DAN Europe - Witness report

INCIDENT

Call for tougher laws after diver's death
NEW ZEALAND (12 August 2004)
There are calls for tougher laws following the death of a diver who was run over by a motor boat at Kawau Island in January. The Maritime Safety Authority has found minor errors in judgement caused the fatality. Spokesman Lindsay Sturt says the skipper did not see the diving flag, which by law must be visible from 200 metres away. He says the accident prompted them to experiment and find the optimum size and display for a diving flag. And he says the MSA will be seeking to amend the laws, making the flags three times bigger, and rigid.

Yes boats do get very close to us here at our dive school in Gran Canaria, there are mostly jet skies who have no idea what a dive boey is for.
Peter

I am an instructor in Nahariya Dive center
and in one of my course dives a Jet sky just came near my group and grab my bouy and took it while it was attached to me, when i felt the grabbing i managed to realese the bouy from my BCD in time and the Jet sky run away with the bouy and i hadn't managed to see it in time and recognize it.
Yuval Carmi - Israel

While free diving 10m away from shore 3 jetskiers start pozing to photographer. They were making triks with jetskies from 3-50m from shore between swimers. They were warned, but didn't stop! Continued, so the swimers had do go go out of water! No report was made cos there was no signal for mobile phone.
Joza Gregorc – Slovenia

A fishing boat with 2 crew tried to run 2 customers and my self onto rocks with his prop. Also whilst in deeper water tried to "hook" me onto his anchor. On missing every time tried to drag the anchor across my path.
Our safety marker was pulled out of the water by one of the fishing men and they tried to wrap the line around there prop to cause some injury to the person on the other end. The boat followed us for 10 mins to the shore where i had to time the exit quite well to stop us from being cut to shreds. The fisherman on the boat said i had cut open his metal nets and let his fish go. The dive center i work at is not the only dive center to dive this bay so i recieved the battering for all the centers. On telling the Police, nothing as yet been done about this. The boats name is CANARIAS 1 and works from Arguineguin Gran Canaria. I have also found out, the fishing nets are not allowed where the
fishermen drop them. its against the law.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Von Savageri – Spain

I am a divemaster & was conducting a group boat dive from our Dive centre,Coral Diving Hersonnosis Crete. I had to surface about 50 metres from the boat with the group because 2 were at 50 bars. we then had a surpise when a water sking boat from a watersports center passed between us & the boat!
PAUL NEALE – Greece

Hallo,
we have a diving base in island of rab in Croatia.
Every day we meet a people who dont care about others, they come with boats near our diving boat, sometimes they pas betwen boat and boje.
Can you send us some stickers that we can put on some diferent places. Maybe will help to educate persons who have no respekt for divers and who do not care about safety from other people in water.
AQUA SPORT team

I've been trying to inform divers in different forums about the dangers associated with diving without any proper warning flags or properly placed warning flags. The response I've received can be summarized with this: "Yes, it's a problem, but we don't care..."
Some examples:
----------------------------
When I took my Open Water certificate, the instructors hung up Flag A (the blue-white signal flag) in a tree near by. It looked more like a towel drying in the sun. They also placed a red bouy in the water where we were diving. A red bouy is what the fishermen are using to inform boaters that there are fishing nets under the surface...
When I've been out with my boat I've seen a lot of divers on the shore and in the water (divers are dark and difficult to see from a distance) and only after that I realized that the towel they had place a lot of equipment on was the actual warning flag...
In one of my threads in a forum I received this comment: "It's not illegal to dive without a warning flag when you are diving from the shore. Just so you know when the boaters are getting cocky".
----------------------------
Well, I guess Darwin will take his toll on those divers... It's just so very unfortunate that it's not only those stupid divers that will be affected by a possible incident. The boat pilot will suffer an enormous trauma for hitting and possibly killing a diver...
It's because of all this that I'm very anxious to make all the dive schools and assosiations use proper warning flags in a proper manner. Changing the people is impossible, unless the instructors and leaders
are showing a good example. It is also important to make a change in the education for boating
certificates. It should be included that when you see a Flag A, you MUST keep your distance. Again, going directly to the people will not make any change. The instructors must show a good example of how to behave
when they see a warning flag. I've tried to contact next to every dive school in Stockholm, but they haven't even replyed... which means: They don't care...
It might be interesting to consider this:
Why should boat pilots show more respect to divers than bathers, when the divers don't care if the boat pilots know they are there? Are divers the same as suiciders, or what is going on?
I'm really looking forward to a change in attitude from both sides, but mainly from the divers side.

