Agate redux

[CaptnJack]

I love stirring up a good hornet's nest and people feel compeled to throw some stones at me right now - like grumpy me did with Fishtiq and Mattley. So here goes...

2+ years ago I am forced to take a break from diving. I had a partial laminectomy at C6-7 and can't dive. I agree to boat tend for 3 friends who want to dive Agate Pass (sound familiar?). One of us had done it years before off a charter boat, I had not and neither had the other 2 buddies. We head over there in roughly Feb-March using one of the diver's 18ft RIB's (no it wasn't Steding's). JW (the owner) tells me, "there's not much gas in her, I'm trying to use it up so it doesn't go bad in storage over the next couple months". Ok no big deal to me, plan on.

So I'm dropping them at the south end on a massive ebb. The one diver who had done Agate before off a charter boat tells me "we had a 50min bottom time last time". Ok cool I'm good with that. "We got SMBs and we'll shoot them at the end, just come and pick us up if you don't stay exactly on our bubbles". Ok cool again. I didn't think to ask about a VHF radio or binoculars. There are no binoculars, but JW's cell is under the seat along with (I think) a handheld VHF radio. I didn't know and didn't think to ask about these things, seems like a straightforward dive down the channel why would I bother to ask? There's a little dive flag on the RIB's tube.

Plop, plop, plop we got 3 divers in the water not far from the red can buoy on the south end of the pass. I follow their bubbles for maybe 3 mins and then can't find them anymore. The wind waves are small but more than enough to disrupt bubbles. Ok no biggie, I had set my watch and knew when they went in. I slowly motored down to just past the dolphin (group of pilings) at the north end and waited.

At 40mins runtime I start to look for them.
At 45mins runtime I start really looking for them
At 50mins I am doing little donuts waiting for an SMB
At 55mins the donuts are getting bigger but I am also worried how much gas I have. I have never been on this boat before and don't even know the size of the tank, what does 1/4 mean??
At 60mins I am talking with my wife on the cell phone asking her advice on what to do next
At 70mins I call 911 and Kitsap County dispatch routes me to the Coast Guard in Seattle

Its about 2pm and will be dark in 2.5 hours or so. The following agencies respond in the next 20mins:
Kitsap Co. fire & rescue: 1 truck on shore, one boat coming from somewhere up north
WDFW 1 boat
State Patrol 1 boat
Coast Guard 2 boats, the helicopter from Port Angeles is busy up in the San Juans (sadly a diver fatality that day)
Coast Guard auxilary 1 boat
Total = 6 boats, one fire truck, and me

I am unable to talk with several of them due to the lack of a VHF. Coast Guard in Seattle is trying to keep me on the phone, my battery is dying. I have to yell back and forth with each responding boat seperately rather than communicating on a common VHF radio frequency. They all wanna know if there's any possibility they are underwater. At close to 100mins from when I dropped them, that seems doubtful. They wanna know experience levels, could all 3 have drowned? Seems unlikely but these responders are really getting me worried...

We manage to divy up into various search areas shouting at each other through the wind. I take the north shore of Bainbridge Island. 10-15 mins later I get a call back on the cell that my divers have been found by Kitsap Fire & Rescue near the Indianola fishing pier. RH had actually run out and flagged down the fire boat, thinking "Hmmmm they look like they are looking for someone..." As Kitsap's Fire boat transfers him to our boat they tell me, "all the divers wash up here on the ebb". I thank them and race off to pick up the other 2 (who are still on the beach) along with their gear.

They had surfaced after about 30-35mins. They had SMBs deployed and dive alerts on the surface. I had neither heard nor seen either, although they could apparently see me. After about 20 mins one of them had to pee so bad (no pee valve) that they had swam over a mile to shore and waited there. Swimming probably kept them from being drastically hypothermic, but they are exhausted from the epic.

Lessons learned the hard way:
Don't dive Agate on an ebb, its just not worth it. Once you are in Madison Bay is too big and there's too much water. Even little waves/wind attentuates dive alerts and makes even big SMBs (5ft) hard to see.

Don't go out with less than a full tank of gas, I probably would have drove along all the shores of Madison Bay if I had even known how much fuel I had. Not knowing the boat, I was paranoid of running out and being in even more trouble.

Other boats are big distractions, I probably would have noticed their SMB if it had been all alone out there and so many other boats weren't going by in front of it

VHF radio + binoculars are crucial peices of gear that you can't live without when you really need them.

Charge the cell phone.

Know your runtime. I wasn't looking early enough. If we had checked the distance against the current speed we would have known that 50mins was unrealistically long. At least I had motored the whole distance 2x (at least) but it never registered to compare the two.

