87 replies to this topic

[Capn Jack]

I think Capn Jack has one!

I do have a PLB - West Wind Fastfind with GPS.

I think the comments are valid - and I have to add - you almost can't carry too much stuff if you think there is a likelihood of being separated from your boat and require a search & rescue effort.

This is why I carry a super prepared super awesome Texas Divemaster along to such remote places as Palau!

Too kind. You also should mention I save other people's gear by sacrificing my mask to Neptune in 3000 FSW on the first dive.

On a more serious note - we've skirted a lot of issues while talking the main topic of EPIRB / PLB, and maybe we need a thread on survival at sea and signalling devices. I made a statement in passing how hard it is to see someone in the water from a boat or an airplane, even in daylight in fairly low sea states. I wish I could take every diver on a SAR mission and let them experience the challenge first hand.

[bowjunkie]

On a more serious note - we've skirted a lot of issues while talking the main topic of EPIRB / PLB, and maybe we need a thread on survival at sea and signalling devices. I made a statement in passing how hard it is to see someone in the water from a boat or an airplane, even in daylight in fairly low sea states. I wish I could take every diver on a SAR mission and let them experience the challenge first hand.

now that sounds like an idea !

[Wakemaker]

I am using the FastFind Plus, and I use the canister you mention for it.

Will the McMurdo canister hold any other manufacturer's PLBs or only the FastFind?

[ScubaDadMiami]

On a more serious note - we've skirted a lot of issues while talking the main topic of EPIRB / PLB, and maybe we need a thread on survival at sea and signalling devices.

My article covering this subject will be in the next issue of Advanced Diver Magazine. Spend a few bucks to buy it.

I will also hold a presentation on this subject at WreckFest, in the Florida Keys, in August. In the presentation, I will show some ideas on how to configure dive gear to carry survival equipment.

I am using the FastFind Plus, and I use the canister you mention for it.

Will the McMurdo canister hold any other manufacturer's PLBs or only the FastFind?

The reason that I opted to get the McMurdo was to be sure that it would fit. I don't know if other PLBs will fit.

[Wakemaker]

...I will also hold a presentation on this subject at WreckFest, in the Florida Keys, in August. In the presentation, I will show some ideas on how to configure dive gear to carry survival equipment...

I know there are always time constraints for presentations. If possible, consider giving divers the knowledge of deciding when to activate their EPIRB. I find divers have different comfort zones. I'm usually very uncomfortable once I'm back on the boat after a dive, while still suited up waiting for the next dive. One diver's "distress" can be a minor irritation to another.

Recreational divers who carry EPIRB need to know WHEN to turn the thing on; too soon and SAR resources get wasted, while too late means a working SAR mission becomes a possible body recovery.

[ASDmike]

Recreational divers who carry EPIRB need to know WHEN to turn the thing on; too soon and SAR resources get wasted, while too late means a working SAR mission becomes a possible body recovery.

Yes, after two hours swifting floating out to sea away from the Isla del Coco, I thought it was a bad idea to enable all 9 EPIRBs at the same moment (8 rec divers + dive master). I couldn't convince the dive master to enable something like two at a time, so we actually had 8 chirping. Good 'ole Mark I eyeball sensor picked up us at the 4 hour mark, but it was really great navigation by the second panga driver who estimated the currents and continued on for 2 hours more in the same bearing beyond where they felt we could have drifted to. Guess it was a bad day to go panga diving with heavy rain, low vis and surface conditions at a solid 5 on the beaufort scale. It looked like dusk, but was afternoon. I was thinking I would engage mine the next day (if needed) a couple hours after sunrise-- thankfully it was not.

[Wakemaker]

...Good 'ole Mark I eyeball sensor picked up us at the 4 hour mark...

Is the Mark I you mention a Sea Marshall (brand) combination used with direction finding equipment on the boat? Did the boat issue these units to all the divers or did you buy these units from another country?

[ASDmike]

...Good 'ole Mark I eyeball sensor picked up us at the 4 hour mark...

Is the Mark I you mention a Sea Marshall (brand) combination used with direction finding equipment on the boat? Did the boat issue these units to all the divers or did you buy these units from another country?

