Posted by Chuck Tribolet on April 10, 2005 at 08:10:40:
In Reply to: Re: Lost diver kept her wits and survived as she drifted away in Montere posted by mike on April 10, 2005 at 00:09:58:
I dove Monterey that day. It was a day of very
changeable conditions. At times it was VERY nice.
At other times it was the ugliest conditions I've
ever been in on a small boat. At about the time
they anchored was one of the changes from not bad
to really snotty. They could very well have
gotten the water while it was still decent.
A factual correction to the story: The dive site
(Eric's Pinnacle) is 0.2 nm offshore, not a mile.
If you're currious to find it on your chart, the
postion is N36 38 02.6 W121 55 06.1 I've dived it
a bunch of times, maybe fifty, off my own whaler.
Ah, here's a map: http://mapper.acme.com/?lat=36.634067&long=-121.918350&scale=12&theme=Topo&width=4&height=3&dot=Yes
It's the red dot in the middle.
I've had some offline communication with the boat
owner/boyfriend, and his account was posted on
ba_diving.
There were two fundamental problems:
1. The anchor dragged. This may have been because
they didn't put out enough scope (they did not have
markers on the anchor line) or because the anchor
fouled in the chain. The site they were diving
is at the outer edge of the
rocky reef fringing Pacific Grove. Bottom's at
60'. Everything downwind that day is sand bottom.
They had a Danforth-type anchor (from his
description). There's nothing better than a
Danforth in sand. If it was a decent one (not one
of the $10 cheapies), it would have just burried
itself in the sand. BTW, the sand doesn' get
very deep very fast in that direction.
2. They guy they left on the boat didn't notice
that it had drifted a LONG way (more than a mile).
No GPS required, just Mark I Eyeball.
Drift line was not relevant -- the boat drifted away
from the divers, not vice versa.
The fundamental mistakes were in seamanship, not
diving.
Chuck