We are a Dive Centre based in Exmouth Devon, UK - on the Exe estuary. As such we have all sorts of problems with boat traffic either ignoring SMBs or using them asa slalom course!!
Marion

The boat came within 2 mtrs of the marker buoy.On surfacing the boat driver just shrugged his shoulders and went on his way. In this area of Greece this near miss happens nearly everyday even when our dive boat is nearby flying a dive flag
Roy Pedersen - United Kingdom

The boat came within 2 mtrs of the marker buoy. On surfacing the boat driver just shrugged his shoulders and went on his way. In this area of Greece this near miss happens nearly everyday even when our dive boat is nearby flying a dive flag Roy Pedersen
United Kingdom

Great campaign, someone just died in Ontario this weekend by being hit on the head by a boat even though they had an I have had several near misses myself.
Any chance of getting some stickers? I work for a dive shop in Kingston Ontario, and do a lot of dives around boaters who seem totally ignorant of dive flags and boats and am sick of the stories told by captains day in and day out of having to protect their divers from boats and jet skiis coming over the top of bubbles.
Thanks, and good luck with the campaign
Anna Y. Canada

It is with great interest that I read about your latest campaign to prevent propeller injuries.
For some time now I have been in touch with Jean MacColl, the mother of respected singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl who was killed by a boat having surfaced from a dive off Cozumel in December 2000.
The boat was in a restricted area and travelling greatly in excess of the speed limit.
A boat hand, Cen Yam was found guilty of Kirsty's death and fined about £60 sterling.
Information since then suggests that Cen Yam was not in fact the pilot but that it was the son of the boat owner, Mexican millionaire Gonzalez Nova who was on board the boat at the time.
Nova has failed ever to take any responsibility for the incident and has never been prosecuted despite being the only person on board the boat qualified to have been driving it.
Based on new evidence a judicial review has now been set up by the Mexican authorities.
The campaign has been documented by the international media and continues to grow in support.
I appreciate that there are many similar tragedies, but there are few where those responsible have escaped justice.
Kirsty's fame means that this case will receive far more publicity than others. The advantage of this is that many more people will become aware of the safety issues surrounding propeller injuries to divers.
I would be grateful if DAN would consider, at the highest level, publicly supporting the aims of the Justice For Kirsty Campaign. I would be happy to put a DAN representative directly in touch with Jean MacColl who, I have no doubt, will reciprocate by supporting the DAN Propeller Injury Prevention Campaign.
You can read more about the campaign at www.justiceforkirsty.org
The article by Alix Kirsta of the Daily Telegraph is particularly informative and moving.
Good luck. Thank you for you attention and I look forward to hearing from you.

J. G. DAN member and DAN O2 Provider

NEAR MISS

I was working as an instructor in Zante, Greece. We conduct confined water skills on a very gradually sloping beach. I was 30m away from our large moored diving boat, in 2m of water about 70m from shore, doing one-on-one skills in between boat trips. As well as being close to the boat I had a fully inflated SMB attached to a weight, floating directly above us, as there's a constant prop noise because there's a rental boat lane 100m away. A drunken tourist almost drove over us. I was stunned to watch the propeller zip by 2m behind the head of my student!! The rental guys tell the tourists not to go anywhere near the diving boats or any buoys, and to only approach the beach through the designated lane, but this idiot nearly killed my student!! I surfaced, understandably shaken, and shouted at him. He shouted an inebriated "Sorry" and kept belting down the beach, tiller in one hand, bottle of some spirit in the other, totally oblivious to my waving and shouting co-worker on the dive boat!!Be very very aware and careful when working in these package tourist type beaches around the Med!! Oh, and watch the pedalos, they're attracted to buoys and bubbles :)

We were with the six of us , diving Bonaire, near by 1000-steps). One buddypair was stil busy with the dive, when six small speedboats with marines came speeding into the bay, hanging around. Just neglecting our signals, to break whatever they were doing. after 5 - 10 minutes they left, and soon after this the last two divers came at the surface, a narrow escape. (propellors had passed just above their heads)

Booked a week long liveaboard trip out ofSharm el sheik on boat called 'Orchid'. Boat drivers had terrible safety and drove rubber duck into one divers head. Also on several occasions started up propellers when divers right next to them, drove over group as we were ascending.
Reported to dive master 'Ahmed' - did not seem to care at all. Multiple members of group complained to boat crew - would not acknowledge that they had done anything wrong.
Angela Bates - United Kingdom

