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> Two certified cave divers -- one a scuba instructor, the other a former > commercial diver on Gulf Coast oil rigs -- died while exploring an underwater > chamber > off Grand Bahama Island. > > Michael Brown, 37, and Randy Smith, 30 were part of a 10 person group from > Ft Meyers that had chartered the SHEAR WATER out of Riviera Beach for a > four day dive trip to the Bahamas. While diving in waters near Freeport, > they entered a blue hole that lead to a cave in about 120 feet of water, > said Ken Johnson, a crew member on the SHEAR WATER. Anybody know whether this was the "Zoo Hole" blue hole? On a live-aboard a couple of weeks ago, I dove the Zoo Hole, which sounds rather like like the location described above. In the dive briefing, the captain explained that at different times dependant on tides, the pair of holes could flow in either direction. He thought that they would be slack at the time we were there. However, once we got 40 feet or so into a hole, in around 80fsw, it became clear that there was a very strong siphon flow. Our group was *not* prepared for these conditions, nor were most of the divers trained for them. We turned to leave (strongly encouraged to do so by an Instructor and DM who happened to be there), and had to work quite hard to kick out. Aborting was very clearly the right decision for us. Once we got back to the "entrance" where the two holes diverged the flow was weak enough that we could stick around and enjoy the rest of the dive. I can imagine a similar situation resulting in drowning. The DM and I spoke afterwards, and he felt the captain didn't give the right "message" about the seriousness of cavern/cave diving in his very cursory briefing. I'm inclined to agree...
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