Posted by Stevie Silas' Color Code on December 11, 2001 at 21:42:43:
Over the VHF radio speakers is came. I caught the tail end of a very brief conversation;
"Baywatch we are off Little Farnsworth and we have a problem".
A few minutes later from our perch on the bimini deck, I saw the Lifeguards drive down code 3 from Front Street to the point. The drivers and riders scrambled onto the ultra high powered white with orange trim and teal green deck screamer from their LA County FD and Lifeguard trucks. They forcefully jetted towards the East End bucking some serious wind and waves. To quote Sherriff Bart from Blazing Saddles "They was open for business baby".
"The Lead Turkey is in trouble!" was what my wife barked to me as I watched the Lifeguards' Hell on water boat race at break neck speeds within the 5 mph bouys from it's mooring about 100 yards from ours.
"Lead Turkey?" I asked since I was not in tune to the local boats as she was, nor was I within earshot of the VHF at that time. I had my own problems securing the mooring for one seriously building blow from the NW.
"The Iron Eagle has a problem. They are down by the incineration dump" she clarified.
We continued to listen and discovered they did indeed have a problem. Besides missing the tricky anchoring at Little Farnsworth, they continued to drop divers into the water even after confirming they missed it. We also learned that they had to live boat and panga pick-up the divers that were dropped off into the much deeper than sport depth site. The radio reports continued while another dive boat picked the panga's operator a little later after it swamped in the dangerous high winds and wave heights dropping an unknown amount of dive gear over the side and onto the bottom. My wife heard references to Dale Scheckler and his wife, but I'm not sure why. We hope they are OK.
Things were getting really bad at Avalon on Sunday, which was why we decided at around noon the same day no to return to Newport until morning. I cannot believe dive boats still tried to drop divers off. The Catalina Express boats cancelled their regular runs late in the afternoon because the docks were too dangerous to use. Essentially Avalon Harbor was closed down by around 3:30.
Does anyone know anything more? Can anyone confirm what we heard? More importantly, doen anyone know where exactly the panga swamped? I need a new BCD.