Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Scuba safety begins above water
Diver, crew discuss each dive before taking the plunge
For Jim Mathie and the crew on his boat Chiefy, figuring out what they want todoona dive begins before they ever get in the water.
“We usually have a plan as to what we’re attempting to try to do,” said Mathie, a retired Deerfield Beach fire chief.
“I think it’s important to have that discussion. And you have to have that discussion above the water because, once you get in the water, it’s hard to communicate.”
That not only makes diving safer, but also more enjoyable.
“To me, the reason why I dive is to be stress-free,” Mathie said. “So the more that we can relax and take it easy, the better your dive is going to be.”
Planning made a difference on a recent lobstering and spearfishing trip out of Hillsboro Inlet with Mathie, Ken Udell, John Strunk and Andy Rubin.
At each spot, Mathie and his divers talked about what the reef looked like, what parts of it they should swim along, what they might see and what to do if conditions were not what they were expecting.
Before one dive, Mathie talked about how the current should be running to the south, which would allow us to swim with it for the length of that particular reef. But he also said that, if the current was running to the north, we should immediately surface because it would be too hard to fight the current and there was nothing worth investigating to the north.
Soon after reaching the bottom, where there was a north current, Mathie gave us the thumbs up sign so we knew to head back up to the boat.
“It’s knowing the reef and knowing the spots and what are you going to do,” Mathie said.
Mathie is the author of the how-to lobstering book “Catching the BUG” and the how-to spearfishing book “Catching the Spearit!” Both books, which are available online and at local dive stores, talk about safety considerations, something the former firefighter does not leave to chance.
Tourists and snowbirds who go diving, in many cases for the first time since last winter, need to plan their dives and go over simple things like the hand signals they’ll use underwater.
Mathie’s crew uses an OK signal, with the thumb and index finger touching, to indicate that all is well. A thumbs-up signal means go to the surface, so a diver doing that to say he or she is OK could cause confusion.
When a diver does have to go to the surface early, the safest thing is to follow the line to the dive flag, after you let your dive buddy know you are leaving.
“That’s important, because you don’t want to just surface way far away from the flag and the boat doesn’t know where you are,” Mathie said.
Mathie is also particular about the location of his dive buddies when hunting for lobsters and fish, who also let each other know when they see something shootable or catchable.
“It’s really important that you’re side by side as opposed to ‘follow the leader,’” he said. “A lot of folks, when they’re not hunting, they will actually go follow the leader because that’s kind of the way they were taught. They have a divemaster or a dive instructor and they’re showing you different things on the reef.
“With hunting, I don’t want you behind me; I don’t want you in front of me; I want you to the side of me. This way, when Ken stopped for a lobster and he squawked a little bit, I was, ‘Oh, OK, I’ll go over and check and see if he needs some help.’”
“That’s part of the safety plan,” Udell said. “Honk and stop; this way we’re not getting separated and I’m not spending half my dive trying to find you as opposed to hunting and trying to find lobster.”