PSA: Stop ignoring your comms cable knots on deep dives

I saw two guys last week on a job off the Gulf coast fighting with tangled comms lines at 120 feet. They kept yanking and spinning, which just made it worse and wasted 20 minutes of bottom time. If you don't coil your umbilical properly before going down, those knots lock up under pressure and turn a simple repair into a hazard. Has anyone else had a near miss from this kind of sloppy line handling?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylorlewis1mo ago

I read a report once from NOAA that said tangled comms lines are a factor in like 15% of recreational diving accidents where time runs short. It really stuck with me because I've seen it play out firsthand, exactly like @kelly.daniel described with his buddy. I had a guy on a boat I was crewing for last year in the Florida Keys who tried to untangle his line by spinning around underwater, and he ended up wrapping it around his ankle so tight we had to cut it with a knife to get him free. Idk why it seems like such a small thing but under pressure it gets real bad real fast, and you can't just reach up and fix it the same way you can on the surface.

kelly.daniel1mo ago

Goodness, you're not kidding. I had a buddy back in the 90s who was the worst about this. He'd just coil his lines however they fell, and we had to cut a dive short once because his comms got so tangled around his tank valve that we couldn't get him free without him panicking. It's one of those little things that seems like no big deal until you're down there and running out of air because of a stupid knot. I've always said that a messy line is a sign of a messy head, and that's the last thing you want when you're a hundred feet under.