Posts by behslayer

Another thing we learned when my very good friend and dive buddy Davo did not surface. It was the last dive of the day. Drift diving in Heavy currents. 5pm on the equator, strong glare. Small group of islands in the middle of a very deep channel, 12-15miles from the main island. Davo made a last drop with just a reel. At the end of the drift, everyone else met the boat, but Dave wasn't there. He couldn't be located on the surface, couldn't be heard. Returning to the beginning of the drift, a group of friends made desperate repeated drifts looking for his body. As it became dark, there was no other option but to return to port and report the incident to the Police.

At the end of his drift, Dave was quite calm. He could see the boat and waived his Urukay at them, the boat was busy picking up the other divers, one of whom he figured had landed a fish. No worries, Dave swam against the current to maintain position as best he could. He had a whistle which he was blowing to alert them to his position. Then the boat moved back to the top of the drift. The currents in these parts of Indonesia are very strong. Dave is the best swimmer I know. He regularly swim trains. He swam at full kick for over an hour fighting the current trying to stay as close to the small island as possible. As it grew dark he had to make a big decision.. He ditched the Urukay, his belt, and kept his knife. He knew he would need to swim the 12-15 miles through the night to the main island. Unsure of the sweep in the Channel, he made his best guess and swam in the trajectory he thought would get him close to the main island of Sumbawa. He kept his knife as he had decided that if the was attacked by a shark, he would cut his arteries. In the glimmer of dawn, Dave saw a local fishing boat, swam to it and was rescued 1/2 mile from shore.

The point of this story is that you should always call for help first, and that you can never assume that your buddy didn't surface.

Very important topic Dan. Thanks to start this thread.

If your dive buddy doesn't surface.

When my friend Roy Yogi didn't surface in Nusa Penida, my friend Pak Stew took control of the boat. This area is very cureented. The first thing he did was to have everyone tether themselves to buoys. There are two immediate concerns of life and death in this situation. The victim, and the potential rescuers.

A Floatline is often readily available. Tethering yourself to a float line is a good course of immediate action. The idea is that you are going to be swimming looking for your friend. With a Floatline clipped onto your belt you have a way to clip onto them and pull them to the surface from the surface. There are other benefits.

When another very close friend was located in 120ft of water in the same god damn place as Roy Yogi disappeared 10 years later, a friend dropped there with weight and used 2 float lines, one to his own belt, and one to clip onto our friends body.

Theirs going to be a lot of learning and good advice in this thread. I'll immediately bring up the topic of rescuer safety.

Pantoja, you are right. The first five minutes is crucial. Dan is also right to use this godamn ****ing tragedy to better the collective knowledge. I didn't get to meet Nate personally, but something tells me he's the kind of guy who would say "If there is anyway that studying and reviewing what happened to me can help prevent it from happening to others, please do." Every one of us feels it when one of our brothers passes in the water. We all got family and friends.

Andrew, I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend. There is no blame here. Accidents happen and when they happen in the Ocean the clock ticks fast. Dan. You are being heartless. Yes, every dive accident and fatality needs to be reviewed so that we can all learn to recognize similar situations unfolding and avert them. But, we all do things that are not textbook. 2 experienced guys in a boat, relatively shallow water drift diving, who hasn't done that? This time it ended in tragedy. What happened? First dive.. breathing isn't relaxed yet. Maybe there's some other physiology, dehydrated etc. Shoot a nice fish at distance towards the end of the dive. It limps off the Spear.. you chase after it knowing that if you don't get it, you probably will not see it again. So, you push it.
Recovering a buddy is in itself dangerous and there's more than one account of rescuing divers becoming victims themselves. Murk Layer and a potential search area as large as a football field. There's a real possibility that the search team could have arrived to an empty boat when they finally found it and been searching for two victims. If you wanted to establish a protocol for this situation, it would be to anchor, call for support, make sure they have the correct co-ordinates and if necessary guide them in. A flare. A Flag. Make sure they know exactly where you are. Know from them how long it will take for them to get there. Keep an Open channel of communication with them. (They are going to tell you to Stay on the boat.) Then.. you could tether yourself to a large visible buoy, let rescue know what you are doing, and then jump in. But by this time, in this case, Rescue was there.

The important thing to take away here is sequence. With only one person on the boat, As soon as you realize that something is not right, the very first priority is to anchor and call for help.

Andrew, you will be rethinking this your entire life. You did the right thing. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm going to post an email from Gil's wife which I received this morning below. Once this fund is in place, I wanted to throw out a proposal to some of the other gun builders out there..

