TAURANGA, New Zealand (29 Dec 2007) — The search continues today for a 29-year-old woman who yesterday went missing while diving off Motiti Island. The Waikato woman was out diving with a group of friends south of the island, about 30km east of Mt Maunganui, when she failed to surface about 7.40am. According to police the woman, a qualified diver, was at a depth of about 30m looking for scallops when her (air) supply ran out. She was able to share her dive partner's air supply - known as "buddy breathing" - but it ran out as well, leaving both to try to make it to the surface without air. Her dive partner surfaced but the woman failed to make it. A four-member specialty police dive team was flown from Wellington yesterday afternoon and joined local rescue teams around 4.30pm. The search continued again this morning with the police dive team out on the boat by 7.30am. Tauranga Coastguard combed the waters around the Motiti Island yesterday morning, conducting two full searches around the island. Sergeant Lester Polglase of Tauranga police said the search had been conducted both above and below the water yet despite near perfect conditions nothing was found. "The area where she was last seen has been marked out for the specialty police dive team," he said. The police search team would be able to do four dives today but with visibility limited to 5-10m, the divers had to comb the area side by side. Police said six people were on the trip, however, only four - two men and two women - were in the water when the accident occurred. The three other divers, all qualified, were picked up from a boat in the area by coastguard at about noon yesterday. They were brought back to coastguard headquarters at Sulphur Point where they were interviewed by police. It was a sombre scene with the group's dive gear stacked on tables and friends and family gathered outside the building awaiting any news. The boat the group used was left anchored off Motiti Island as a marker for police divers. | | The waters off Motiti Island are a popular destination for both local and visiting divers in the Western Bay. In 2000 the former tug Taioma was sunk in 27m of water at the southern end of the island to form an artificial reef for divers. In December 2005 two marine studies students suffered the bends - decompression illness - after both running out of air at a depth of 38m during a diving expedition. The men were diving when one ran out of air - forcing them to rely on the other man's air supply. Rachel Rolston of Earth to Ocean Ltd, a dive shop and dive training centre, said the maximum time someone could spend at a depth of 30m was 20 minutes. She said 30m was the edge of the recreational dive limit and that a person would consume about four times as much oxygen at that depth than they would at the surface. "The deeper a person goes the faster they consume air," she said. "When you are sharing with a buddy that air would be consumed even more quickly." Ms Rolston said the sea bed around Motiti Island was attractive to divers because it was known to be a good place to gather scallops. The accident would be felt throughout the close-knit dive community. "It's tragic. It shows even the most well trained divers can run into problems," she said. SOURCE - Bay of Plenty TimesSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
