, with a wall on one side. maybe she's just further up the wall? or could she have given up and gone back to the boat? urgh :glare:

so i have 2 options now, carry on the dive and see if she's ahead, or abort the dive and hope the lady's on the boat. if i abort the dive and she's not on the boat, i can't call search and rescue yet because it's only 10 minutes. plus these 4 (maybe 3, cos the husband is going to be worried) customers are going to be pissed at me if i say we all surface, so let's just see if she's further along the wall. in any case, i don't know where to search for her because i haven't seen her at all when i went up and down the line, and the boatman's watching out on the surface.

so yup, chances are i'd carry on the dive. but then again, if it were a strong current, i'd go with the current or abort the dive right from the start and try someplace else. but i guess this wasn't an option you had at that particular site.

to be fair, i would have gone up together with the lady and her camera, after getting the 4 divers in the water together. if it were not possible, then let the 3 who had gone on ahead to wait, and gone up with the man and the lady instead of sending the man to join the other 3.

i'm not saying it's anyone's fault, more like a series of unfortunate events and miscommunication made worse by not following safe community standards (surfacing without the buddy, going back down alone when unsure of the dive site).

i'm glad you guys came back safe! and thanks for providing this classroom learning activity for me to think it through.

Having personally performed the exact dive in question a few times, I have a small addition to the overall fine discussion above.

This dive drops through a cave to about 80 feet as mentioned, exits into fast current on a deep but magnificent wall and requires good bouyancy control. You must watch your depth as its all too easy to watch the lovely sites and miss depth control and find yourself way too deep. This should have been explained in the pre-dive, as it was on all my dives there albeit with a different dive shop. Wall dive, fast current, cave swim through (really a drop through) - all spelling exact bouyancy control.

If this information was presented in the pre-dive discussion as it should have been, one thing should be clear - its NOT the time for new large volume equipment testing.

Add to this your discussion sounds like the first dive of the vacation and it all spells... BE EXTRA CAREFUL.

All the discussion about staying with buddy, being rude to others, etc is worthwhile and accurate.

But the pre-dive briefing should have warned you to leave the case in the boat, regardless of weight selection, etc.

The shore in front of GIR would be a more likely place for testing bouyancy in perhaps 5-8 ft of water, etc. I did not stay at GIR so I am not certain of that shore but the shore in other parts of the island would allow that testing.

HTH,

Dave

I have dived (If you can call what we did a dive) this wall and it aint easy. 4 or 5 of us did this dive and the current was one of the strongest I have been in. We followed our dive guide and had some horrendous bottom rock hauling across a gully and then swam between some boulders and turned into the current the only person who could swim against this was the Very Fit Fijian dive guide. The rest of us were blown to all points of the compass and I made one of my worst ascents ever.

Where we went sounds nothing like Diver Daves over view of the approach to the wall but I did see some great soft coral in my early attempt to swim against this current. As I was rolled over in the current on my way to the surface I remember thinking boy this ain't the easiest dive I have done.

I've done over 2000 dives and been in strange situations but where we went ain't for the unfit or the faint hearted on their first dive. Any talk of strong current unless it's a drift dive always brings my antenna to full attention.

I was glad to be out of there.

