In a message dated 9/10/2003 11:58:57 AM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> Ray Jones wrote:
>
> > There is a group of divers in this town that get together about once a
> month
> > and usually make a couple of dives together. I've been apart of this group
> > about a year now but I haven't made that many dives with them but as a
> group they
> > are a lot of good people.
>
> OK, so presumably they've been diving in salt water before.  This is not a
> story about people who have never experienced a current and, therefore,
> don't fully understand that you have to adjust for it.
>
>

No Lee, everybody in this group had made Gulf dives that I'm aware of.


>
> > This past Sunday we went out and the seas were a little bumpy. Four foot
> on
> > average with an occasional 5-6 coming through. It made for slow going to
> the
> > first spot.
>
> I would have stayed home that day and I have a 32 x 12 foot boat.  2-4 is my
> limit for leaving the port.  Of course I'll come home in whatever I have to.



If it had've been on my boat I would've to but this was a charter for the
group. My boat is only a 23 footer so 4 foot seas gets very sloppy plus I don't
trust just anybody handling my boat in seas like that while I'm down.

Another lesson hard learned. Back in 85 I had just gotten my first boat. My
buddy at the time was raised here on the Gulf and I assumed he knew how to
handle a boat. I was in the pass here in Pensacola making a dive on the channel
between the forts and when I came up my boat was upside down. He had gotten too
close to the sandbar and a wave broke over the stern and killed the engines.
The boat got swamped and because it had a tower on it it rolled. Weird feeling
to see your boat keel up in the water upon surfacing. I had only about a 50
yard swim to land and needless to say I was hot but that still didn't bring my
boat back.


> On the first dive which was a tug boat the anchor was set and there was a
tag
> line from the anchor to about 50 yards or so behind the boat. (All
standard
> operating procedures here.) There was a little current but nothing bad
enough
> to warrant any extra caution

Your tag line's considerably longer than mine.  I generally attach a water
ski course buoy to one of my 40 foot dock lines.  So far, nobody's managed
an unplanned ascent more than 40 feet from where I anchored the boat.

This was just on the charter boat. On my own boat I don't even use a tag
line. We just buoy dive. I NEVER anchor.


> He was put on a hang tank that had a higher blend of O2  BECAUSE there was
a
> young boy who was about 16 or so that had came up complaining about a pain
in
> his elbow and he was on the 02 rig. I had an extra O2 rig that I had left
in
> my truck because of there already being a unit on board the boat. It just
goes
> to show you that you never quit learning. I'll take my O2 with me on any
boat
> I go on from now on, We could've used both units.

I bought and marked an 80 specifically for O2 use.  Interestingly, there are
restrictions on who can administer or even buy emergency oxygen, but you can
buy 100% for breathing purposes pretty much anywhere . . . so I did.  It's
clearly marked with its contents and mod, has an odd color regulator and a
button type pressure guage.  It has never been wet and probably never will
be.

I've basically done the same thing on my boat. I've got my emergency DAN kit
to be used just as such and then I've got another O2 cylinder that we use
between dives over 100 feet.


Ray