Diving Thoughts

Carl Spencer, a highly regarded British diver, has died after suffering severe decompression sickness after a dive on the Britannic. He had been leading a National Geographic Society expedition to film the wreck. Apparently witnesses saw him suffering convulsions while filming the Britannic’s bow, before rapidly ascending to the surface missing decompression stops. He was flown by helicopter to Athens Naval Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Britannic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she sank in 57 minutes after hitting a mine in 1916 while acting as a hospital ship. The wreck lies in approximately 120 metres of water off Greece.

There is more information in the Times Online from where the above photo comes. There is also a thread on Rebreather World.

Again, from SCMP’s brief section -

“Search for diver to resume today

A search for a diver who went missing on Sunday off Bluff Island in Sai Kung was suspended at 6.30pm yesterday and was to resume today. The man, surnamed Ho, 46, entered the water with about 20 divers at Ung Kong Wan at about 2.30pm on Sunday. Police were called at 3.45pm after Mr Ho failed to surface. ”

Apple Daily has an article in Chinese here :

Not got much detail on this, but the SCMP’s “In Brief” section has the following:

“Rescuers search for missing diver

A man in his 30s or 40s was reported missing after going diving at Ung Kong Wan in Sai Kung at 3.40pm. Rescuers were continuing to search for him last night. ”

Ung Kong Wan is off Bluff Island where SCDC did a beach clean-up a couple of weeks ago. There doesn’t appear to be any more information in the English language press at the moment.

According to the SCMP a 44 year old diver died while doing a night dive to catch fish with friends off Tseung Kwan O industrial estate on Monday night. Contrary to an initial report that I was told about yesterday he was not a commercial diver.

Apparently he went into the water around 22:00 and his friends called the police at 00:33 when they could not find him. He was found about an hour later floating 50 metres from the waterfront, but was certified dead on arrival at Tseung Kwan O hospital. He was described as a licensed diver who had dived in the area before.  It was not clear whether he was diving with a buddy, and if so how they became separated.

If you are an SCMP subscriber, you can read their full story here.

There’s a report that a diver went missing last night in Tseung Kwan O, and his body has been found this morning.  Apparently four divers were working together and one disappeared. He was in his 40s.

This extract is from Danny Mok of the South China Morning Post, in the City Digest part of the paper.

A male expatriate was found dead in Sai Kung waters after disappearing from a diving trip on Saturday. The 26-year-old, whose first name was Matthew, hit his head on the dive boat at 4pm off High Island after drinking alcohol. Marine police found his body near Pak A at about 1pm yesterday.

Not much information there, but it sounds as though it wasn’t a diving related incident, but a tragic accident.

Many of us have seen first hand how damaging dynamite fishing can be to the marine environment. I once dived Pedro Blanco, in Chinese waters east of Hong Kong, just after some dynamite fishermen had left. The seabed was carpeted with dead fish, and while we did manage a good lunch out of it, it was very depressing to see. More recently I dived a Japanese wreck near Malapascua and found hundreds of dead and dying fish lying all over the bottom.

But I suspect most of us don’t consider dynamite fishing as being dangerous to us as divers. Well perhaps we should because apparently a diver was killed in Vietnam after some fishermen mistook him for a big fish. They threw in an explosive, but when they went down to get their catch they realised they’d killed a diver. Police have said they will be charged with killing the diver as well as destroying aquatic resources and the illegal use of explosives.

When I first read this I thought it was an urban myth like the one about the diver found dead in a forest after a forest fire. Or perhaps an April Fool, but the story seems to have come out on 24 March. Both CDNN and Divernet have this story on their websites.

A 50 year old man has died off the coast of Little Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf. He was diving with family and friends when he failed to surface as expected. He was later found on the sea bed, but despite medical attention he died before reaching the shore. Police have impounded his gear and reported that he was apparently in 4-5 metres of water.

The New Zealand Herald has the story. Apparently he was free-diving, but according to the Herald’s story he was the only one “wearing snorkelling gear”. I can only assume that they meant diving gear.

The New Zealand Herald are reporting that the man who died while diving near Moturoa island was Keith Weeds from Kerikeri. He was apparently diving with a companion when he disappeared and was later found dead on the seabed.

His son apparently runs Paihia Dive HQ, and was involved in the sinking of the Navy frigate Canterbury in the Bay of Islands in 2007.

Divers have found 4 bodies in two sleeping compartments of the dive boat that sank on Sunday night. The boat is in 70 metres and sank in a freak storm. 23 people were rescued on Monday, one body was found yesterday and 2 people are still missing.

This from the Phuket Gazette.

The Apple Daily is reporting that the two Hong Kong divers who died at the weekend in the Philippines suffered from an air embolism brought on by a rapid ascent. And Ming Pao says that police confirmed that their tanks were still half full.

More bad news I’m afraid. On Sunday night,  dive boat from Dive Asia named Choke Somboon sank 22km from Phuket,  while on the way back  from the Similans. Fishing boats rescued 23 people, but two Australians, two Swiss, one German, one Japanese and one Thai were reported missing.

There’s more here.

A separate report says that the boat was MV Dive Asia 1, and that it was sunk by a squall that came up without warning. It lists the missing as: Jetzinger Gabrielle, Germany; Yuba Hirotsuga, Japan; Klaus Konradder, Austria; Monika Schuster, Austria; Sibylle Bucher, Switzerland, Rolf Niederberge, Switzerland; Jumpa Sorntat, Thailand.

Meanwhile News 24 are reporting that the body of a woman has been found.