| hi
we just thought we'd would let you know - we recently had to rescue these guys your asking about off the manacles on easter friday.
my partner and i operate a dive charter from falmouth, bay marine, we had a boat full of divers in the water when we noticed the rib plymouth sound divers were in had engine trouble, even though they knew the engine was playing up they still proceeded to let their divers go in the water! the fog was closing in and the wind picking up, and the sea was becoming rather uncomfortable, hence everyone else retrieving their divers.
they put out a mayday to the coastguard as they had drifted so far away from their divers and were not far from going up on the rocks. they had no anchor, flares, secondary engine - in fact no safety equipment whatsoever.
we went to their rescue and when going alongside we had to throw them a line as they never had any and then the skipper couldn't even tie a bowline, once they were secure we had to tow them to recover 2 of their divers and as the other 2 of their divers were to near the rocks Porthkerris divers in their RIB had to recover the remaining 2.
we towed them all the way back to falmouth even though they launched near the manacles - at one stage they asked if we would drop them off from where they launched, even though it would have caused damage to our vessel. we can only say it was the most stupid thing we have ever seen for a very long time and the manacles is not a forgiving place for such behaviour.
we asked them their name and they said plymouth sound divers which we believe are part of the mounbatten centre.
we do not wish to slate any other dive charter company but we feel such behaviour needs to be made aware off, for everybodys safety.  |