I'll check it out and post more later when I get more time. Not my EPIRB & Safety Sausage, I was just a silly rec diver than put my life in the hands of a second string crew that had no anglo speakers and were about as old as my BCD... I was truly unprepared for the risks I was taking, point of reference, I learned both what an EPIRB and what a SS was on that dive! Well make that after surfacing from that dive

[ASDmike]

Let's set the background before I get deeper into the my EPIRB experience.

http://dive.scubadiv...orts.php?s=2769

This trip report is not from my week, but is nearly identical to all the good stuff on my trip (my trip was better!). I will not be naming my boat, since my statements will be completely my opinions, guesses and assumptions. Please don't speculate on this website to which operator I was on...

[Wakemaker]

...Not my EPIRB & Safety Sausage...

You're not alone. I bought a new 6' safety sausage from the DAN booth at the Dive Expo in Long Beach because it was on a deep discount. Or I fell for the Jedi Mind Trick. I can't be sure. Do you think it has any UL ratings or is US Coast Guard approved? Seems like I should have checked to see about that since my life or my buddy's live may depend on it. Seems like it should have a little CO2 cartrige to inflate the thing in case the distress is caused by an empty tank. Do ya think? How difficult can it be to have a white strobe atop so the SAR mission can continue trying to find me and my EPIRB during night hours?

USCG Approval No. 160.171/2/0
USCG Approval No. 160.171/3/0
USCG Approval No. 160.171/21/0
USCG Approval No. 160.171/4/0
SOLAS 74/96 Compliance
Meets IMO Requirements

You can buy a life jacket from a marine store that is not approved by anyone and is still legal for sale. People who buy these things have little fear of a real emergency, so they think. Maybe they just don't know the Personal Flotation Device (life jacket) they just bought will leave them face down in the water. Kinda like a "wing" BCD may leave an exhausted, semiconscious, or unconcscious diver face down in the water. Bet they didn't tell many divers about that when they bought their brand spank'n new bladder. Tusa sells a wing and the ad does not mention once, "Divers using this wing BCD at the surface may be turned face down in the water when this BCD is fully inflated."

The popular jacket style BCD has some flotation in front, around the waist that causes a diver to float in a more face up position, which is also great when kick'n out to where you wanna go diving. Anyone diving with a EPIRB should be concerned about fatigue.

Some of the chat with other SD divers suggests they might actually benefit from being armed with an EPIRB (specifically these divers who may be closer to extream divers due to the risk factors of their dive plan -- or lack of a dive plan), realtime, on the dive. Since it's purpose would essentially be the panic button (figure of speech -- you're not supposed to panic even if you feel teeth), these divers must outlast the elements for rescue. This doesn't even make sence to me. I'm out diving to have FUN!

EPIRB is basic survival equipment. I feel a diver who carries an EPIRB should have lots of other RATED survival equipment; wet suit, dry suit, BCD, snorkel, dive lights, special diver survival gear, shark repellent, fresh water, chemical heat, backup battery power supply for some kind of new standard for diving circuitry, safety sausages, perhapse even a new invention such as an emergency raft for divers (dig that -- the diver pops a couple of anti-seasick pills and then crawls or slides into a raft type float that allows fresh air to enter even in a storm sea)

I believe any pro recreational diver who carries EPRIB and/or other advanced user devices has a mind for conscientiousness and I'd feel safer diving with 'em. Any amateur on the other hand with an EPIRB might make me feel a bit skeptical about their margin for error.

I'm not sure where Dive_Girl got an EPIRB that comes with a Divemaster. Sounds pretty expensive not to mention the maintenance.

...This is why I carry a super prepared super awesome Texas Divemaster along to such remote places as Palau!

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Edited by Wakemaker, 17 July 2009 - 10:27 AM.

[secretsea18]

Recreational divers who carry EPIRB need to know WHEN to turn the thing on; too soon and SAR resources get wasted, while too late means a working SAR mission becomes a possible body recovery.

Yes, after two hours swifting floating out to sea away from the Isla del Coco, I thought it was a bad idea to enable all 9 EPIRBs at the same moment (8 rec divers + dive master). I couldn't convince the dive master to enable something like two at a time, so we actually had 8 chirping. Good 'ole Mark I eyeball sensor picked up us at the 4 hour mark, but it was really great navigation by the second panga driver who estimated the currents and continued on for 2 hours more in the same bearing beyond where they felt we could have drifted to. Guess it was a bad day to go panga diving with heavy rain, low vis and surface conditions at a solid 5 on the beaufort scale. It looked like dusk, but was afternoon. I was thinking I would engage mine the next day (if needed) a couple hours after sunrise-- thankfully it was not.

