[onthetrain]

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere. Heard this on the local news tonight, & this from MCA web site


TWO MALE DIVERS RESCUED AFTER PORTLAND COASTGUARD ALERTED

Portland Coastguard were alerted this morning at 12.40 to two male missing divers, one aged 33 the other 43, from West Wickham in Kent, who had failed to surface to their dive boat about 9.5 miles offshore from St Albans Head at a wreck site. One was described as wearing a blue hood with yellow tanks whilst the other had a black hood and silver and white tanks. Their proposed dive had been 42 metres in depth with bottom time limited to 34 minutes.

The Coastguard were informed that each had a surface marker buoy.

The Coastguard helicopter `Victor Alpha’ was scrambled and the RNLI all weather lifeboats from Weymouth and Swanage were requested to launch and the weather conditions at the time were north westerly winds of force 4 with a 1 – 2 metre swell. Visibility was good at 18 nautical miles.

Various merchant vessels in the area were requested to keep a watch out for the missing divers and a further dive boat joined the search.

After an intensive search, at just after 1.00 p.m. this afternoon, both divers were spotted in the water some 2.5 nautical miles due west from where they had gone in, and the Coastguard helicopter managed to winch them on board, and confirmed that neither required recompression treatment.

When both were landed back at the shore they explained that they had surfaced with their marker buoys and horn to alert their dive boat, but both had surfaced well down tide from the dive boat – which they could see – steaming up tide.