Let's each make a gun which Gil would be proud of and in keeping with his Style and donate the proceeds of sale to Gils' fund to help support his wife and 4 kids he left behind.

Ulusub is going to make two guns for Socal WSB in support of this cause, I'll try to make them to Gil's standard. If you have a Gil gun and wanted something similar, I can try. I hope some others will come onboard as well.

"I am so touched that you and your friends want to do this for Gil. He truly loved designing and building spearguns. If he could, he would have done it for a living. He had so many speargun ideas, and I am just so sad that he is not with us to share those ideas. I would love to see the gun that is built as a tribute to him.

I am setting up a fund for Gil. There have been so many people that have wanted to do something for our family. His sister and I will be putting up a site and it likely be called the Gilbert Gacula Benevolent Fund where anyone can go online and donate. When we have it up I will let you know.

Here is a link to Gil’s obituary if you haven’t seen it yet:

http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dig...50&mid=5841950

Regards,

Darleen Gacula"

I always thought a bit differently. I figured that Open Cell was a description of the surface rather than the characteristic of the Elastomer. When this rubber is formed, it's laid out in panels like a foam to gel. These panels can be @ 25mm in thickness. They are then sliced by a nasty machine into the requested thickness in increments of 0.5mm. Ie. 3mm, 3.5mm, 5mm etc. When the machine slices into this foam [Neoprene is made of an Elastomer foam] it cuts open the bubbles within the foam leaving those along the surface Open. There are also Closed Cell Surfaces.. Each end piece of the original Panel, is closed Cell, ie there are no cut open Cells. These are what we refer to as the Smoothskin used for "Smoothskin Seals" on the face, and sometimes, wrists, ankles, of suits. Otherwise, a Skin can be glued onto an Open Cell surface to seal it ie, SCS, Metalite, Gold, etc.. both inner and outer. But a true Closed Cell Surface occurs only on the two end pieces of the original slab.

My $O.O2, I'd stick with Open Cell. Lined/Unlined makes most people confused.

Lucky..

I've had Black Marlin like that staring at me a vew times, and the last thing I was considering was pulling the trigger.

I like Black/Grey for knives. I've lost a bunch, but it wasn't the knives fault. It was the Sheath. We need better Sheaths.

Would you want your knife to float?

That's a question I ask sometimes.

Glassy 18ft backs was incredible to be out in. But scary stuff. I didn't get any big ones, I did get dragged underwater for over 1OOyds on one missed drop.. Thank god I didn't get caught inside by any of the sets though.

46yrs old and still charging. Nice Boards! Those big ones look like they would go well at Giant Uluwatu. We had one day this year which was pretty intense.. 15-18ft backs glassy perfection and lined up for hundreds of yards. If you like surf have a look in the Gallery on the Ulusub.com website. There's a few shots I've taken over the years.

Awesome.

Awesome!

Welcome Kveite Crusher. Show these guys what a Norwegian Halibut can look like.

I guess thats where you shoot a Yellowfin.. Great Video. Thanks for sharing it. My son was surfing at your old local break in Nitroi this week. Said it was real good.

Hi,

I brought in two Extra 17Ocm Wahoo/Tuna guns.

17Ocm carbon fiber reinforced teak gun
-4 x 16mm bands
-8mm Threaded Shaft
-Ulusub 1OO Reel
-Ulusub Gun Bag

Here's a few photos. Plus one of my muse enjoying her first Christmas.

Even within a batch not all swivels are the same. Some Snap and some Pigtail swivels will be more difficult to open/close. When a pigtail swivel is a bit off line, it can be a real pain in the ass. That being said, they are pretty cool.

Yeah. Sleep while you can. I haven't slept in 9 months now.. Just finished a particularly brutal 36 hour travel which included 1 hour of sleep.. But it is awesome. Good Luck.

What about this one? I guess these are hunted in some parts. But can you imagine this thing wrapping itself up your gun, around your mask.. I leave these alone and hope they leave me alone.

189 with the shaft? or 189 total wood length? I was working on a 17O today and that is already a really Long gun. At 189, you would need really long arms to load the gun anywhere..

I have a few Bluewater guns that are @ 19O total length including the 25-3Ocm of Shaft overhang. That's a nice size for a 4 band Bluewater Mid Handle. Not too big at all.

A look through your blog page is fuel for what will be a long day of hand sanding. Very inspiring. I can only imagine the blisters when you made that incredible Handle on the carbon/teak gun. Awesome work.