How come they got left behind in the first place?
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x_sad_girls_x — 17 years ago(October 07, 2008 03:03 AM)
Some say the crew never bothered with a head count and the crew say they did however must've counted inaccurately. Weird, but still happened in real life. Since the couple were left behind they now have a different method of making sure the entire group is back on board.
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fireballag06 — 17 years ago(October 10, 2008 11:35 PM)
I thought it was strange too that they got left in the first place. I am a SCUBA diver and here is what I thought was wierd/stupid:
- The guy who counted the two guys twice
- That the couple got lost and just stayed under water, rather than resurfacing to find the boat. It is a well known thing in scuba diving to resurface when you've lost the boat and wave for help.
- They should have had a safety "sausage." This is a big, NEON, inflatable tube so that people can find you.
- Also, they showed the mooring line early in the movie. Then it had disappeared by the time they resufaced to where the boat had originally been. In real life, they should have just held on to the mooring line to wait for the boat's return.
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dippy_in_dc_1 — 17 years ago(October 11, 2008 05:54 AM)
Missed another big one. A boat engine is LOUD underwater. You cannot miss it starting up and their cruising off. If they were the first boat at that site, then when a boat was heard to start up their engine (as opposed to cruising in and shutting down their engine), that should have been a big flag to pop your head up and see what the heck is going on. (admittedly I have a bit of an advantage in that my hearing is actually sensitive enough to be able to orient direction from such sound despite the much increased speed that sound travelstoo fast for the vast majority of people to be able to tell the timing difference between their ears to be able to sense the direction)
As for "does it happen", the answer is most definitely yes. While taking a live-aboard dive boat from Miami to the Bahamas, heard on the radio a dive boat calling in to the Coast Guard reporting a lost diver. Heard another dive boat also making a general inquiry as to who lost a diver because they picked up an extra one. The two "crossed wires" had not figured out they were (almost certainly) talking about the same person while we were still in range (not for longBlackbeard's Cruises have custom made dive boats that can make pretty serious time.
Steve -
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mrkovacs1 — 14 years ago(June 18, 2011 09:32 AM)
Hmm not an expert, but I thought you had to surface slowly. If they had started their engines but you were still minutes away from being able to surface, then tough breaks - no?
Only if you're at a certain depth. The depth they were at, no, they could swim right up. -
euromarkusx — 15 years ago(December 06, 2010 02:06 PM)
Dive boats are very busy, and 20 divers are A LOT.
Well-run dive boats call out each person's name, waiting for "here!", instead of head counts.- The guy didn't count the divers TWICE. He didn't REMOVE the 2 ticks when the divers went into the water. Remember, the ticks were for people coming back ONTO the boat.
- The couple was never lost UNDER the water, so there was no need to resurface. The surfaced in the correct spot, over the coral marker that he spoke of.
- Agreed, and a whistle. My air-whistle can be heard over a mile away.
- That wasn't a "mooring line", it was a "reefing line" which is connected to the back of the boat when there is a current.
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lauriloo38c — 15 years ago(February 12, 2011 07:10 PM)
I went on a snorkeling excursion as part of a cruise a few years ago. The crew had us count off several times before and after we got in the water. Even with that, they left one guy behind. Later that night, he was at my dinner table on the cruise. He was alone in the water for over an hour before another excursion boat took him in. For all his fear and danger, all the excursion company offered him was a t-shirt with their companies logo on it. Do you believe that??
The last time I snorkeled, the crew read names off a list and we had to say "Here". An infinitely better system! Plus, I'm so paranoid about being left behind I kept checking to see if I have drifted away and if people are getting back on the boat.
One last thing. The last time I snorkeled, the water was so choppy I ended up barfing. Boy, did the fish come running to me, lol. If you want to see a lot of fish, chum the water! -
Razzbar — 14 years ago(July 08, 2011 03:23 PM)
Remember that the one crew member counted heads before anyone went in the water.
As they came out of the water, he just made a check on the piece of paper he wrote down the number.
Now, remember that two of the divers came out of the water early so he checked two out. But one guy couldn't go in, because he forgot his mask. He borrowed a mask from one of the early returns, but wasn't allowed to go in the water without a buddy. So one of the people who got out early, went in as his buddy.
When those two came out, the one was checked off again, and the guy who didn't go in at first, was also checked off. That meant that two extra checks went on the paper.
Which is ridiculous. First, somebody would have noticed that somebody was missing. Second, they should have counted TANKS, and done an actual HEAD COUNT before heading back.
So while it was clever how the discrepancy took place, it was ridiculous in a real world condition.
Nevertheless, it has happened. -
Mydoona — 15 years ago(February 01, 2011 10:58 PM)
aia was wondering why if there were 18 other people on the boat..no one realised they were gone..even if they didn't speak to anyone SOMEONE would have thought hey I can't see the young cute couple here anymore??
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DizzyLizard444 — 14 years ago(July 23, 2011 12:51 AM)
In the story that inspired this the company found the missing couple's things but didn't say anything for 2 days after and even sent their transportation away. Seems like complete irresponsibility and laziness to me.
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CCRider01 — 14 years ago(August 02, 2011 04:50 PM)
OP, you do realize this film was based off a real story, they WERE left behind because of a faulty head count and the boating company did not realize their error until too late. They were missing for 2 days before the boat skipper discovered their personal belongings back at the companies office, and then phoned the hostel where the couple were staying and found out they had not returned.
The skipper Geoffrey Nairn was charged with manslaughter though later acquitted, and the boat company pled guilty to negligence and was fined.
No one knows exactly what happened to the couple (how and when they died), but the rest of the film is pretty much accurate. -
saahlhok — 14 years ago(October 15, 2011 11:41 AM)
- Counting instead of using the divers names for verification.
- The switch up w/ the lady diver returning & her partner, partnering w/ hairy guy.
- The couple was reserved & to themselves, not memorable.
- Between the three of them..Davis, Junior & Linda are brain deadalong with the other divers.
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puirt-a-beul — 10 years ago(November 06, 2015 09:13 AM)
OP, you do realize this film was based off a real story
I saw a recent 20/20 episode about the real-life story (
) just tonight, which led me to watch the movie again. I think the most poignant part of the real-life event for me was that, a couple of years after the disappearance, some fishermen found a diver's slate washed up in shoreline scrub, that contained a sad final note from the Lonergans. It said something along the lines of "we're abandoned, and adrift, somebody please help us or we're going to die", and then their names. They'd apparently written it and let the tide take it from them, in some last, desperate hope that someone might find it in time.
Mind you, the story isn't without controversy. I'm in fact Australian, and I remember when all this happened, and there are still people who feel that some of the evidence points to them faking the whole thing. In fact, around the same time there was another bloke who had something similar happen to him in New Zealand, except he managed to sneak aboard another dive boat and get back to shore before he was discovered
and he turned out to have been from the same church congregation as the Lonergans
. If that's a coincidence, it's eyebrow-raising. The question was: did they in fact plan this between them?
Then, there was also the fact that several separate pieces of their dive equipment washed ashore
all of it on the same beach
. That seems fairly unlikely, unless a) they were fairly close to shore when they died or lost the equipment, and b) the current was strongly in that direction. Stranger things have happened though, I suppose. And if they'd made it that close to safety, it's heartbreaking if they didn't actually manage to save themselves. And if they
did
save themselves I wonder where they went?
Another one of those stories, like
The Perfect Storm
, where we'll probably never know the finer details of what really happened.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.