Stop in open water, with a parachute, after a drift dive off Playa Del Carmen (Mexico).
Definition
A parachute, in principle, is intended to slow the fall of a body thrown into the air. But for bodies immersed in a liquid, the divers had to invent in a way the opposite: at the beginning there were the collar buoys that we had called “parasailing”, then came the “landing parachutes”. .
Synonymes
Landing parachute | Lifting balloon | Lifting parachute | Safety buoy |
Starter

Antique granite grinding wheel found at a depth of 29 meters in Brittany, undoubtedly used as an anchor by a frail skiff which has now disappeared ...
Bearing parachute or lifting ball? The question arises because these balloons inflated under water look alike. One to walk an erection, as high as possible, on the dancing surface of the water so that the boat can spot you and incidentally pick you up at the end of your stages; the other, inflated to swell excessively and, by the “displaced volume” dear to Archimedes, tears from the bottom the precious load to which you have attached it. Technology in its infancy in its infancy and, it must be said, confusion maintained by manufacturers who offered pot-bellied hybrids that were not effective for any of these uses. Too round, too short to constitute decent level parachutes, too small volumes to move underwater or to lift anything seriously. Anyway, this time we will focus more particularly on level parachutes.
Adrift
I have always considered that the most dangerous moment in diving was paradoxically the return to the surface. Nothing is in fact provided in our equipment for a long stay on the surface, not to mention comfort. Everyone remembers the ordeal of these forgotten divers, lost, caught in the currents and having survived long days adrift and many of whom were never found. TO Komodo, a Mediterranean sea… It is incomprehensible that divers are still not equipped as standard with distress beacons like those which equip sailors, extreme skiers and other long-distance hikers.
Still, the level parachutes have appeared and are now part of the basic equipment. A tubular envelope rolled up in its rope, a carabiner: this is enough to make its landing comfortably surmounted by a balloon inflated with air, in principle identifiable. It is also important not to get your fins tangled in the rope which stretches when the inflated balloon shoots towards the surface; and not to lose the thread. Short. There are trainings for this. Everything can be learned!
Main course
When I started diving, landing parachutes did not exist. We were already very happy to have flanged buoys which, at the end of the dive, helped us to keep our heads above water. The landings were made under water, in levitation, “the hard way”. Needless to say, in the midst of the four-meter hollows usual in the the Channel (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the Atlantic the surface visibility was not the best and the recovery of the divers was still a problem. Follow the bubbles of the group in Zodiac was not an empty word and it was even an art, the hand clutching the tiller and the eyes riveted on the green walls of frothy water.
It also happened that the tire was anchored so that everyone could dive. What we did with the compass and the watch because it was a question of finding without fail the anchor on the way back, by moving on the serpentiform stems of giant algae facing side currents of eight knots ...
A fairly “military” training which undoubtedly was useful to me to keep my calm during the too many outings that followed, when the boat was not there. I am not talking about the Maldivian sailors who have always known how to direct their dhonies of coconut in the bubbles of divers even after the most terrifying of drift dives. The generalization of tubular parachutes, which stand proudly nearly two meters above the waves is certainly a great progress to be spotted but it is still necessary to see it and that the boat is not too far ...
Sitting on the water

With the late Jean Pierre Joncheray, recovery of a shell on the wrecks of the barges of Anthéor, not far from Fréjus.
Atoll Rangiroa, during the filming of one of our “Dive Logs“… We finish a deep dive at the other end of the atoll on the magnificent site“ les failles ”and its pink coral flowers. Ears hurt in rocky chimneys where the powerful swell swept us up and down for several meters in clouds of foam. Landing. A parachute is sent. We emerge. The entire film crew with cameras, batteries, lighting ramps. Nothing. 360 °, the water as smooth as oil under a relentless sun. Where is our boat? They are two on board, in principle waiting for us ... Suddenly, one of us spots a tiny ship, almost on the horizon. Reels of arms, cries, whistles, horns mounted on the direct-systems, nothing helps: like a wall of silence between our group of castaways who have become deaf and the reduced model boat which seems to be moving further away. Impossible to get ashore, there is none! Yes, where we come from, several hours by boat from the port!

At the end of a commemorative “vintage” dive with “Cousteau” equipment, we sacrifice to the modern parachute. Grand Congloué. Calanques of Marseille.
We uncapped our bottles and inflated the stabs fully so that we could sit on them, the bottle underwater acting as a keel and giving the skiff a semblance of stability. Of course the legs stay in the water but you can't have it all, can you? We just hope the hammerhead sharks don't frequent the area today and chat calmly, sitting on the water, playing around like fishing caps.
The instructor, our guide, partly responsible for the fiasco (one of the pilots of the boat is her boyfriend) is fuming and drying visibly. We will wait nearly an hour, sitting on our makeshift rafts before the boat miraculously sees us and sets course for us with all the power of its engines. The pilots were congratulated as it should be: these "nickel feet" had decided to go angling while waiting for us and the current had done the rest to the point of irreparably moving them away from the chosen dive site!
Dessert
As far as lifting is concerned, there are huge balloons, at this stage we can even speak of caissons, to refloat and tear off the sediment of entire wrecks with the shroud. Slinged carefully as it should to distribute the traction, the risk always being that the venerable hull will break and sprinkle the sea with a new crumbled wreck, unmolded too soon ...
Thus, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese who sank part of the American fleet, took place what is considered today as the largest bailout operation in history. In June 1942 operations began which lasted two years in order to bring to the surface 5 wrecks of warships including the Nevada, California, West Virginia,OK...
Cranes, winches, slings, balloons, caissons: all techniques were used at the cost of 5000 dives for the Navy and civilian divers who spent 20.000 hours underwater!
See you soon for a new definition of Scuba Bécédaire. The irreverent lexicon of diving, but not only. Because sometimes ...
Francis Le Guen
Café
And finally, a delightfully kitsch little tutorial from our friends at UCPA about the use of the landing parachute.
And the refloating and the rescue of some wrecks sunk in Pearl Harbor by the diligent work of the divers (at 25:00) ...