Police are meeting dive companies to assess safety procedures and prevention in the wake of last weekend’s water-related death of Pamela Langevin, at least the ninth in 2012.

The late-March figure nearly doubles the five water-related deaths for all of 2011, and far outstrips the single fatality last year during the same period.

Additionally, the 2012 numbers do not include the 25 February disappearance of water-sports instructor Nathan Clarke from Public Beach.

While divers, boats, sniffer dogs and helicopter searches turned up no traces of the missing man after three weeks, police largely halted their land survey after a visitor found Mr Clarke’s cell phone on 29 February in 10 feet of water, 50 metres offshore.

The episode has been classified as a ”missing person” and not a “water-related death”, although his drowning would mark the ninth – and Ms Langevin’s the 10^th – in Cayman waters recently.

“I cannot directly comment why these deaths are occurring as they are currently being investigated and may be subject to coroner’s court inquests,” according to Chief Inspector Malcolm Kay.

“We at the RCIPS are obviously concerned with this relatively high number of deaths and I am proposing to meet with the dive companies in order to discuss this and other matters regarding water safety,” he said.

Dive companies have told iNews Cayman they can do little to ensure divers adhere to safety rules beyond providing proper training and equipment, and qualified instructors and boat crews.

“It’s not good to dive alone, but there are deaths happening every year,” said one instructor. “Hundreds of thousands of people come every year, and we do your best to train, and the best you can do is to have a competent crew on the boat and even in the shops.

“But there is nothing much we can do. It’s a shame and a sad fact of the business,” he said.

Another, who helped pull Ms Langevin, 50, from the waters near North West Point last Saturday, said that, ultimately, “the only way to stop diving deaths is to stop diving.”

The string of water-related deaths started just before Christmas when a 62-year-old American male tourist died after becoming ill while swimming at Smith Cove in George Town.

On Boxing Day, 17-year-old Justin Henry drowned after cliff jumping near Pedro Castle.

Less than one week later, on New Year’s Day, 21-year-old Adam Rankine died in similar circumstances.

Police have since erected a wooden barrier across the paths to the cliff area, warning trespassers of the danger.

In late January, a 68-year-old male died when he lost consciousness while on a private boat returning to shore after a dive.

February appeared to be a particularly lethal month with the deaths of a 47-year-old American woman tourist diving Little Tunnel Dive off North West Point, and a mid-month fatality of a 56-year-old male tourist in the Coral Gardens area of North Sound near Stingray City.

On 18 February, police plucked 4-year-old Aidan Cupid, from the Minzett Drive area in Northward, out of a pond at a construction site after his sister and other neighbourhood children raised the alarm when he tumbled into the water.

The following day, another 56-year-old visitor was pulled from the water near Spotts Beach.