The one positive from the whole day was the Coast Guard and Kitsap Fire were actually grateful I didn't wait until dusk to call them. They didn't charge us for our foolish mistakes either. I don't think we really needed that kind of punitive penalty anyway. The unbelievable stress on me as a boat tender, and the mile plus swim in full gear that JW, RH, and BP had to do was punishing enough for all of us. So if you think I am a bit harsh on epics or near epics, you can see that its born from having been there and done that already.

[gcbryan]

This also illustrates another point and why not illustrate another point :biggrin:

Sometimes dives are done that are serious dives but aren't taken seriously because a boat (or scooter) is involved. This dive can also be done as a shore drift dive. Get in near the bridge from shore and get out a mile away on the other side near the pier/Indian reservation.

When you plan it this way you have to know how long it will take. If there is no boat you have to surface early for a visual confirmation that you have crossed midstream. It's a more serious dive if done this way but if that makes you take it more seriously it may end up being a safer dive as your scenario illustrates.

Interesting story by the way!

[boydski]

Wow! Richard, thanks for posting that! We limit the dives in Agate Pass to 30 minutes when the current is really smoking. NOW I know why!

[BDub]

Wow! Richard, thanks for posting that! We limit the dives in Agate Pass to 30 minutes when the current is really smoking. NOW I know why!

Psha...it only took me 24 minutes to get separated from Richard and Bric!

[dsteding]

Wow! Richard, thanks for posting that! We limit the dives in Agate Pass to 30 minutes when the current is really smoking. NOW I know why!

Psha...it only took me 24 minutes to get separated from Richard and Bric!

Amazing.

BTW, one of the things that worked well about that is the "BW" on your SMB--although I was pretty damn sure that was you . . .

[Fishstiq]

Now that we are back to our regularly scheduled program.....


The video. I know it might look a little blurry, but I swear I was holding the camera pretty still most of the time. Honestly, we were moving that fast! Hope you enjoy it.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/4877387[/vimeo]

[spatman]

awesome video, joe! man, that looks like fun.

[dsteding]

Great video Joe.

[Nwbrewer]

Oh man I'm gonna have to do that dive this fall. That looks awesome. Nice video Joe.

[Grateful Diver]

:smt038

Looks like scootering, but without the scooter ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[sheahanmcculla]

Wow! That is crazy fast! I think I’m a little dizzy. Good choice on music too!

[dsteding]

Oh man I'm gonna have to do that dive this fall. That looks awesome. Nice video Joe.

Let's get a crew back out there in the fall.

[LCF]

Oh, great video, Joe, and perfect music!

This looks like a must do -- put me on the list for the fall!

[dsteding]

:smt038

Looks like scootering, but without the scooter ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

If we get good vis next time, and less boat traffic, I am scootering. Figure you could scooter through, and then hang a right and come up way in the shallows.

[Romer Treece]

GREAT video Joe!! That made my morning! :smt038

[Norris]

Joe that was a GREAT video. I SO want to take that trip

[CaptnJack]

This also illustrates another point and why not illustrate another point :biggrin:

Sometimes dives are done that are serious dives but aren't taken seriously because a boat (or scooter) is involved. This dive can also be done as a shore drift dive. Get in near the bridge from shore and get out a mile away on the other side near the pier/Indian reservation.

When you plan it this way you have to know how long it will take. If there is no boat you have to surface early for a visual confirmation that you have crossed midstream. It's a more serious dive if done this way but if that makes you take it more seriously it may end up being a safer dive as your scenario illustrates.

Interesting story by the way!

Yeah surfacing out there without a live boat is probably not a good idea anymore. Back when Steve Fischnaller wrote up this plan in NW Shore dives there were ~500,000 fewer people in Pugetopolis and also far fewer boaters and the whole maritime atmosphere was different (e.g. Jet skis probably didn't exist)

[gcbryan]

This also illustrates another point and why not illustrate another point :biggrin:

Sometimes dives are done that are serious dives but aren't taken seriously because a boat (or scooter) is involved. This dive can also be done as a shore drift dive. Get in near the bridge from shore and get out a mile away on the other side near the pier/Indian reservation.

When you plan it this way you have to know how long it will take. If there is no boat you have to surface early for a visual confirmation that you have crossed midstream. It's a more serious dive if done this way but if that makes you take it more seriously it may end up being a safer dive as your scenario illustrates.

Interesting story by the way!

Yeah surfacing out there without a live boat is probably not a good idea anymore. Back when Steve Fischnaller wrote up this plan in NW Shore dives there were ~500,000 fewer people in Pugetopolis and also far fewer boaters and the whole maritime atmosphere was different (e.g. Jet skis probably didn't exist)

It still works. Just do it in the winter midweek (very few boaters and better viz). Do it will 4 knots at the bridge and 2 knots nearer the piers. Until you get closer to 2 knots though you can't make the channel crossover. I wouldn't do it with 6 knots as in this weeks dive. From shore the current doesn't kick in until you get out there a bit and the same on the other side. Definitely not a good idea in the summer with many boats as a shore drift dive though.

