AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area Divers, ahoy! "Open Water" movie

two people were bitten off the coast of Florida in the last three days, one of them fatally. I bet they were wishing for lightning.

Quite possibly one of the most inaccurate (and utterly stupid, not to mention boring) movies of all time. I made the mistake of buying it on DVD, sort of as a joke after I'd heard about it; I was sorry I'd even done that after forcing myself to sit through it.

The dive industry buzz (as backed up by the equipment found undamaged) is that these people may well have had a "disappearance" on their agenda from the start.

Very, very occasionally, a diver does get left behind on an overloaded and understaffed boat. Most likely it's as much the diver's fault(s) as it is the operator.

Dive responsibly and enjoy the sharks. They're spectacular to behold.

I love panades! (deep fried corn meal shell stuffed with minced shar meat).

Just the mention of the word scares even the toughest bull shark away.

The film itself is a very interesting story. Extremely, extremely LOW budget production (husband and wife, NO crew except a shark wrangler) shot with very new technology which combines (wasn't paying CLOSE attention to this part) 35mm film with video. So basically, four people made this film - husband, wife, two actors.

It was picked up by a Canadian distributor (Lion's Gate) at Sundance, and away it flew.

Good to see little people make some money.
Very sorry to see sharks get "dumped" on again. Truly sorry.

The biggest danger divers have of being left behind is by not interacting with other divers on their boat. My friend was captain of the dive boat in Key Largo, Florida who left a couple out on Molasses Reef a couple of years ago.
They climbed on a buoy and stayed the night. My friend had his captain's license suspended and decided to get out of the business. The large hotel chain that he worked for had a scheduling problem and at the last minute called a young man who was a very new dive master. He made the mistake of counting heads instead of checking people off of a list. Divers, like cats, tend to move around and the captain is ultimately responsible for anything that happens on the boat.
This couple had kept to themselves so there was no one concerned about them. I tell all new divers and especially those who are worried about going to the Blue Hole to make sure they CONNECT with someone else that will make sure they are back on the boat.

The original question was about drowning. There are a number of things that could lead to drowning while diving. One is being over weighted, getting down to far and not being able to compensate with air in the BC. This probably would only happen if someone is too tired to kick up, totally oblivious to the fact that they are descending or one of many complications of nitrogen narcosis.

The large dive boat that I dove from in Australia had 34 divers - 17 were Japanese and had their own dive master. The other 17 of us shared 3 dive masters. Not only were we checked in an out at the gate, our pressure gauges were read and we had to initial behind our name as we came on deck. Yes, it lead to sloppy wet paper but it was very safe.

...keep them bubbles going up, Harriet.

sage advice from our Prez

Not just Harriet, EVERYONE! In the water AND out!

Keep those bubbles coming up.
Love ya, Dobe. Miss ya. No one to lug my potatoes..