Glad that your boat found your group. With which boat were you diving? What was your dive site?

In 1999, I was on Undersea Hunter, and we rescued two divers (from Okeanos) who did not make the turn around the outside of Manuelita island into the Coral Garden side on their first day. It was after 4pm and also a little bit like dusk, and their panga driver had no idea they did not cut in the way they were instructed. They were seen by spectators up on our "sun" deck (it rained everyday!) who were watching us rebreather divers do our post dive rebreather care. The spectators saw a dinky sized orange speck and asked what it was... binoculars confirmed two divers and dinky safety sausages out in a rather brisk current, drifting off towards Antarctica. Our panga went out after them, and brought two exceedingly grateful divers back to the Okeanos. This was before any EPIRB devices were used out there. I would have imagined that the rest of our respective vacations would have been spent searching for them.

[ASDmike]

I think we were issued the ACR Mini B300. Product support manual is here: http://www.acrelectr...ib300ilsman.pdf


Robin, lets just say YOU used a great operation.

AFAIK, this started the use of EPIRBs at Cocos:
http://www.cdnn.info...02/s030602.html


Wow, just read something in that article. My incident was at the Pequeño Dos Amigos dive site too.

So Antartica it is, eh? While bobbing in the water I was trying to figure out if we would hit the galapagos, hawaiian islands or easter island. Good diversion, I was one of three that didn't get seasick.

We started at what looks like small islands at the top left corner of this picture: google maps
If you see a longish "line" in tthe water leading from the little "islands", that is pretty much our drift direction. We passed the most southern end of the main island and at least that same distance futher out to sea. Anybody know if those lines are actual images of rip currents?

Looking at the map image, I estimated we drifted between these points:
5.51270N 87.093526W and 5.479898N 87.068882W which is 2.8334 statute miles

Our panga driver estimated our drift adventure was at least 4 km.

Edited by ASDmike, 16 July 2009 - 06:30 PM.

[ASDmike]

I received a request to post more about my first hand experience with an EPIRB and lost diver situation.

My recollections and observations (please excuse the recall, I am not trying to make fun of anyone):

The EPIRB
Every guest and dive guide dove with an EPIRB supplied to us by the operator. All the same model, most likely the model identified in my previous post.

More background info is needed... There is a 30 hour crossing from the Costa Rican mainland to the Isla Del Coco. We had 17 guests and two dive guides. My dive guide was the only Costa Rican that spoke English well enough to brief the 5 guests from the US (none of us spoke Spanish). Three other guests were from rural Japan and only one of them spoke some English (no Spanish speakers there either). Eight of the other nine were from Spain (parents and their adult children and their spouses). The Spaniards had no English speakers. My assigned roommate was the only other person traveling alone other than myself. He was from Argentina, working in Columbia, Venezuela and Houston (oil industry). Thankfully my roommate was fluent in English, but as a native spanish speaker he was paired to the "spanish speaking" panga. The language barrier was a obviously an issue in understanding the EPIRB and the incident.

General dive briefing was made during the day at sea. Three separate briefs for the three languages. My dive guide said something like "We have provided safety sausage and satellite signals for everyone. They are now attached to your BC for safety. We may not use the satellite unless emergency, but if we do turn on and pull out antenna. I am your divemaster, so I will tell you if we need it, but we have never used them and I think never will be needed. The sausage is the same, just blow it up if I need you then I tell you. Any questions?"