On a shallow reef East of St Ives. Hire motor boats. The occupants of two boats were driving up to the SMBs and attempting to take them from the water. Cover boat intervened and were subjected to insulting gestures.
There seemed little point in reporting the incident as it is apparenlty a commonly occuring one. The hire boat owners do not record the identities of those hjiring and do not warn them of divers being present. A simple sticker on the hire boat deteering console would at least do something to reduce cases of ignorance.
Jules Turner - United Kingdom

I've just received an e-mail from you where you want to make the boat pilots show more respect to the divers in order to decrease the number of accidents...
I've been trying to inform divers in different forums about the dangers associated with diving without any proper warning flags or properly placed warning flags. The response I've received can be summarized with this: "Yes, it's a problem, but we don't care..."

Some examples:
----------------------------
When I took my Open Water certificate, the instructors hung up Flag A (the blue-white signal flag) in a tree near by. It looked more like a towel drying in the sun. They also placed a red bouy in the water where we were diving. A red bouy is what the fishermen are using to inform boaters that there are fishing nets under the surface...
When I've been out with my boat I've seen a lot of divers on the shore and in the water (divers are dark and difficult to see from a distance) and only after that I realized that the towel they had place a lot of equipment on was the actual warning flag...
In one of my threads in a forum I received this comment: "It's not illegal to dive without a warning flag when you are diving from the shore. Just so you know when the boaters are getting cocky".
----------------------------

Well, I guess Darwin will take his toll on those divers... It's just so very unfortunate that it's not only those stupid divers that will be affected by a possible incident. The boat pilot will suffer an enormous trauma for hitting and possibly killing a diver...
It's because of all this that I'm very anxious to make all the dive schools and assosiations use proper warning flags in a proper manner. Changing the people is impossible, unless the instructors and leaders are showing a good example. It is also important to make a change in the education for boating certificates. It should be included that when you see a Flag A, you MUST keep your distance. Again, going directly to the people will not make any change. The instructors must show a good example of how to behave when they see a warning flag.
I've tried to contact next to every dive school in Stockholm, but they haven't even replyed... which means: They don't care...
It might be interesting to consider this:
Why should boat pilots show more respect to divers than bathers, when the divers don't care if the boat pilots know they are there? Are divers the same as suiciders, or what is going on?
I'm really looking forward to a change in attitude from both sides, but mainly from the divers side.
Lasse B.

Dive site KUDARAH THILA, south Ari Atoll, Rep. of Maldives, 25.10.04, about 10am. I, instructor, and my AOWD student were at the safety stop with inflated SMB on the surface. After about 1,5 minutes drove the boat "Sea King" with reg, NO: P3550A-04[06-I] from the "WERNER LAU" dive base VELAMENDU strait over our head without respecting us under water.
After talking to an other guide of our diving centre, the same happend to him on "Hudhoo Thila" on 23.10.04 in the morning as well with "Sea King".
Johannes Haneder (Austria)

Yes boats do get very close to us here at our dive school in Gran Canaria, there are mostly jet skies who have no idea what a dive y from my BCD in time and the Jet sky run away with the bouy and i hadn't managed to see it in time and recognize it. Yuval Carmi - Israel

A fishing boat with 2 crew tried to run 2
customers and my self onto rocks with his prop. Also whilst in deeper water tried to "hook" me onto his anchor. On missing every time tried to drag the anchor across my path. Our safety marker was pulled out of the water by one of the fishing men and they tried to wrap the line around there prop to cause some injury to the person on the other end. The boat followed us for 10 mins to the shore where i had to time the exit quite well to stop us from being cut to shreds. The fisherman on the boat said i had cut open his metal nets and let his fish go. The dive center i work at is not the only dive center to dive this bay so i recieved the battering for all the centers. On telling the Police, nothing as yet been done about this. The boats name is CANARIAS 1 and works from Arguineguin Gran Canaria. I have also found out, the fishing nets are not allowed where the fishermen drop them. its against the law.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Von Savageri – Spain

Hallo, we have a diving base in island of rab in Croatia. Every day we meet a people who dont care about others, they come with boats near our diving boat, sometimes they pas betwen boat and boje. Can you send us some stickers that we can put on some diferent places. Maybe will help to educate persons who have no respekt for divers and who do not care about safety from other people in water.
AQUA SPORT team

