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Trip Reports: Boat Sinking
Bonaire Talk: Trip Reports: Archives: Archives 2000 to 2005: Archives - 2001-11-30 to 2002-09-25: Boat Sinking
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jamie Klarman on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 11:42 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I received this trip report from the Atlantic-Diver newsgroup yesterday and thought this group would be interested. Hope it's not inappropriate to post someone elses report.
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Some of you may of heard of a boat sinking in
Bonaire... I saw on Scuba Diving that the word was out
there so I thought that I would post my little story
(since I was actually on the boat that sank) for your
enjoyment.

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I noticed that there was a thread on the board
yesterday about a boat sinking in Bonaire on Friday so I thought that I would post the story since I was one of the twelve divers on the Antonia on that fateful afternoon...

The 1 PM boat trip was a Dive Master's choice to
Klein. Pulling away from the dock at Bon Bini Divers(Lions Dive Resort) we saw one of Captain Don's boats smoking from from an electrical fire. Maybe this should have been an omen? Anyway, the group decided to head over to Jerry's Sponges for the dive and within a matter of minutes we were moored off of Klein. Onboard the Antonia were 12 divers, the captain, a diver master, and Henrick (SP?) a videographer filming the trip (I guess to sell the copies).

Once moored it was pointed out by several divers that there was water coming up onto the dive platform but the crew seemed unconcerned, noting that they may run the bilge pumps after the divers left the area. I was one of the first divers in the water and once I retrieved my camera from the crew I immediately descended and headed for the reef, not waiting for anyone else as I was diving solo. About two minutes into the dive I noticed two divers behind me. A few minutes later the divers were nowhere in sight. The rest of the dive I saw no other divers on the reef and I did briefly wonder why but then assumed that they had decided to swim into the current and not with it
as I had chosen to do.

After 40 minutes I was back near where the boat (The Antonia) was/had been moored when I noticed a boat circling above me. I also noticed a fin floating on the surface. Realizing something was up I began my ascent. On the surface I found the Bon Danki waiting for me and looking around discovered that I could not see the Antonia moored where I had left it. I swam up to the Bon Danki and as I climbed onboard the crew and other divers told me about her sinking. The rest of this is based on what I was told and not actual eyewitness since I missed the actual sinking...

After I left the boat things happened fairly quickly. The boat continued to take on water and within minutes, the boat rolled onto its side tossing several divers overboard. There is some disagreement as to whether or not the crew realized the boat was in trouble before it rolled. I am pretty sure that nobody was expecting it to roll though.

Once on its side it was not much more then another
minute before Antonia started for the bottom. On its way down one diver got his gear tangled in the tag line (my guess for the description I heard is that the line was wrapped around the tank valve/first stage)and was pulled over backwards and down with the boat. Henrick the videographer had, fortunately for everyone, handed his camera to another diver to help the crew and passengers. When he saw the diver going down Heinrick followed and managed to cut the diver free at 40 - 50'. The diver survived but suffered barotrauma to the middle ear which kept him from leaving Bonaire on Saturday with his group as orginally planned. All in all pretty lucky considering he was unable to grab his regulator and put it into his mouth on the way down.

In the end there was that one injury, plus a cut on someones shin, and some lost gear. Most gear was retrieved but I believe that a dutch couple lost their credit cards and money. Bon Bini went out and raised the Antonia within two hours and she was sitting on shore by the airport when we left on Saturday. The Bon Danki had to be towed in from the salvage operation since she wouldn't start (which seemed to be a chronic problem all week when we were there).

And me? Well, I had a great 30th and final dive of the trip and a whopper of a story to tell afterwards (even though I missed most of the excitement). Since I had all my gear on my person during the dive I didn't loose anything in the sinking (other then the boat of course) and so I was pretty fortunate I guess. Next time in Bonaire I might stick to the shore diving though...

DSDO,
Craig

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter - NetTech on Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - 9:15 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jamie,

This was already posted over in Diving & Snorkeling.

Jake

 


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