I'm with you in some repects Jeremy, I think communication is the key to this scenario. We can't expect new divers to be able to understand all the non verbal stuff we use underwater. It takes a while even for people who spend a lot of time together on land to be able to read each others minds underwater. Once Tatiana was in the water on the dive, I think she did the right thing though, she did a great job of following the bubbles back down to her buddy and got back together with the group. I would have done the same thing in her place. I'd bet most of us have been seperated from the group at one time or another, you just get back together and go on. I had an interesting experience on my wife's first open water dive in Cayman many years ago. She had about 10 Califiornia dives under her belt at the time. There is a pinnacle on the west side of the island that comes up to 80 ft. from a depth of about 300 ft. It's about 40 ft. wide at the top. Our group consisted of 6 friends and the guide. On our descent I noticed one of the other divers didn't look right. The group was headed down and he was bringing up the rear at about 30'. I swam over closer and saw his eyes were rolled back in his head and he was losing it. I got him back to the surface where he came to and we got him back on the boat. He found out the hard way it's not recommended to try and drink the airplane dry then dive the next morning. My wife meanwhile was somewhere below me headed toward I knew not where. I still hold the unofficial record for descending to 80 ft. She was fine of course and was merrily enjoying the new experience, my other friends had joined up with her when they saw what I was up to. There was no way I was going to stay with the boat with my inexperienced wife somewhere below me. We have since learned to dive together and communicate much better. In her couple of thousand dives since that day we have descended together and can read each others mind. Every situation is different, we have to make the calls based on our experience and the conditions. Im not saying your wrong. I just think Tatiana did the right thing in that situation and I sincerely hope that she and her husband have many years of enjoyable dives ahead of them. Hey Tatiana, if you read this tell your husband " We need to work on our communication" we just love to hear that.

 

Steve

You are right Steve, I wouldn't have quit the dive knowing my husband had only a few dives of experience with a guide that abandoned someone else! Ever since then my husband has improved in staying close and trying to find out what's going on with each othere during the dive.

And Jeremy, the "I'll be right back" signal I used for diving is the same one you would have used outside when you are not diving...there are many ways to signal someone to wait or that you'll be there soon when they are far away, if you can't think of any way on which you can signal something like that then you must really have problems communicating uderwater because sometimes it takes creativity to express yourself downthere, don't yout think?

I still think they are being too hard on the dive master. They made her job very hard by first ignoring her advice and then trying to audible a new plan underwater and expecting her to understand all the nuances.

 

"Plan the dive, dive the plan." Any time you stray from a dive plan without a rock solid new one, you risk exactly the kind of confusion that clearly resulted on this dive.

Dear Jeremy, I don't think you are reading this thread well...As I explained on previous posts, I took more weight than I usually take thinking of the buoyancy of the housing, I asked the divemaster why she gave me so much weight and she couldn't answer she had a bad attitude since the beginning. During the briefing no one talked about strong currents or wrong conditions for trying new equipment. I tried to follow the plan but it wasn't possible, it took me 4 min to solve my problem and go back down and be left by myself.

i read the accounts of those involved, and tried to put myself in the shoes of the dive guide because i'm positive this is going to happen to me one of these days when i lead some divers on a trip.

 

i'm glad you guys came back safe! and thanks for providing this classroom learning activity for me to think it through.

Thank you antacid,

I really appreciate the opinion of a divemaster...I wish this lady would have been as communicative as you because since the beginning she refused to play her leader role and focus her attention on being rude.

I totally understand that a real divemaster would have been totally stressed through the situation, but she totally seemed to ignore any trouble, she didn't tell the boat that I was missing, she didn't answer my questions, she abandoned the group when she was running out of air.

Anyway, I think that if this ever happens to you, you'll be able to answer any questions that divers might ask, you'll talk for yourself instead of refusing to explain why you did what you did, and overall you won't lie about the facts.

Tatiana,

I don't and didn't intend to pick a fight ... but I'd like to make a couple points since you seem to want to keep this going ...

I found it a bit unkind to trash someone on a public forum without the opportunity for that individual to respond ... so I took the divemaster's side to give her a voice.

In my opinion, you still don't seem to be taking much responsibility for what happened. You and your decisions played a HUGE role in this fortunately harmless episode of underwater confusion.

I'm glad you are ok ... really ... but I think you need to examine your own contribution to this incident more closely.

Best,

Jeremy

In my opinion, you still don't seem to be taking much responsibility for what happened. You and your decisions played a HUGE role in this fortunately harmless episode of underwater confusion.

I'm glad you are ok ... really ... but I think you need to examine your own contribution to this incident more closely.

