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Old 11-08-2015, 14:38   #16
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

"Devil's Island - Read Papillion"

They're the Isles de Salut a about five miles off Kouro in French Guiana and about the only place we found in F-G where it was pleasant/clear water for swimming.
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Old 11-08-2015, 15:35   #17
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

Anywhere there is a seal or sea lion rookery. That's a great white chow line. I used to dive commercially off San Miguel Island which has a large sea lion rookery on its southern coast. There were great whites. We saw one hit a seal within 50 yards of our boat when we were minutes from jumping in. The seal screamed like a human. The white had hit it from behind and had swallowed the aft half of the seal.
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Old 11-08-2015, 15:41   #18
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

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Same thing happened to me while bodysurfing in Pismo Beach. Always in the water, swam like a fish then, "Holy crap", the beach is getting further away and the pier is coming up fast. I couldn't really parallel the beach because the current was taking me into the pilings. I just made the beach before I went under the pier, crawled out of the surf on my hands and knees and collapsed. Scared the crap out of me.
Yup! Not fun, at all.

Hanauma Bay, east oh Honolulu. The red arrow is the exact location where I was fighting the riptide. I started fighting it at where the arrowhead is. Fun!
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Old 11-08-2015, 15:48   #19
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

Here's the image of Hanauma Bay. Lovely place for riptides!
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Old 11-08-2015, 16:04   #20
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

I make no claims to being an expert but if you think stray currents are not a problem in marinas you might try googling the words stray current in marina. There seem to be a lot of insurance companies quite worried about it as well as the ABYC. are they all worried about nothing?
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Old 11-08-2015, 16:15   #21
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

Here:



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Old 11-08-2015, 16:20   #22
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

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I make no claims to being an expert but if you think stray currents are not a problem in marinas you might try googling the words stray current in marina. There seem to be a lot of insurance companies quite worried about it as well as the ABYC. are they all worried about nothing?
Completely different subject. Stray current is NOT from a hot AC lead in the water.

Google drowning + marina + electricity and see if any are salt water. My first hit, just now, was...

Electric Shock Drowning (ESD) Explained - Seaworthy Magazine - BoatUS

"Why fresh water and not salt? Salt-water is anywhere from 50 to 1,000 times more conductive than fresh water. The conductivity of the human body when wet lies between the two, but is much closer to saltwater than fresh. In saltwater, the human body only slows electricity down, so most of it will go around a swimmer on its way back to ground unless the swimmer grabs hold of something — like a propeller or a swim ladder — that's electrified. In fresh water, the current gets "stuck" trying to return to its source and generates voltage gradients that will take a shortcut through the human body. A voltage gradient of just 2 volts AC per foot in fresh water can deliver sufficient current to kill a swimmer who bridges it. Many areas on watersheds and rivers may be salty, brackish, or fresh depending upon rainfall or tidal movements. If you boat in these areas, treat the water as if it were fresh just to be on the safe side."

PLEASE, if I am wrong and there is a documented seawater case in a recreational marina, I think we ALL want to read about it.

I'm not sayin' be careless, just be afraid of the right things.
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Old 11-08-2015, 16:21   #23
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

When I was a kid we would swim in all sorts of fresh water lakes in FLA. Not sure if that is the thing to do since the gators have come back in huge numbers...

Back about 1990, I was at Holiday Park west of Ft. Lauderdale. This is a marina with boat ramps to the Water Management Districts aka The Everglades. You could go down there during the day, head down the L67 canal or go out in the Sawgrass and you would be lucky to see a gator.

At dusk one day, a gator hit a pretty good size Gar fish but did not kill the fish. The Gar was injured and swimming in a circle. The gator surfaced and made its way to finish its meal which it did with a big CHOMP.

That was not scary. What was scary was the dozens of gators that emerged from the Cattails and started after the injured circling Gar. They must have picked up on the strange vibrations in the water. Until the gators had emerged from the weeds, you would not have known that they were there. If you go down to some of these boat ramps at night and shine a light, you will see gazillions of eye pairs that are all gators.....

A swimmer would have no chance in that water in some of these areas.

Later,
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Old 11-08-2015, 16:29   #24
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

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Thanks for posting that info. I did not know that.

I wonder about another scenario and would like your more informed/knowledgeable opinion on it. This a sincere request for some advice.

The Scenario
Imagine you are in a boat that has begun taking on water due to a significant leak of some kind. You have on board some AC powered pump (your emergency pump of some kind). You are standing in the salon up to your knees in saltwater and urgently need to dewater the boat.

You think you can start your engine, but are not sure. You have seconds or minutes left.

You have an inverter that gives AC power from the batteries.

Question #1
Are the batteries shorted because of the water over the sole (knee deep already)?

My assumption is that as soon as the batteries and their cables are covered in salt water they are no longer a viable source of electricity for any use by any boat accessories. Is that right?

Question #2
If you use your Inverter, and plug a long extension cord into the electric pump, will you get zapped (electrocuted) by the 120v from the inverter? Would this be safe to do?

Question #3
If you have a genset that gives out AC power, and you attach the long power cord to it so you can get power to the portable AC pump, will you get zapped if you step into the knee deep water?

1. Not sure. I suspect the conductivity through the battery is better than the seawater and you will get significantly reduced voltage for a very sort time period, and then they will be flat. I believe this matches submarine experience.

2. You won't get zapped (the power will take the shortest path, which is back down the wire), but the plug will melt and you will probably blow a fuse (I've dropped AC plugs in the water for a few minutes--they are ruined).

