Scuba divers are lifted from the water and onto an Eagle Ray Divers dive boat following Thursday’s afternoon dive. (photo courtesy Steve Dingledein)
In a move that has angered many Blacktip Island scuba diving guests, Eagle Ray Divers is using an experimental tractor beam to lift scuba divers wearing too much lead weight back onto the resort’s dive boats.
Divers claim the device’s use is aimed at weighty divers, not the divers’ weights.
“It was mortifying,” Eagle Ray Cove guest Bud Turbot said. “Thinner divers were allowed to climb back onboard on their own, but us fuller-sized folks, they made us be beamed aboard while everyone gawked. My wife’s still in tears. It’s size-ism, pure and simple.”
Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner denied the claims.
“It’s not an indictment of our divers,” Latner said. “It’s about our insurance premiums and divemaster durability. These people cram their BCs with 18, 20 pounds of integrated weight. No way our staff can handle those things day in, day out on a rocking boat without doing themselves major damage.”
“We tried asking guests to take their weight pockets out,” said Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Gage Hoase. “A few do, but most refuse. One over-weighted BC at the wrong time can end a divemaster’s career.
“This gizmo’s a game changer,” Hoase said. “Not swapping over weight-integrated BCs means no mangled backs or blown elbows.”
Eagle Ray Cove resort management enlisted the aid of local scientists after a rash of dive staff injuries.
“Our attraction beam prototype was at the trial stage,” said Tiperon University-Blacktip magneto-gravitic engineering professor Stina Ray. “Hauling in divers provides the perfect beta test. And if it keeps people from getting hurt, that’s an added bonus.
“We installed the beam generators on Ger’s boats, and his staff records the raw mass, distance and erg data for us,” Ray said. “The dive leaders say it works on divers who exceed their profile times, too.”
Eagle Ray Cove’s dive guests remain outraged.
“That beam thingy snatches you up any which way,” diver Leah Shore said. “If you’re not perfectly upright in the water when it locks on, it’ll haul you aboard ass over appetite, with the whole boat laughing at you. And what happens if that thing gives out mid-lift? They don’t mention that in the briefings.”
Eagle Ray Divers’ Latner was unapologetic.
“Something had to be done,” Latner said. “These human anchors were breaking my divemasters faster than I could hire them. You don’t want to be beamed up? Learn proper buoyancy. And skipping the dessert buffet wouldn’t hurt, either.”
The Blacktip Times 