Best,

Jeremy

I am with Jeremy and a couple of others on this one.

A dive guide or an unknown buddy are there for the guideance of fools. If you put your faith in them rather than yourself you are swimming in dangerous waters. The guides primary role in my life is to find stuff not to ensure I survive the dive. That is my responsibility and nobody else's.

A woman on a boat in PNG a couple of years ago died 2 weeks after I went on the same trip and all she needed to survive losing her mask in a strong current, whilst hooked on, was a knife. Was it the guides fault she didnt take a knife or her husbands who was right next to her when she drowned. What I am saying is there are a thousand simple ways to die down there. If you read the death reports and take note of techniques from other good divers you are minimising the chances that the next one might be you.

My view is you took a chance and you both came out it OK make the most of it.

Onwards and Upwards.

Ardy

all the gear, no idea. springs to mind.

100 dives in 10 years, i would not call that experienced. what kind of dives were the 100. were they adrenalin challenging current dives. it doesnt sound like it.

you say that you both are not keen on strong currents. you should have done your homework prior to purchasing your plane ticket. you seem to find the internet a great source for slagging people off, but not for research.

i have not dived this particular dive but i have dived a lot of maldivian channels and the strong waters of komodo, galapagos and cocos. i always make a point of asking about current strength prior to getting on a boat. if it is likely to be too strong, and we are going to be fighting the current then my rig stays behind. if it is a drift, then i will take it. the best images you can have are the ones that stay in your heads hard drive ( your brain ) i will always add a few kilos to compensate my dome and a couple for the current. i use 4k in a 3mm wetsuit in clam tropical waters. add 1 or 2 if i am diving in a strong current and need to get down pretty fast, and add 2 to compensate my dome.

one of the best dives i have done was in komodo - cannibal rock. the briefing was expect to be fighting very strong currents. when i hear the words " fighting and very " that is an indication to me to leave the rig behind. we dove here twice and both times we see the biggest scools of fish that we have ever seen. ok i have no photos of this but i can still remember the dive for its beauty and not for things that went wrong.

how do you both communicate to each other underwater, hand signals alone!

do you not having rattles or tank clangers that you could use to comunicate. my buddy and i have tunes that we do with ours that mean certain things. it might be an idea to get some more new toys and get some communication sounds sorted between you. ie. 3 taps followed by a pause and then 3 taps and so on means i am at 5 mtrs doing a safety stop and the boat is above my bubbles. it might sound stupid to some reading this but it works. use other tunes for other meanings.

i have seen this kind of scenario quite a few times, not the scenario of the guide, but of inexperienced divers taking top of the range rigs on a dive that they do not have the experience to dive without a rig, let alone with a barnd new rig that they havent used.

the person here that i would put at fault would be the female diver. not the guide. she should not have gone back down after getting to the surface. ok she might have seen bubbles from the a distance, but to try and fight a current and catch up is not the thing to have done. i might be mistaken but i do not recall hearing that the 3 other divers that were left on their own made any complaints of being left to themselves. perhaps they were experienced divers and didnt even notice that you had gone awol. i for one would have been pretty pi$$ed if the dive was aborted due to the facts that you have written.

the main thing is you are both here to tell the story.

When I dive with my wife, I stick to her like glue. I think there should be a clear understanding, I go up - she goes up and if she goes up, I go up. I think particularly on new dives this is a good rule, for safety and marital bliss. I think all this could have been avoided if you guys had done this, even if you then decided to abort the dive.

Hi folks

I'll try not to repeat comments already made by others, but here's my viewpoint.

I tend to lean towards the views of Steve and Jeremy though it seems there were errors on both sides. My criticism of anyone involved though is offerred cautiously - as I wasnt there.