3. The AC generator or inverter will short out the moment it gets wet. If the wiring is proper there actually is little danger.

... Although you are going to drown.

----

One of the greatest dangers is working from a dingy with AC tools. People get killed this way every year. I recall a high=profile pro sailor died that way a decade ago. Often there is some water in the dingy, you are wet or sweaty, and then you ARE the shortest route to ground. Strangely, if someone had thrown the power drill in the water next to you, swimming, you would have been safe. So details matter.
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Old 11-08-2015, 20:37   #25
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

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Rip Tides can be deadly.

When I was younger (30s), the husband of a friend was on the Florida Gulf Coast (near Pensacola). He was in waist deep water with his children. The beaches there slope gently out and the sand is white. It seems benign in most cases. One of the toys the kids had went out in some waves. The father swam out to retrieve it. His drowning loss was attributed to a rip tide (current) that was running there. His family on the beach watched him attempt to swim back, but he could not make it, he kept trying, struggled, exhausted himself and then went down. He was a fit man in his 30s.

I have felt them several times as they are common on the stretch of beach I usually went to in Florida.

Once when I foolishly got into some storm surge surf and breaking waves off a beach in South Carolina with a friend. We were out on a bar as the waves came crashing in. As I struggled to stand chest deep against the OUTGOING current, I realized we were in jeopardy as we still had to swim back into the shore. The waves were "huge" for that area and we were foolish. I knew about rip currents, and did a quick decision to move laterally while I could. I barely made it back into the beach (about 150 feet down the beach from where I was before). It scared me then, and made an indelible memory of how the power of water flowing is much stronger than even a strong swimmer. Swore to myself: NEVER again!
A strong riptide experience will certainly teach you respect for currents ... unless you drown, and I almost did. That day in Hanauma Bay (January 2000), I was actually skin diving --by myself-- with mask, snorkel, and fins outside the reef located about 100 yards off shore. At one point, I looked down the steep drop-off into the bay and all I could see was black, with no bottom. I thought "Hmmm, I probably look pretty tasty to big shark right now", so I decided to head back into shore. That is when I suddenly realized that I was in the riptide and being dragged out to sea. Even with fins, reaching the "one" possible outcropping in the reef to get a breath and rest was extremely difficult. I was very lucky. Two or three more seconds and I wound have gone under and died.

That same January I visited the North Shore, and signs were posted the full length of the beach prohibiting anybody from even entering the water due to the riptides. There had been storms to the northwest, and the North Shore was experiencing some of the largest waves that had ever been seen. I just sat in the sand next to the water, completely in awe of the monster waves. Hard to tell, yet they appeared to be 80-90 feet high. Nobody was in the water. Not even surfers.

Now making a list of the things I don't like:

1) Angry whales
2) Big hungry sharks
3) Riptides
4) Hungry grizzly bears
5) Tax season
6)...

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Old 11-08-2015, 21:42   #26
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

One place I would never swim is my ex wife's pool... She has a gun, is a great shot and stays up late drinking every night! Phil
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Old 11-08-2015, 22:57   #27
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

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Now making a list of the things I don't like:

1) Angry whales
2) Big hungry sharks
3) Riptides
4) Hungry grizzly bears
5) Tax season
6)...

+1

6 is x wife.
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Old 12-08-2015, 07:32   #28
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

Reunion. 18 shark attacks since 2011.


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Old 12-08-2015, 07:46   #29
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

You need to be clear on deaths in recreational marinas to state salt water. There have been a number of cases in freshwater marinas. In testing you can find stray currents in brackish water as well up to a couple feet from the hull thats leaking. If you store a boat any distance up a river or canal that is fed from freshwater sources you may want to be careful.
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Old 12-08-2015, 15:09   #30
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Re: Dangerous Swim : Places I Would NOT Swim

The most dangerous swimming place for me was not in the sea, but on land. Wet & Wild waterpark, Gold Coast, Australia. They had these shotgun tubes, about 30 feet down at a very steep angle with a teeny little kink at the bottom, basically injecting you into the water.

I did a foolish thing; I had just experimentally proven the physics of speed on the regular slide, so instead of the park's instructions to ride the shotgun sitting facing forward, I went down head first on my shoulder blades and heels. There must have been two smoking tracks of scorched skin down that tube because I didn't spend very long going down it, probably a lot less that the safety guys had intended.

The lagoon water felt like concrete as I impacted, which knocked the wind right out of me. My lungs sucked in a breath about the time I banked off the bottom. I clearly remember coasting, paralytic, under the lagoon bridge with the water wavy image of a cute lifeguard looking disinterestedly at me as I tried to wave and mouth "HELP". Luckily the residual momentum carried me close enough to the shallows, and with my last strength I managed to scrabble ashore and begin converting back to air propulsion. The callous varlets and churls nearby didn't help, perhaps they'd seen the Human Torpedo act and were leaving me to die in the watery bed I'd made.

Lessons learned:

Water is really hard when you hit it fast and at the wrong angle.
Skin, fibreglass and speed mix; just pick any two.
Gills are useful things underwater; lungs, not so much.
You can swallow enough water to keep you going well into the night.
Water is not the only thing in a water park pool.
Lifeguard girls at water parks are really cute, but not much help at lifeguarding.
If you're prepared for the shock, you can survive a headfirst shotgun second time around.
Cute lifeguard girls will throw you out of the park if you try for best of three.
Don't do stupid stuff, you only win stupid prizes.
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