Number one danger in my opinion is entanglement in wood, especially in rivers. The "sweeper" effect can be deadly as most diving in high current is more of a "controlled drift" than it is truly diving/swimming. Combine the wood with low vis and you have a dangerous situation. The dynamic nature of rivers causes the obstructions to change and shift-appear and disappear constantly. A spot that was safe to dive one day, can be a death trap the next. I too will return to this thread later.
Tragic about Michael, RIP
In lakes my biggest fear are boats and jet skies. Lakes are typically a confined space with as many people trying to use the resource as possible. Oftentimes the people are on the water for one day a year, and have little understanding of boater safety. Add a few beers, girls in bikinis, and other people, and the distractions are overwhelming for some.
In Montana it seems that curiosity is another big problem. People here see a dive flag, and a person in the water and have to come over to check out what they are doing-trying to get close enough to see. Combine that with kids that should not be left to freely play with machinery (jetski) like it is a toy and you have potential for disaster.
I know these are dangers all divers face, but in places like Montana there are few experienced boaters. Taking these elements into consideration, I try to dive very early in the day (before many people are out), and dive weekdays apposed to weekends when the chance of encountering uneducated boaters is more likely. I also try to dive more in the early spring and late fall as there are less recreational users those times of year. More observations to come.
The second largest danger to a river diver is the Vortex, or suck hole. These hydraulics are not stationary as one might believe. They shift, change, emerge, and disappear....only to pop back up in places they have not been previously observed.
Very few people have a good understanding of the power of moving water. Water is around eight pounds per gallon. We measure river flows out west in Cubic Feet Per Second-i.e. the volume of water passing any given stationary point. Let's say for example the flow is at 1,400 cfs- a pretty normal average flow for our local rivers, and a flow that you will see hundreds of people recreating on (tubing, swimming, floating). That number (1,400 cfs) represents a lot of power. Imagine 1,400 basketballs going past you every second, and those basketballs weigh eight pounds a piece. Quite a bit of power-that the best swimmers in the world can not "hold" themselves in. Then add in whirlpools of the same force that continually evolve and shift-you are left with a very unpredictable and dynamic diving environment. I work over a hundred days a year on such rivers and have seen many fatalities. While oftentimes wood is the culprit (swimmer pinned by the flows into the obstruction) there are plenty of instances where it is simply the hydraulic holding a person under longer than they can hold their breath. The latest loss here was a 6yr old girl who was in a boat with her parents (wearing a PFD) when the boat capsized. She became pinned to debris and was unable to free herself. Would be rescuers are oftentimes lost as well when they enter the obstruction.
There is an amazing amount of power to moving water and divers need to be aware of the dynamic nature of rivers. Hydraulic whirlpools and vortexes shift and grow in an unpredictable way and learning to read the water is imperative for divers. In most instances what is happening on the bottom is portrayed on the surface in some way-much as a rip going over a pinnacle in the ocean. The most important thing a person can do is respect the amazing power of moving water.
I grew up near a river but didn't dive. I do remember a bunch of us in high school going canoeing, getting drunk ...
My buddies were behind us as we came into some fast water and a bend. After we made it through looked back and saw our buddies climbing out of the water but their canoe was nowhere in site.
It had slid under a tree that was submerged with just the tip sticking up pointing up stream. If one of them had gotten trapped in the crotch of a branch and the trunk, maybe they would have gotten stuck too. It sobered us up pretty quick.
But the bad vis is what scares me. Buddies aren't much help if they can't see you tangled. Even in relatively shallow water.
Jake dives pretty deep here but I can see him. We had to scuba on our pipeline last week in 12 feet of water and that scared me more. There are fishing lines, anchor lines....maybe gill net? Even with scuba a stuck diver can get in trouble fast. At least I can see the bubbles but man....
Scary stuff that bad vis.
Poor vis and lots of crap in the water .
In rivers , you may have those same issues , although I won't typically dive a coffee colored river , with the added issue of constantly changing hydrography.
This is a great bunch of lessons and advice. Thanks for sharing guys.
Every time I've gone whitewater rafting I always kind of scoffed at the guides when they give their safety warnings but after i had to help pull a buddy back in to the boat after he fell out I took it very seriously. My friend weighed about 145 lbs back then, a weight I could easily lift. He felt like he weighed 500 lbs. I was pulling as hard as I could and it took another guy grabbing me and pulling us both. Scary powerful
Display MoreThis was previously posted by Speardiver member Sames on another thread. I hope you don't mind me copying it here so others will read the concerns when diving Beaver Lake.
Don
Quoted.
''I will say, for some reason Beaver Lake claims many lives each year. For us freedivers, the biggest concerns for me are getting snagged by the standing timber that is all over the place under the surface. It acts like petrified wood and the branches are sharp and have zero give- if it gets ahold of your suit it isn't going to let go easily. Add to that the murky water and it can be very hazardous.
I don't know the exact circumstances of course, but where he was found there is a lot of standing timber in that water, anywhere from surface level to 40 feet or so''.
I was at Beaver last December during my R & R and the area had suffered a severe drought ,thusly, the lake was way down. Consequently , I was stunned by how much standing timber there was in areas usually underwater. Lots of trees. More than I ever realized and I've dove the damn thing.
But again , coffee colred rivers are an animal all together alone. Even shallow waters are challenging . The bottom can change and shift while you're on it. We've moved structure looking for cats and have a whole new basin suddenly show up . That's pretty jarring.
To address poor vis in still water, its best to drop an anchored line fixed to the boat, give the water time to settle and then only hunt by moving up and down the line never letting go of it.
You can kinda the do the same in a river by tying off to a tree , center weihted by a cinder block and the end tied off to structure on the far side . That helps alot , but the bottom still collaspses and moves and sometimes submerged logs will bounce/roll along the bottom and cause havoc. That's a whole another issue. Submerged two foot logs that dance along the bottom.
used to dive canyon lake and the guadalupe river in texas and the amount of monofilament attached to the trees and logs was a terror- not to mention all the various cr*p people dumped in.
once i surfaced to find jet skiers using my dive buoy for a turn pylon. beautiful
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