TRINITY'S 1st Annual 2010/2011 Icing/ Anchoring Challenge

[Kirk]

It’s a pretty funny story.  I have a question, however.  Why did you give the thumbs up signal?  What if the person fishing was a diver?  Most divers I know, especially those experienced in diving in overhead environments, interpret the thumbs up signal as meaning that you want to go to the surface.  And unless training standards and procedures have recently changed, the thumbs up signal invokes the golden rule, which of course is that any one can turn the dive at any time for any reason.  I’ve also treated it as a non-negotiable thing.  If I was the person fishing, and a diver gave me the thumbs up signal through a hole in the ice, I’d do everything possible to extract that diver from the water, being under the understanding that the diver wants out of the water.  I think a simple OK signal would be more appropriate in which one simply touches the tip of one’s index finger to the tip of one’s thumb.  - Kirk