The working relationship between recreational boaters and scuba divers can often be tense.  In the busy recreational waters off of the south Florida coast, a scuba diver’s biggest threat can be the danger posed by fast recreational boats as they dart about in the congested coastal waters.  Scuba divers spend some amount of time on the surface, and just a slight lapse of attention or judgment can put them in the immediate target zone of a speeding boat.  Divers typically display the familiar red and white dive flag to warn boaters when they are operating in the area, and commercial dive boats always display the flag to alert other boaters that there are divers in the water.  Unfortunately, some recreational boaters don’t see the warning, and many don’t understand the meaning of the flag when they see it.  Just such a case resulted in a disaster last month in south Florida.

Rob Palmer was enjoying the crystal clear Florida waters while diving from a commercial dive vessel.  After surfacing from a dive, Rob and his dive buddy were attempting to make their way back to the dive boat for boarding.  For reasons not yet known, a recreational boat swerved from its course and struck Rob on the surface.  The resulting accident severed both of Rob’s legs.  While he is making a good and rapid recovery from this horrible accident, there are still questions as to the boaters understanding that there was diving in the area.  Despite the large dive flag displayed on the nearby commercial dive vessel, Rob was overrun.

Rob has many diving friends in south Florida.  Their concern for him and their general concern about a seeming rising number of accidents and “close call” between boat and divers has lead them to conduct a Dive Flag Awareness Event on Saturday January 31, 2009.  Representatives from this volunteer group of friends will be at a number of Florida boat ramps informing boaters about the meaning of the red and white dive flag, they laws that impact boaters when a diver is present, and what precautions boaters should take when divers are in the area.

For more information about this safety awareness effort, we encourage you to visit a thread on the popular online scuba diving website ScubaBoard.com.  The link below will lead you to this discussion.  If you are not a member of ScubaBoard.com, we encourage you to join and participate in the conversations.  It is absolutely free and lots of fun.

Dive Flag Awareness Event Thread on ScubaBoard.com

Phil Ellis

www.divesports.com