1. In terms of who should be doing the dive, there is responsibility on both sides. A wall dive in strong currents is ALWAYS a challenging dive. Now around a hundred dives over a 12 year period is not that many dives, so its not s good indicator of your experience - as you already have said. There operator/divemaster has some responsibility to ensure that inexperienced divers are not taken on dives beyond there current level of competence. When you dive with a diveguide they are exactly that - a guide to an unfamiliar dive site, not someone who is there to instruct on a one-to-one basis. Therefore there MAY, I stress may, be issues as to the whether you were both questioned fully about your experience and given correct advice about the level of experience required. If your husband had considerably less experience then one wonders whether he should have been there. Having said that, your both adults. There's lots of info available about the Great White Wall. You both knew how much diving you'd done and in what conditions better than anyone.

2. WEIGHT. A large SLR camera housing sans camera will be VERY bouyant. If you weren't aware of that beforehand it should have been immediately obvious as soon as you tried to leave the surface. Additionally, in strong current you will often need additional weight to prevent yourself being 'lifted and blown away' in the tidal stream. Maybe you should have been given advice on this by the divemaster, however if you undertake a challenging dive with a large expensive camera housing maybe you should fully understand what is required. It is true that divemasters often assume that people with professional looking camera setups are going to be very experienced and don't give them as much attention as they would otherwise.

3. SEPERATION. I've been diving for a few decades but, like jeremy, I don't know the 'wait-a-minute-I'm just-popping-to-the-surface-I'll-be-right-back' signal either. No guide or instructor likes their group being seperated as they then lose control of the situation. If you are descending in fairly strong current, mid-water without a shotline, as I interpret the description then the guide only has two choices: bring all the group back to the surface - if she can, or continue down to the reef. She cannot wait mid-water. Now maybe this should have been more carefully stressed during the briefing, but at this point the fault is yours. You've started a group dive inadequately prepared and so have had to abort your descent. The giude is then in a very tricky position. Does she try to bring all divers back to the surface, or does she sit and wait for you.

4. BUBBLES. 'The boat captain told her that there were bubbles below and that she should dive there' Bad errors on both sides here. But maybe the captain wasn't a diver, so not the person to take advice from. Could you clearly see the bubbles? It would be an extremely bad idea to get in the water because someone else thought they could see bubbles. Also, in a strong current the bubbles will stream and so surface well downstream of the divers. If you enter where the bubbles are, you will have to swim down and make headway upstream to have any chance of joining them. Not at all easy in the conditions you describe, especially when you have already descended and ascended and are then going to make a challenging dive.

5. LOST DIVER. This is possibly one area where the operation should have maybe, maybe taken it more seriously. True, the guide dive surface and look for you, and she dive have four other divers to look after. Should she have aborted the dive? got all four back to the surface? Was she able to do so immadiately, given the conditions and that three had already gone ahead? A tough call and one I wouldn't criticise her actions for without knowing exactly how and when things happened.

Hoping airing this publicly, as you have, has been useful for many of us. Rather than focus on individuals, it may be better to look at what lessons come out of it, and be thankful that nobody was hurt. Final point. Its always easy to be wise after the event. 20/20 hindsight is a great thing - if you can have it in advance. In the heat of the moment we all make mistakes and our armchair cristicisms should bear this in mind.

Regards

Colin

I am really disappointed to see so much unconstructive comment on Wetpixel.

If you have never made a mistake underwater, you haven't dived enough. Cameras and currents are always tricky.

If you haven't put your housing in a swimming pool, you haven't done your homework before travelling. Of course, sometimes the housing appears at the last minute...

If you think all dive guides are enormously experienced and will look after you at all times, then you haven't been living on the planet for long! Guides don't, necessarily, have experience of the needs of photographers.

I'm glad no-one came to harm.

I wonder what the guide's story is...

Live and learn!

Tim

B)

I am really disappointed to see so much unconstructive comment on Wetpixel.

To whom is that directed?

