On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:53:50 EDT, Ray Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
>OK, I've been reading this thread for a bit.
>
>I need to ask a few questions.

I think I can answer some of your questions better than others,
based on my trips there in 1992 and 2001.

>
>I'm not familiar with the waters or diving conditions in Cocos yet but I
>hope to be in the near future.
>
>They were discovered missing at the conclusion of the dive, which
>lasted just under an hour, according to Hasson.

Sounded about right.  The conclusion of the dive is usually
about 30 minutes -- the airhogs (or those in trouble) surface
first, wait on the skiff, until the last diver is up, in an
hour.

That's exactly the way it was in my report in 1992.  Many of my
dives lasted an hour.

After an hour, the surfaced diver MAY be out of sight, and it
may take some time to find them, say around the opposite of the
island to where the dive was.

Such a search (nothing unusual) may take 20-30 minutes.  Thus,
when you add these two 20 minutes together to CONFIRM that
a diver is indeed missing, "just under an hour" is actually
pretty good time!

>
>What is the water temp?

Mostly in the high 70s.  Occasional termoclines in the low 60s.
August 2001 was unseasonably warm (water temp about 80F).  I
dived with a 1-mm suit only.


>
> If people were coming up all over the place all about the same time then
> it would reason that they (the missing pair) SHOULD be in the same
> approximate local.

See my explanation above.  No, they DON'T come up all at the same time,
and they don't come up at the same place.  Even in the virtually
currentless dive in Cozumel during the Coz99NEDfest where you popped
up half a mile from the rest of the group, and Dee popped up
somewhere else just as far because he was totally narked, and the
and the rest of us were way down elsewhere, it took nearly 30
minutes before WE (the group that was NOT lost) was picked up.
>
>How do you run into trouble? If you run out of air then just surface and
>wait.
>
>What was the experience level of these divers?

From a couple of hundred dives to a few thousand -- was the stat I
recorded in 1992.  I would put the rule-of-thumb on experience
as the MINIMAL experience that it would take to handle the
Barracuda current at its WORST.  I estimate that level to be
several hundred.

To this day, with 1200 dives underneath her weightbelt, three
three trips to Palau, having gotten blown away as everyone else
did on the Peliliu Corner dive (where 5 Japanese perished),
having dived there in 8-foot swells, and did every current-dive
on the Tahiti Aggressor (without problem) except sitting out
on one, Sue STILL hasn't dived Cozumel's Barracuda Reef yet,
having had half a dozen opportunities to do so!

Sue is a model diver in MY book!  She chose to sit out on one
Palau dive where the swell got up to 10 feet in a cove <G>
and she was RIGHT in her decision.   NOBODY (DM and about 10
divers) saw any bottom, any ledge, during the 10 minute "dive"
before scrambling the next 20 minutes back to the boat.  :-)

She knows all  too well the "self reliance" and "self
responsibity" theory, and my "Know YOUR limits ..." motto.

SHE chose not to do those Cozumel Barracuda Reef dives
when given the opportunity, though I think she was ready for
them 700 dives ago.  But I don't encourage or discourage her
about doing that dive.  It's a PERSONAL thing that every diver
MUST make the decision (a wise one we hope) for herself/himself.

ElPezNeuvo.