Theft of stage bottle at Ginnie

[gctj]

My buddy and I were at Ginnie Sunday afternoon. He had a new dry suit to try out. We got in at the "run" with stages and O2. After swimming around a little bit we decided to leave the stage bottles at the steps so he wouldn't have to deal with the new dry suit and a stage bottle. Both stages were hooked to the ropes hanging from the side of the steps.

We took our O2, went down the run, and did a short dive by entering through the ear. We ended the dive after about 30 min. When we got back up the run to the stairs, my stage was gone but my buddies was still there. Also a reel we had left there was partly unwound and on the bottom of the run. We asked people around the stairs about it but they had not seen anyone taking out a bottle. My name was clearly written on the bottle.

We reported it to Ginnie workers and were told to file a police report. We didn't have time to hang around and file a police report - not that it would do any good anyway! My buddy and I have been diving at Ginnie for a number of years and this is the first time anything has been stolen from either of us. I will try to never leave any gear unattended again.

[FW]

I hate to hear that happened, but leaving excess gear inside the gear eliminates a lot of suspects.

My buddy and I were at Ginnie Sunday afternoon. He had a new dry suit to try out. We got in at the "run" with stages and O2. After swimming around a little bit we decided to leave the stage bottles at the steps so he wouldn't have to deal with the new dry suit and a stage bottle. Both stages were hooked to the ropes hanging from the side of the steps.

We took our O2, went down the run, and did a short dive by entering through the ear. We ended the dive after about 30 min. When we got back up the run to the stairs, my stage was gone but my buddies was still there. Also a reel we had left there was partly unwound and on the bottom of the run. We asked people around the stairs about it but they had not seen anyone taking out a bottle. My name was clearly written on the bottle.

We reported it to Ginnie workers and were told to file a police report. We didn't have time to hang around and file a police report - not that it would do any good anyway! My buddy and I have been diving at Ginnie for a number of years and this is the first time anything has been stolen from either of us. I will try to never leave any gear unattended again.

[sea2summit]

Hopefully we find it at the bottom of little devils with the first stage in the mouth the low life scum.

Any markings? Fist/second stage type SN?

[JahJahwarrior]

You've been diving Ginnie for several years yet you still thought that several hundreds of dollars worth of very easy to walk off with gear would be safe on the surface while you went on a dive? I've had gear grabbed by swimmers when I was gone for less than 5 minutes, hauling other gear back to the car!

You should have filed a police report. Might not be too late. If you really care about your gear, file a police report, and then send good descriptions of your gear, including serial numbers, to local dive shops and pawn shops.

[LiteHedded]

People at ginnie can't be trusted for ****.
Hope you find your stuff man.

[amphipod06]

My buddy and I were at Ginnie Sunday afternoon. He had a new dry suit to try out. We got in at the "run" with stages and O2. After swimming around a little bit we decided to leave the stage bottles at the steps so he wouldn't have to deal with the new dry suit and a stage bottle. Both stages were hooked to the ropes hanging from the side of the steps.

We took our O2, went down the run, and did a short dive by entering through the ear. We ended the dive after about 30 min. When we got back up the run to the stairs, my stage was gone but my buddies was still there. Also a reel we had left there was partly unwound and on the bottom of the run. We asked people around the stairs about it but they had not seen anyone taking out a bottle. My name was clearly written on the bottle.

We reported it to Ginnie workers and were told to file a police report. We didn't have time to hang around and file a police report - not that it would do any good anyway! My buddy and I have been diving at Ginnie for a number of years and this is the first time anything has been stolen from either of us. I will try to never leave any gear unattended again.

Your buddy's stage was still there because they did not have time to steal it. Your reel was there for the same reason, or perhaps not as valuable...

If you have a buddy, always tag team to move stuff from and to the car, NEVER leave anything unattended when there are other people around (non cave divers) period!

Sorry you lost your stuff... We've stopped at least one eegit hauling a 40 cf of O2 with SP reg into their car trunk, his (very lame) explanation was that he was "saving it until the owner (a cave diver he did not even know by sight) returned", the diver in question had gone to her vehicle to drop her doubles and came back to a missing deco bottle within 5 minutes!!!

Dive safe,

Celia

[BillBowden]

This has been an increasing problem for years. At Ginnie, Little River, Telford etc you simply cannot leave anything unsupervised for more than 10 seconds. It's not bad in the colder months when it's mostly cave or serious recreational divers.

Ask a fellow cave diver to watch your stuff for the few minutes it takes you to get out of (and lock up) your doubles. If everybody's willing to delay start or end of dive by a few minutes, we have a chance to eliminate these incidents.

[Tegg]

Maybe during the summer months we setup "stings" with the local police?

[atedeschi]

Joe grab a old failed hydro tank slap a yoke valve on it, a shitty reg and fill with argon. That will teach them to steal a tank.

[Squirrel Girl]

When my car was broken into in Virginia, I was able to file a police report by phone.