When I took my Open Water certificate, the instructors hung up Flag A (the blue-white signal flag) in a tree near by. It looked more like a towel drying in the sun. They also placed a red bouy in the water where we were diving. A red bouy is what the fishermen are using to inform boaters that there are fishing nets under the surface... When I've been out with my boat I've seen a lot of divers on the shore and in the water (divers are dark and difficult to see from a distance) and only after that I realized that the towel they had place a lot of equipment on was the actual warning flag... In one of my threads in a forum I received this comment: "It's not illegal to dive without a warning flag when you are diving from the shore. Just so you know when the boaters are getting cocky".

Well, I guess Darwin will take his toll on those divers... It's just so very unfortunate that it's not only those stupid divers that will be affected by a possible incident. The boat pilot will suffer an enormous trauma for hitting and possibly killing a diver... It's because of all this that I'm very anxious to make all the dive schools and assosiations use proper warning flags in a proper manner. Changing the people is impossible, unless the instructors and leaders are showing a good example. It is also important to make a change in the education for boating certificates. It should be included that when you see a Flag A, you MUST keep your distance. Again, going directly to the people will not make any change. The instructors must show a good example of how to behave when they see a warning flag. I've tried to contact next to every dive school in Stockholm, but they haven't even replyed... which means: They don't care... It might be interesting to consider this: Why should boat pilots show more respect to divers than bathers, when the divers don't care if the boat pilots know they are there? Are divers the same as suiciders, or what is going on? I'm really looking forward to a change in attitude from both sides, but mainly from the divers side.

We are a Dive Centre based in Exmouth Devon, UK - on the Exe estuary. As such we have all sorts of problems with boat traffic either ignoring SMBs or using them asa slalom course!! Marion

This is a regular occurance outside of Poole
Dorset, lots of boat traffic with insufficiently competent crew (don't understand flags etc). The incident above could have resulted in the cobver boat being destroyed!
Andrew Colderwood - United Kingdom

We are diving everyday over jet skis, pedalos, canoes and boats and are aware of the problem. Please send us some stickers! Elina S. – Greece

I am an active instructor on the Costa del Sol in Spain and we have had several problems with the Guadia Civil (Military Police) powering up to diving smbs and pulling on them to get us up with total disregard to the life of the divers below. We know that they have a problem with drug runners along the coast but to do this at renown dive sites is ridiculous. We have tried to complain, as have other dive centres, but it falls on deaf ears as they are a law unto themselves. They then single you out for persecution at a later date.
S.C. - Spain

A very commendable campaign!
I live, dive and sail on the west coast of Sweden, which has a teeming boat-life during the all too brief summer months. I am constantly being amazed at how ignorant people seem to be of what the dive flag or a surface marker buoy mean.
Sometimes, people even motor up to a dive boat to ask what the funny flag means ..
Alexandra – Sweden

OWD dive 3 , with me idc staff and 4 student, boatcam aprox 2-3 meter from dive boje, dept 5 meter, boat dept 1,5 meter, and stayed there for aprox 7 min, due to low on air from student, went close too reef and assent, without the last skils, had too be done in owd 4
J.A. Denmark

While doing deco procedures course we had 2 sausages deployed and a speed boat came speeding and the guy actually pickedup the sausage!!
Anonimous from Egypt

I run a school in Malta. I agree 100% about the danger that divers face with not only boats running over our heads, but also these Jet skies, and sailing dinges which are silent and carry a dagger board which can also be dangeres if any one had to be hit by these sailing craft, having a marker boye or a dive flag flying is not enough to protect divers sometimes, and I do agree about your campaign on magazines, news papers, internet, and TV shows. Thank you for your suport.
A. C. Malta

Three divers in the water, myself as Dive Master using signaling diver bouy, all divers within 25m of bouy in 4m of water.
Heard engines at high revs and saw shadow of boat pass directly over us.
Unable to identify boat, nobody saw it!
Robert Smith UK

During the summer months we are subject to numerous near misses by boats driving within the beach boundary markers which they are supposed to stay out of. Also jet skis not using deignated lanes.