The dive aftermath
Our group/divemaster made a huge mistake underwater (faked out the panga driver trying to spot our bubbles). No panga visible on the surface (he was just around the corner of the pinnacle we dove on). Weather was bad when we entered the water and was worse when we surfaced. We were now in 6-8' seas and deployed sausages after 5 minutes. There was a small argument on whether we need to use them, since our panga driver was excellant spotter and never missed us before. Divemaster gave in and started grabbing them from us, inflating them and handing them back. Surface current was about as swift as I have ever been in. We started the safety stop about 20' from the pinnacle and surfaced about three football fields away after the 3 minute stop. We had eight 6' sausages in the air (dive guide didn't bring one, and remember, we were in 6-8' seas). The panga is basically a zodiac (hard bottom inflatable raft), so the driver and spotter were about 5' over the surface bobbing in the rough seas too. After an hour had passed with us floating on the surface, a couple people asked if "we need to use these satellite things". The dive guide said "YES, everyone turn on your satellites NOW". I had a small argument with him that maybe we should save a few for later. He said "NO, all of them, they will work when they find us ok". I gave him a "you're kidding" look, so he yelled at me "NOW". I turned mine on, showed him and secretly turned it off after he saw the red light.

The rescue
Our panga driver immediately began searching the pinnacle area after we were overdue and they lost our bubbles. He called the ship and the second panga boat (which was diving the other dos amigos pinnacle nearby). We didn't know that of course, but our rescue was simply made by the second panga at almost four hours of us floating away. The second panga was making their way slowly coming straight at us (with all the other divers still onboard). They contacted our panga driver and we waited in the water for 45 minutes for him to reach us. During that time my roommate explained that the captain told them to figure out which way we went and keep going that way. The captain told our panga driver to continue circling and stay near the pinnacle in case we swam to the side. The second panga was to come to our dive site and try to figure out the current from where our panga lost our bubbles. My roommate told us they did that, but the second driver had called back after two hours and said they missed us, but thankfully the captain told them to keep going. He told us that during this time, the captain had pulled anchor on the main ship and had left the harbor. Since the locator equipment was on her, worst come to worst, they would find us with the main vessel. After an hour of best speed back to dos amigos with both pangas, we saw the ship approaching the dive site from the north side. All back on the boat about six hours after surfacing from the dive.

Aftermath
The captain (who was the chief engineer acting for the regular captain during his week off) spoke briefly to us. He said something like "Very sorry, not normal, weather bad, driver tried, please have good night, tomorrow be much better, no rain". We never could get any info on the EPIRBs (if they were effective, etc). Us english speakers spent the rest of the day & night analyzing the mistakes and we tried to talk to the captain about what we had concluded. We sent my roommate to ask the captain to talk with us, and he told my roommate something that my roommate translated as: that the situation was closed and to please convince everyone to put it behind them.

Only one person in our group had any serious effect from all that time in the water. I have no training other than basic CPR, but I thought she was going into some type of shock in the water. When the second boat arrived, my divemaster refused to get her into the boat. He said there was no room on that panga for us and they can't take safe divers and put them in the water. And he can't choose one or two individuals from the divers in the water and make others wait, so we must all wait. I pleaded with him to get her out of the water and he swam around to the other side of panga.

I'll post more tomorrow night on what we concluded, the lack of official inquiries (park rangers, no known SAR mission) and my thoughts of what I wish had been done better.

Edited by ASDmike, 17 July 2009 - 05:11 AM.

[peterbj7]

I can hardly wait for the next instalment! At least your operator had Epirbs, even though in other respects the dive guide seems to have been a cretin.

Compare that with the well-publicised incident in SE Asia where the group leader and operator knew that the waters they were going in had strong and unpredictable currents, yet had no signalling devices at all! That's the incident where the divers drifted for days, and finally ended up fighting off Komodo dragons on an uninhabited island. The American non-resident owners (how could you guess that) denied any responsibility, I believe right up to today.

[Wakemaker]

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The dive aftermath
...We started the safety stop about 20' from the pinnacle and surfaced about three football fields away after the 3 minute stop...

There are exactly 60 minutes in an hour. There are about 6,076 feet in a nautical mile. Can we round it and say 1 nautical mile per hour (1 knot) is about 100 feet per minute? If you agree then drifting 3 foot ball fields (900 feet) in 3 minutes is about 300 feet per minute. Sooo, I guess the current was only about 3 knots!!! A 3 knot current seems fast when were in trouble. People drift dive at 6 knots in some places.

But, maybe my math reasoning is off because I've been enjoying fast ferries to Sausalito, and thus, had a lot of excess exposure to the sun and delicious cheese. If my math is bad, message me so I can fix it so I can look smart.