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#10
 Do Boaters Even Know What A Dive Flag Is Anymore??
Coleman1223 - 6/03/2011 9:45 AM
Category: Health & Safety
Replies: 4
I was diving is a very wide canal is south Florida one day looking for a lost motor that fell off of my friends boat a week earlier, and i heard jet skis well i was under, most were a safe destense away, i had just grabbed my BC hose to start my ascent and i was right under my boey when all of a sudden the water turned dark and a jet ski came screaming over my head ! I WAS 5 FEET BELOW THE SURFACE!!! I descended right away and waitedtill i didnt hear any close boats and i surfaced, noone would tell me who flew over me but belivie i was pissed !!..

Has this kinda thing ever happened to anyone?
#11850
Subscribed
TColJeep - 6/03/2011 9:37 PM
Jet skiis and boaters are 2 different animals. Most boaters I know will attempt to avoid a dive flag. Jet skiis seem to want to use the flag as a turning point for their own personal race course. I wonder if they would mind if we used their personal watercraft for spear gun target practice?
#20464
LatitudeAdjustment - 6/04/2011 7:26 AM


 Saw a NJ dive rescue team run their boat (RIB) right thru a divers bubbles in an area that was only about 6’ deep! At the same spot we had a jet skier playing around a line of dive flags that was set up to keep boaters out of a diver training area under the Point Pleasant bridge. He was trying to see how close he could turn around the floats until someone on shore bonked him with a rock! A sherff’s boat bonked a diver at Phil Foster park who was within 50’ of her flag, she was not injured but when the police were called they tried to blame the diver.


 In many states you now need a license to operate a powered boat or jetski, when I took the NJ course the dive flag was only breifly mentioned but another diver and I in the class brought it back up. Some groups are putting up signs reminding boaters at boat ramps.