KEY LARGO.. 3 divers die OOA

[MAXFACTOR]

I agree with all of the things that could have been done.  But,  I too have dove down the ladder that heads toward the engine room. 

WHen you get to the bottom you can go forward about 25 feet see different rooms, and if you turn half way, to your starboard side, you can see another ladder set up, which is confusing if you get twisted around easily.  If you take that ladder up when you think you're going topside, you're actually in a different staircase.    One of them leads back up topside, the other takes you up about 1/2 a deck but there is no (topside) it takes you to another part of the boat but doesn't go up, it ends up bringing you to other parts of the boat which is deeper into the side of the engine room and then you end up going down.   Remember its dark.

I wonder if the rescue workers will be describing the forensic layout of the ship to see if this is what happened. 

In either case, my dive buddy Reuben from Miami and I decided to turn around and not even mess with it.  As it turned out, we finished the length of the boat on what I will call the first level interior corridor that runs the entire length of the boat.  We went all the way back to the part of the deck drops off to that flat landing space and then decided to call the dive as we were down to about 700 pounds of air each. 

We took the closest mooring line up, Knowing full well that we had our safety stop to do and then have a 500 foot surface swim back to the boat, as we ended up in the stern, and the dive boat was moored to the bow.  Safe rather then sorry.

There's no way I would have taken the extra flight down without a line and without adequate planning.  The Silt was never a problem for me on any of the dives I did on the Spiegel.

maxfactor