Dougcole
Guru
A couple of weeks ago, during our annual summer Bahamas trip we were in the Sea of Abaco, just outside of Hopetown, when I heard a mayday come through on the VHF. It was faint, so I didn't respond when I first heard it as I expected someone nearer or with a base station VHF to pick it up. When I heard it a second time about 30 seconds later I responded.
It was a woman anchored just off of the Fowl Cay dive site, her husband was diving, had gotten exhausted, caught in the current and was drifting away from the boat. She was unable to launch a dinghy or move the big boat (50 ft Cruiser) to go to him. She was unable to tell me exactly where she was located but was able to read the GPS to give me LAT/LONG #s.
Interestingly, no one else could hear them, or bothered to respond to her. We found out later that she was on a handheld. I think we may have just been lucky enough to be right in her line of sight, though we were 5 to 10 miles away. Or maybe it was some sort of weird skip? Hard to say.
I hailed BASARA, who responded immediately, and launched a boat from Dive Guana on Guana Cay with 4 rescue divers on board. They were on site in under 10 minutes, found the diver and brought him back to his boat.
During the entire process we were the only VHF station that had constant contact until the very end when the rescue boat was very close. I stayed on 16, relayed messages and tried to keep her calm.
A few days later we coincidentally got a slip right next to them at Treasure Cay. They told us the whole story. The husband and teenage son were diving with scooters. The scooter batteries died and they were unable to swim back with them against the current. The father took both scooters and sent the son back to the boat. The son was able to make it back, but the weight of the scooters exhausted the father. He ended up abandoning the scooters but it was too late.
Interesting given the recent thread on handhelds vs PLBs. In this case the VHF worked, but not very well. They got kind of lucky that we heard them.
It was a woman anchored just off of the Fowl Cay dive site, her husband was diving, had gotten exhausted, caught in the current and was drifting away from the boat. She was unable to launch a dinghy or move the big boat (50 ft Cruiser) to go to him. She was unable to tell me exactly where she was located but was able to read the GPS to give me LAT/LONG #s.
Interestingly, no one else could hear them, or bothered to respond to her. We found out later that she was on a handheld. I think we may have just been lucky enough to be right in her line of sight, though we were 5 to 10 miles away. Or maybe it was some sort of weird skip? Hard to say.
I hailed BASARA, who responded immediately, and launched a boat from Dive Guana on Guana Cay with 4 rescue divers on board. They were on site in under 10 minutes, found the diver and brought him back to his boat.
During the entire process we were the only VHF station that had constant contact until the very end when the rescue boat was very close. I stayed on 16, relayed messages and tried to keep her calm.
A few days later we coincidentally got a slip right next to them at Treasure Cay. They told us the whole story. The husband and teenage son were diving with scooters. The scooter batteries died and they were unable to swim back with them against the current. The father took both scooters and sent the son back to the boat. The son was able to make it back, but the weight of the scooters exhausted the father. He ended up abandoning the scooters but it was too late.
Interesting given the recent thread on handhelds vs PLBs. In this case the VHF worked, but not very well. They got kind of lucky that we heard them.
