Boat runs over divers in Miami

Bad Karma indeed ..

what an asshat.

this is jsut awful, he slowed down to look back at the guy in the water before speeding off. ?!?!?! what to make sure he was good and taken out? i cannot believe this, this removes all of that notion of an accident or "I didn't see him"

BS

I am in Thailand and there are a lot of jet skii's. Some of them don't even know what the float with the flag and 'diver below' means... they are on their vacation. Gotta be careful of them. They are usually in groups of 2 or 3, paying attention to each other and nothing else.

Whats the best thing to do when a jet skii starts getting too close? Swim up top and hoist your speargun high and try to make sure your seen? Or is that just asking to get completely ran over...

i think the best defense is a huge flag, that at least lets them know you are there...it ca n attract real yahoos though who feel it is okay to use as a racing marker.

my strategy is simple. I try to locate the source of any sounds (motors) right away...we have a lot of low flying planes where i dive and they always scare me a little...them I assess if that source of the noise is a threat (ie heading toward me) then I decide if I am safer on the surface waving my gun or diving to avoid the threat all together... I generally prefer to wave because I cant see them while i dive and dont want to surface in front of them

Quote from Chastral

I am in Thailand and there are a lot of jet skii's. Some of them don't even know what the float with the flag and 'diver below' means... they are on their vacation. Gotta be careful of them. They are usually in groups of 2 or 3, paying attention to each other and nothing else.

Whats the best thing to do when a jet skii starts getting too close? Swim up top and hoist your speargun high and try to make sure your seen? Or is that just asking to get completely ran over...

Oh man, my first experience with jet skiis was a pisser...

Several years ago, I was diving in Hawaii at a relatively shallow pinnacle. The swell mounted there steeply, but on this day, weren't breaking. In the harbor (a couple miles away), they rent jet skiis and there's a set of buoys that renters run circles around. I had never seen them out on the diving grounds as the renters are typically novices and prefer the sheltered flat waters of the harbor. This particular day, an instructor decided to take a private rental group out to the mount and let them have fun launching over the oncoming swell. I was down on a dive and heard thunderous roars as about 10 skiis came flying in. As they were used to the marker buoys inside the harbor, I looked up to see the skiis using my dive buoy as a turning point, hooking right angle turns within feet of it!!! :angry5:

I came up, scared to death, gun pointed out of the water. A couple skiiers whizzed by, giving me dirty looks, wondering what the hell I was doing in their area. I turned to see the instructor (who suddenly realized what was happening) frantically waving his arms and yelling to his rentals to slow down. He idled over to offer a bit more protection, apologizied profusely, & made sure I didn't get hurt. I was too shocked to be angry and just happy to get out of there safely and as fast as I could.

Like you said - the dive flag & float don't mean crap, unless they know wtf it means! In any high boat (or ski) traffic area, I always come up with my gun out of the water. I know it won't work all the time, but every little bit counts!

The scariest boat I ever encountered was a huge tourist sailing catamaran. With no motor and choppy sea conditions, this boat was pretty much silent. This HUGE boat snuck up on me! I was coming up from a dive, and 10ft from surface, looked up/back to see a massive rudder/skeg passing right over me. If I hadn't looked up, I would've been messed up for sure without even knowing it was there! :0

Just curious how you guys hold your guns when surfacing. In our murky waters, there is constant and heavy boat traffic, and it can be very difficult (for me) to figure out how close, and in which direction the danger lies. The guy that I first started scuba diving with taught me to surface with my gun pointed up. It saved my life on one occasion when a boat idled over me as I was ascending and about 4' deep. I saw the boat at the last second and used my gun to push off from the bottom of the hull. The prop broke the tip off my spear shaft.

Of course, pointing a loaded gun skyward is not without danger to others.

Edit - Fuzz must type faster.

Interesting stories fuzz and Jeff.

maybe ill be back in a week with one of my own

if so, i hope it is not a close call...dive safely my friend