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We went out today, two teams of WKPP divers, 3 in each. Each group covered about 8/10 of a mile, just offshore the suspected area, and right over the central reef at 245-250. The search moves in Sunday to a bit more inshore. Viz was over 150 feet for team 1, and about 100 for the secons team. Each did a 25 minute bottom time, and about an hour of deco from trimix. I and one WKPP member, ran safety on each dive for gas checks and transport of additional. We are optimistic about finding them. On another note, actually getting to do the search was very difficult. The shop these divers originated from was Divers Supply in Rivera Beach. The first thing they did to make recovery more difficult, On Tuesday, was to tell the WKPP team that only the submarine was authorized to look for the bodies----and said this came from the Sheriffs office. Funny, we have many friends in the police department, and they said no such authorization was within their province----i.e., this was a lie. We found this out after being cancelled two days in a row, while the sub was to look, each time the sub cancelled, saying "the current was too strong"-----Hello, guys, don't you know the Gulf Stream blows all day long, virtually every day!!!! Maybe they did know! Suddenly Divers Supply discovers we will do the search on Saturday, with the blessing of the police force. Friday Afternoon, the boat we had arranged to go out on was threatened by Divers Supply, with a law suit if they took us out----stupid yes, no way actionable, but it scared the boat. Somewhat later, Robert Carmichael of Brownies 3rd Lung, and primary sonsor of WKPP as well as team member, gets a call from the owner of Divers Supply, threatening him, if WKPP goes out and finds bodies!!!!!. Carmichael tells George Irvine that "WKPP will spend whatever time it takes to get these bodies, and Divers Supply can S%&el!.*( his *&el!^% . ".... Friday night we find another boat in West Palm---he agrees to take us, and at 6:30 in the morning Saturday, the captain calls me to say he has been threatened by Divers Supply, and can not take us---they could destroy his business. I call Leo of Dive Charters International in Boynton Beach, tell him the entire story---even though he's over an hour away, Leo tells me he'll have a boat leaving for us immediately....I've got to say, this Leo guy is one cool charter boat operator. His boat took us out all day, they are taking us tomorrow, and they won't even let us pay or tip the crew. I know we can't advertise on rec.scuba, but this guy stepped up to the plate, and he deserves some nice calls, from people, even if you don' t go diving with him right now ! You can call him at 561-734-3818, or e-mail him at dci@de*.co* and the website is http://www.deeper-dci.com Channel 12 TV is planning some investigative reporting in to this. The police will certainly be visiting Divers Supply--- who has attempted to prevent us from bringing back the body of their friend, Detective John Claypool, this endangering the financial existence of his widow, and I also believe the State Attorney's office has some real concerns and interest in this matter right now as well. .... So we have a good shot tomorrow, and we'll do Monday as well if needed. Who knows what divers supply will pull tomorrow????, but we will find the truth about what happened on this dive, and they would seem to have a major fear about this happening. I am going to say this, regardless of the repercussions----Training agencies, such as IANTD, CAN NOT continue to allow people to dive gear configurations that are blatantly unsafe----and the concept of choosing a configuration by "personal preference" has to be seen as "criminal", if endorsed by a training agency. In this case, the weight of the steel tanks, combined with the lift destroying bondage wings, is so far from acceptable it can NOT be allowed to happen again. I will also say, that physical screening for tech diving must become mandatory----the tech student exhibited symptoms on a 200 ft dive the day before ( a very bad headache , which forced him to lie down after the dive ) ---these symptoms could have indicated the existence of a PFO, or they may have just indicated that his grossly inadequate cardiovascular system was not up to the CO2 processing job tech diving calls for---this may have contributed to the heroic death of Detective John Claypool, who it appears was safe at 100 feet after the dive end, but went back down to try to help Andre and the student, when he realized Andre could not get the student up. -- Dan Volker South Florida Dive Journal http://www.sfdj.com/ The Internet magazine for u/w photography and mpeg video -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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