Scuba Geek

Diver’s warning after getting entangled with fishing nets July 25, 2006

Posted by Andy Carroll in : Accidents, News, OceanDiving , trackback

Two Dorset scuba divers say they are lucky to be alive after becoming entangled in fishing nets off the Dorset Coast. Jim Waler, 67, and instructor Gill Burks, were diving at Swyre Ledges, two miles out from West Bexington, at a depth of 27 mtrs, when they becam entangled. This from thisisdorset.net;

Mr Walter said: “I want to warn other people. We were lucky, we were on more or less slack water so there was not a lot of current running.

“You only have to be out there when the current is running to get some idea of the force. You get washed into them there is no way you are going to cut back out of them against the current, all you can do is grab a knife and start chopping your way through it all.” He said there were no markers to show the nets were there and if it was someone intentionally fishing they were “irresponsible”.

Mr Walter said: “We had to cut ourselves out. There is some equipment down there we had to cut off and leave.

“If someone is netting I would consider it the height of irresponsibility because of the amount of diving that goes on there.

“It is quite likely, to be fair to the owner of the nets, that they have been dragged in by a boat and then got snagged on the reef and torn off as he’s come over the reef.”

The Portland coastguard watch manager Jim Anderson said: “It is not a common occurrence but there is always the possibility that there will be things on or below the surface that are a danger to divers, they have just got to be extra careful.”