If one insists on following buddy diving protocol, what is the rule? If you're separated from your buddy search for them for about a minute and then surface. That didn't appear to be followed. Divemasters cannot force you to stay in the water if a safety factor is injected into the dive and you, as a the affected diver, need to act on the issue. Taking responsibility for your concerns is your call and how you handle that is your call, not the sole responsibility of the DM.

Now for the resort, I personally don't like unfriendly staff as it makes you feel unwelcome, a burder and that they don't care about you. Who wants to dive with that? Just don't recommend them. I wouldn't.

Joe

I am really disappointed to see so much unconstructive comment on Wetpixel.

 

 

digit1981 wrote "Hello all, wanted to pass this info along to see what people think"

 

people have written what they think, whether the OP agree's or not, or whether any other individual agrees or disagrees; this is a forum, a place to openly discuss

To whom is that directed?

Some of the posts are critical of the guide, some of the dive operation and some of the divers...

... none of which helps anyone make better images.

Like all critical incidents and "near misses", a whole series of steps lead to the point of danger. Divers should recognise that an event as fraught as this is likely the result of actions and reactions by several people at several times.

I know, I've been there, I've said angry and unhelpful things, too...

Tim

B)

Tim,

I think you are wrong here. The gentleman posted his thoughts in "crazy dive stories and trip reports" so I see nothing wrong with his post. Fault? That is another issue but not all trip reports and experiences are directly related to taking a better picture. Do a search on WP and you'll find plenty of threads with zero reference to imagery. Posters in this thread are expressing their opinions on the limited anecdotal data we have and that is what forum discussions are all about. If everything were black and white we would have no forum discussions. That's what makes this fun, right? I think Steve and others have pointed out VERY VALUABLE and useful opinions for others to use and embrace when they take their trips. I have had several friends die over the years in diving accidents and I have found that discussing their deaths and how they died helps me be a better diver by trying to avoid the mistakes they made or the situations they were put in. This guy's post does the same thing...it makes people think and that is a VALUABLE LESSON.

Just my thoughts, of course and I mean no ill will against you. I just feel that this post is actually delivering lots of value by constructively discussing the issue, breaking it down and anlyzing the "what if's".

Joe

... none of which helps anyone make better images.

Others have commented, so this may be a bit redundant, but I don't follow you here.

This is the Crazy Dive Stories forum ... the gentleman posted a crazy dive story and asked for comments and opinions ... Others (I included) gave their comments and opinions ... I (for one) tilted my comments "in favor" of the dive guide for two reasons - 1) Sounded to me like the folks weren't taking responsibility for their role in this mishap; and 2) the dive guide couldn't defend herself.

I think we kept it civil and constructive and I'm not sure where "better images" should have come into play.

I don't get it.

Maybe the guide wasn't friendly. Maybe she's a jerk. I'm not clear what she did wrong with regard to you and your wife.

Whether to send the other three on was judgment call.

It wasn't her job to make sure your wife rejoined the group. If I was one of the other divers and I had to waste my precious dive time while your wife went back to the boat for God knows how long, I would have been pissed. How long was everybody supposed to wait? If you wife didn't return in 15 minutes, should the entire group then abort the dive, not knowing if she stayed on the boat or returned only to be missing?

Once a diver returns to the boat, the guide is responsible for the rest of the group. The decision to rejoin the group by said diver is an individual decision and in reality a solo dive until the group is rejoined. It is not the responsibility of the guide to ensure that the diver returns to the group.

Perhaps, if you feel the need for a guide, you should also dive as a buddy team.

When, the guide didn't find your wife, what was she supposed to do? Keep waiting? Go find everyone else (another full task in itself) and abort the dive? Then what? Begin search patterns?

I've had to abort dives and stayed on the boat. I've aborted dives and rejoined the group. My call as to whether I would try to find them. I've ended doing solo dives, never finding the group. I never expected that anyone should be hunting for me.

Either one or both of you should have stayed on the boat and allowed the guide to actually guide the remaining divers.