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Five Scuba Divers Missing

driftdiver

Nurse Shark
First Name
Wayne
From Fox news:


Five scuba divers from Britain, France and Sweden are missing in the sea off remote islands in Indonesia after being swept away in a current.

Three of the divers, two women and a man, are British, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed.

The other members of the group are a Swedish woman and a French man.

They failed to return from a dive yesterday in the treacherous waters of the Komodo National Park in the Nusa Tenggara islands east of Bali, police said.

"A rescue team from the Indonesian police and navy conducted a search this morning for the five missing foreigners but there has been no result so far," said Manggarai Barat district police chief Butje Hello.

The husband of one of the missing British women said the search was being hampered by a lack of fuel for a helicopter which had been offered from Kupang on Timor Island.

"We've got a big search operation happening here but we're having trouble getting aircraft to fly because of fuel problems," said Ernest Lewandowski.

He said he and his wife Kathleen Mitchinson, who own a dive shop on the nearby island of Flores, had been leading two separate groups of tourists on the dive.

He only noticed his wife's group was missing when his group surfaced an hour after they entered the water.

"There were three boats out today searching. I was on a speedboat going around all the beaches and everything to see if they had washed up," he said.

The Foreign Office is providing consular assistance and liaising with the local authorities involved in the search, a spokeswoman said.

The Komodo National Park is a popular diving destination which is well-known for spectacular coral and fishlife as well as strong currents.

"The area is reknowned for big fish, deep water and fast currents," said a UK diving instructor.

"Most of the diving there is drift diving - where you go down in one place, let yourself be taken along by a current, and come back up somewhere else.

"The surface support - the boat they're on - follows them, and normally when a drift dive goes wrong it's either because of diver error - they don't come back up when they're supposed to - or because the surface support hasn't worked."

It is also home to many rare species including the world's largest lizard, the Komodo dragon.
 

outback

Nurse Shark
First Name
Neil
I've dived east of Bali before and they get some zinging 4 - 7 knot currents. Here's hoping those people get found....
 

Booty

Nurse Shark
First Name
Paul
Yikes

:eek: Wow. I dove 3 knots off Carolina and we were all completely horizontal on the decent line. I can't imagine anything greater than that. It would be impossible to dive in. Let's hope they are found O.K.
 

outback

Nurse Shark
First Name
Neil
:eek: Wow. I dove 3 knots off Carolina and we were all completely horizontal on the decent line. I can't imagine anything greater than that. It would be impossible to dive in. Let's hope they are found O.K.

It's all done as drift dives, but if the group gets spread out, then you're looking at a difficult pick up situation....

The divers usually have (or are issued with) reef hooks to help slow down the pace or if you want to actually see something.
 

ReefHound

The Last Poobah
DAM CHUMmer
First Name
Todd
Divers found alive

Missing divers found alive on Indonesian island

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Five Europeans who did not return from a diving trip in Indonesia Thursday were found alive Saturday morning, a search official said.
The waters around the Komodo National Park are plagued by strong currents.
The group was found at Mantaolan, which is on the island of Rinca off Komodo National Park, the head of the rescue team said.
The husband of one of the divers said he was told they were in good condition, although dehydrated.
"I'm just so relieved," said Mats Kohler, whose wife is Helena Neva Lainen. They are both from Sweden.
An official said they were being taken to a hospital for examination.
Searchers using boats located the missing divers at 11 a.m. Saturday (11 p.m. ET Friday), the official said.
 

AVID

Nurse Shark
First Name
Shannon
Wow. It's simply incredible that not only did they survive the dive, they also were able to fight off the killer Komodo dragon who had a vicious streak a mile wide and nasty, big, pointy teeth! Kudos to the divers and their rescuers.
 

AVID

Nurse Shark
First Name
Shannon
Just in case anyone missed that reference:

Scuba divers swept away in strong currents survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters before scrambling onto a remote Indonesian island where they faced yet another threat: a Komodo dragon.

The divers — three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden — came face-to-face with the giant, carnivorous lizard on Rinca's palm-fringed beach, and fought it off by pelting it with rocks and pieces of wood, Pariman, a port official said Sunday.

"Luckily, they were able to chase it away," said Pariman, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name.

The beasts have sharp, serrated teeth and often come out when they smell something new, including humans — whom they've been known to kill, Pariman said.

The divers encountered treacherous currents after plunging from their wooden boat off Tatawa island on Thursday afternoon. They drifted 20 miles from their dive site before swimming to Rinca, their last chance to avoid being swept into the open ocean.

"We struggled against the current for several hours, but eventually stopped," Laurent Pinel, 31, of France, told The Sunday Times of London. The group tied their diving vests together to preserve energy, he said. Once on the island, they scraped mussels from the rocks for food, he said.

The divers ran into the Komodo dragon on Friday afternoon. The next day, rescuers aboard one of 30 boats searching the waters spotted them waving frantically on the shore and took them to Flores island for medical treatment.

The area where the diving trip took place is famous for its rich marine diversity, including sharks, manta rays and sea turtles. But it is also known for its treacherous and unpredictable seas.

Recommended only for experienced divers, it is in a place where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet, creating currents that converge and separate. Whirlpools and eddies can pull divers downwards.

"We're safe, but absolutely exhausted and dehydrated," Charlotte Allin, a 25-year-old British diver, was quoted by The Sunday Times of London as telling her parents from the hospital where the group was taken.

Komodo dragons, which can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh as much as 365 pounds, are only found in the wild on Rinca and Komodo island. There are believed to be 4,000 left in the world.


Thousands of tourists visit the area in eastern Indonesia each year to see the lizards in their natural habitat. They are normally shown around the arid and rocky island by guides who carry large, forked sticks to ward off the animals.
 

AquaCat

Nurse Shark
First Name
Jay
Wow. It's simply incredible that not only did they survive the dive, they also were able to fight off the killer Komodo dragon who had a vicious streak a mile wide and nasty, big, pointy teeth! Kudos to the divers and their rescuers.

Did they have to use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?

"One, two, ... five!"

"Three, sir."

"Three!"
 
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