[CaptnJack]

Oh I don't doubt that its possible and that it can work. More along the line of will it work (reliably enough). You sound like Uncle Pug, "eh what could go wrong, we'll just flag down a boat if we get lost" lol.

[gcbryan]

Oh I don't doubt that its possible and that it can work. More along the line of will it work (reliably enough). You sound like Uncle Pug, "eh what could go wrong, we'll just flag down a boat if we get lost" lol.

I'm just trying to make the point that a boat is not necessarily safer. It's all in the plan. The divers in your story spent a long time on the surface when the boat didn't materialize because they planned on needing a boat. When we did it as a shore drift dive I didn't plan on having a boat and didn't plan on spending any time on the surface except for a brief negatively buoyant mid course pop up to be sure we were on course. There's no reason to not make it to the other side if you plan it in sufficient detail.

Generally, of course, it's a much easier dive with a boat.

[LCF]

Richard, thanks for the story. Now I understand why you were upset we didn't have binoculars on Nottie (which omission has been rectified).

I remember when we did the Swirl Island dive last winter, how nerve-wracking it was to boat tend in a place where we had no idea which direction the current would be running, or how fast. Not knowing WHERE to look for divers is a very insecure thing for a captain. It's been my experience so far that, if divers are blow about 70', the bubbles are so dispersed at the surface that only in absolutely glassy water can you see them at all, so anybody below that depth is difficult to impossible to follow. SMBs are great, if only because if you shoot them early enough, you are unlikely to have gone so far from the boat that they can't be seen (again, assuming fairly calm water).

Gray's point is a good one, too. Having a boat gives you the courage to dive in places where you can get into a GREAT deal of trouble if things don't go smoothly -- For example, our Davidson Rock dive, where we surfaced downcurrent from the boat. We did have a boat tender, but one with no experience running that particular boat. We had a current line out, but not a long one. It could have been a problem. Lots of learning experiences from boat diving, but the more of it I do, the more convinced I am that the most critical thing is to have a boat tender who can run the boat -- which, in our case, largely defeats the purpose of having the boat, because finding boat tenders who are content not to dive is not easy, especially on weekdays.

[CaptnJack]

Lots of learning experiences from boat diving, but the more of it I do, the more convinced I am that the most critical thing is to have a boat tender who can run the boat -- which, in our case, largely defeats the purpose of having the boat, because finding boat tenders who are content not to dive is not easy, especially on weekdays.

I am not kidding when I quoted Uncle Pug, I took him (along with snowbear) out once and part of his backup plan was flagging down a passing boat.

Mel and I dove for years without any boat tender at all. My first 150ft dive at Waterman's was from my own anchored 12.5ft inflatable. Its quite possible to do it with several layers of security between you and disaster. And in Pugetropolis its not like you are lost forever like the young man who solo dove off his Boston Whaler north of Monterey last year and was never found again. I wouldn't let the lack of a boat tender kill your boat diving plans. For instance there are a ton of places in the Fed Way to South Sound areas that are virtually current free. I can tell you anchoring Itsami ledge is not a good idea but that is a story for another thread.

(edited for clarity)

[pensacoladiver]

I'll second (or third) the notion of having a good boat tender. How many time have you took someone out who says "I know how to handle a boat". YOu let them try a pickup, and they run in on the person at 10 mph or are about 2 seconds away from hitting the rocks.

I am very leery about letting anyone drive my boat without demonstrated knowledge about how to handle one (ie, they own a boat and I have been out with them before).

A live boat tender does you no good if he simply watches you drift away because he can not drive it or even start it for that matter.

[dsteding]

For example, our Davidson Rock dive, where we surfaced downcurrent from the boat. We did have a boat tender, but one with no experience running that particular boat. We had a current line out, but not a long one. It could have been a problem. Lots of learning experiences from boat diving, but the more of it I do, the more convinced I am that the most critical thing is to have a boat tender who can run the boat -- which, in our case, largely defeats the purpose of having the boat, because finding boat tenders who are content not to dive is not easy, especially on weekdays.

Uh, on Davidson Rock, you had more than a boat tender--you had the three of us one boat over waiting for you.

[CaptnJack]

I'll second (or third) the notion of having a good boat tender. How many time have you took someone out who says "I know how to handle a boat". YOu let them try a pickup, and they run in on the person at 10 mph...

You would not like some of our local charter operators!