No one seems to care except us divers, the waters are not policed, the pilots of the boats are incompetent and need stopping and or fining. An accident is going to happen sooner or later, near misses are just pure luck!
Anonimous – Spain

Whilst diving on the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales, large numbers of pleaseure boaters obviously had no idea what a dive flag (flag A in the UK) signifies. Mike Cursons - UK

A dive guide had lost a fin and was too lazy to swim off the reef to his boat. He ordered the Egyptian skipper to close the reef to pick him up. The boat was then in gear and amongst surfacing divers from another diving operation. I had to grasp the boats ladders to avoid the propellor and boarded the boat for safety. I was later dropped into the water near my own operators boat.
Mike Cursons – UK

I really appriciate your contribution for the safety - especially with propellers accindents.
It happend to me couple of times, that the captain did not respect our signal devices.
Martin Vrtiska - Czech Republic

In August 2002 while working as a DM on Koh Tao , thailand. I was assisiting an open water course on blue rock dive site. My instructor gave me a japanesse girl to look after as her bouyancy skills needed special attention. As I was holding her hand having just completed our safety stop and was ascending i heard the dreaded sound of a speed boat. I spun around to see the bow of a speed boat coming directly at me. I just managed to push the las down and get down myself as the twin props sped our my head causing me to almost lose the function of my bowels.
I later learnt that the boat that reckless sped through a well known and used dive site, about 60 divers at one time may be in the water, was a safety boat from a dive resort collecting another diver who had just had his head slit open by a long tail on the same site.
All the dive boats carry and fly dive flags and although i appreciate the urgency of getting the diver who had been hit to medical attention the driver of the vechicle still very nearly killed two more.
I now always release an inflatable marker bouy when i am at my safety stop and surface next to it.
G. H. – UK

I was in Kapalai and Sipadan, Malaysia this year and was appalled by the lack of safety standards with regards to dive boats and other boats in and around the divers entrance and exits sights at the resorts. They have not bothered to seperate the boats and diving areas.
Stephen M. UK

We were diving in Medas islands in Girona when a recreational boat passed only 20 mts awy from our diving boat which was anchored at the diving site and had the alpha flag & divers on surface! we shouted and whistled to the boat while signalling the flag and divers but its skipper obviously didn't know (or ignored) the relevant marine legislation. I requested to report the incident but our captain refused mumbling something about bureaucratic nonsense, unenforceable fines and turistic interests...
Carlos Lasuen – Spain

After confronting the boat owner his reply was (i've been fishing here for over 30 years)…..
STEPHEN SHARP – UK

My first boat-trip (AOWD course), sailing boat went really nearby (20m?) our boat and didn't understand our signals (or shouting) to stay away. They were just happily smiling and waving at us. Divers were in the water nearby our boat, luckily no one was on the way up!
Tuula Keronen - Finland

Thanks for the information, however as a sailor as well as a diver it is all very well using the signals that we as divers understand but these must be recognised by other water users. Delayed SMB's in particular are available in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes but these are not part of any recognised standard as a marker for navigation, most markers we as divers are fine for dive marshalling purposes but totally useless for informing other water users of what is going on beneath them. As such it is unrealistic to expect other water users to understand and respect them. The only standard marker I am aware of is the 'A' flag 'Diving operations in progress' . Then we confuse the matter with an orange rectangular flag with a white diagonal stripe. We should not be blaming others for our accidents when we do not respect the existing rules of the sea. In short we are more to blame for these incidents than those in charge of the boats involved in any collision.

If we want to reduce these accidents then we need to take responsibility for providing information in a recognised manner and refrain from shirking our responsibilities in favour of blaming others. I am sure the RYA and other yachting bodies would be very happy to discuss this problem for their members benefit.
Jim C.

….Fishermen boats where arriving at the harbor and they didn't even notice that our diving boat was there
David Mendes – Portugal

We have found that jet skies prove to be a big problem with divers in some areas. We have had experience of jet skies even entering areas which have been bouyed off to boat traffic. Graham and Ann Potter

We're a diving center located in a touristic resort and what you've just described us, is our worst nightmare. Fortunately, we've never had a case of injury in the Island but, tourists rent everyday boats without being aware of the basic flags or buoys.

D.E. - Corfu - Greece

I have in the past had near misses with boats and even other scuba charter boats, the situation is out of hand across the world. I dive quite regularly and sometimes from the shore and appreciate the gravity of the problem.
I will personally endeavour to promulgate the message, please send me stickers in both English, Spanish and German, I dive quite often in Spain and the fishing boats are totally inconsiderate of the divers in Tarifa.
A mutually concerned diver
Danny F. Germany.

My DAN

SAFETY