As some of you have heard there was a diving fatality a couple of weeks ago.
So far very little infomation has been heard.
The infomation I have so far is.....

The diver was experianced and 46 years old.
It sounds like he was solo diving with a boat person looking for crays.
He surfaced with out his gear.
It sounds like he may have removed his gear to gain access to a crack/cave while trying to get crays. Apparently he was only 18ft (6 meters) deep.

So far this infomation has come from 3 diffrent sorces but none has been confirmed as fact. One source was an email recieved by a forum member, another was infomation from a dive shop and the 3rd was an a anonymous email.

Some people will say speculation is not helpfull with these events but I disagree. As long as it is clear that we are speculating and not turning this into psudo facts then I believe we can learn from it by thinking about diffrent scenarios and how we should act if was us.

Please feel free to comment but remember this is not a place to asign blame.

just to add, he had apparently done this a few times before, but this time as he was in the crack getting cray his reg fell out of his mouth while inhaling, hence I assume the reason he came to the surface without his gear.

I have removed my gear to get in cracks before too. Its a really bad habit and I doubt I will be doing it again after hearing about this guy.

short of a incident where i had to remove my gear to surface, i would never take my gear off in the sea - too paranoid about losing my expensive gear lol - but thats just me. I have and will do it in the pool for training though

[/hijack]

I've taken gear off too hunting crays, but I always had my buddy RIGHT there incase things went wrong.... I would do it still in that situation, but NEVER solo!

personnallly I have and probalt will not ever dive solo... and to be honest like Nathan said I doubt i would even take my gear off, short of an emergency

...just dropping a quick post to see if this thread has been locked out by AdminMonster

na not yet.. I think someone gave him some happy pills so he will be fine for a bit....

Other than NZ cray hunters, I've never heard of anybody taking off their dive gear under water except for during training, or once when a friend of mine went too deep into a wreck (without a line) and got a silt out,,,, and had to get out through a small window in the bridge.
It just seems like too much of a dangerous activitiy - with or without a buddy. If the reg gets ripped out of your mouth and you accidentally inhale water, it doesn't matter how many other regs are available, it's going to be a tricky situation to recover from whilst under water.

I personally really don't see why you would.. even for that big cray at the back... Just don't think my life is worth that for that slim factor of something going wrong... esp solo

Really the whole remove gear to get in a crack and reg falling out is speculation and in all probablitity will never be proven.
If he was solo then there was nop buddy to witness it. But the only other reasons I can think of to remove gear is training ( and I think we can rule that out) and entanglement.

The bit about the reg falling out when inhaling is a little harder to quantify.
If it did fall out when inhaling you simply grab it again. Perhaps he removed it to gain further access to the cave. And then when he came out he didnt have enough breath to look for it so raced to the surface holding his breath.

quite true... but why put yourself in that position if solo any how?

Crays
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or Crays E

I took my gear off once to get a cray (actually several) and I wouldnt do it again simply because I dont care about crays.

I took my doubles of underwater one day to readjust something and damn near took off. I was 2metres above my doubles and pulled myself back down my long hose to my doubles.

I don't care about crays either anymore. If I see a big one at the back of a hole, I leave it there.

The only time get them for my old man, only a few a year.