Re: [Paddlewise] Floaters

Doug Lloyd wrote:
> 
> ralph said:
> 
> <snip>
> <<<To set the record straight.  Kayakers have found dead bodies here
> just
> twice in the last decade.  This one and one around 1992.>>>
> 
> <<<I asked Adam Brown, a professional diver who works the entire harbor
> inspecting piers and repairing them.  He said he had run into them from
> time to time.  I asked when was the last time.  "Oh, in 1992 and it was
> under Pier 26!"  That's the home of the Downtown Boathouse.>>>
> 
> Ralph, et al:
> 
> I read an interview with a NY diver a while back. Basically, the diving
> specialist has a hell of a job. He must descend to intractable murkiness
> to search for guns, knives and other "things". 

A police diver figured in one of the most bizarre incidents that I know
and still perplexes people to this day.

It was in 1991 or 1992.  A German TV film crew wanted to shoot footage
of a rescue of a motorboater who falls overboard without a PFD and is in
distress.  The NYPD Scuba patrol was to act out the scene with one of
their divers playing the role of the victim.  This was a fairly young
guy.  If I recall around 30 years of age with several years of service
as a scuba cop and from a long line of cops, you know, uncles, dad,
grandfather, brothers etc all on the force. He himself had gotten
commendations for some dramatic rescues such as the kind you mentioned
in your email.  One was in pulling some people from a sinking powerboat
just a few months earlier.

The scene was in the waters off of the Battery at the southern tip of
Manhattan.  He was wearing street clothing when he jumped in.  He faked
the role of the drowning person without a PFD by thrashing around in the
water and then deliberately sinking as the script called for with his
arms up.  His fellow scuba team stood by as back up fully suited up in a
patrol boat just a few yards away.  They waited and counted.  More
seconds than they were comfortable with passed without him resurfacing. 
Two of them dove in.  We are talking perhaps 20 seconds of delay and
scuba professionals used to these waters diving in in full regalia to
rescue a professional scuba fellow who was at home in these waters as a
Navy Seal or real seal for that matter.

The guy was gone.  Completely gone.  More divers came, both cops and
commercial guys.  Ferry traffic was diverted.  The area was ringed with
rescue boats of all kind both official and private.  To no avail.  He
had disappeared.  They searched through the night.  The next morning he
was found drowned at the bottom of the river in probably 50 feet of
water and only a hundred feet or so from where he had gone under.

To this day they do not know what happened.  Remember that this guy was
at home in the water, a regular diver in its murkiness, strong and young
and while the water temperature was about 60F degrees this was something
he was very used to.

I have my own theory.  Water in these parts do not move in a uniform way
from surface to bottom.  That area has currents that are out of synch
with the East River flowing for 90 minutes in say a flood while the
Hudson River is still ebbing just a few hundred feet away.  Too, the
water has different levels and different temperatures.  Water on the top
6 feet layer might be heading in one direction while just below it might
be going in another.  The whole area is termed The Spider for its
effects on motor and sailing vessels.   Large commercial vessels such as
oil tankers and tugs with barges are warned that they may be pushed in
one direction at the bow and another at the stern and be, in effect, out
of control.

He may simply have sunk to a level where a lower current grabbed him and
pulled him away; he got disoriented and drowned.  Or he may have hit a
submerged waterlogged piece of piling.

Anyway, the filming was to show what happens to a person in the water
who is not wearing a PFD.  That this could happen to such a skilled
scuba professional with all the swimming skills in the world and much
water savvy and proven coolness under fire tends to make me cinch up my
PFD tighter whenever I am paddling.

ralph diaz  
-- 
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Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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