Diver in travel group kept running out of air and sharing on every dive?

[Catito]

Yeah, no one seemed overly concerned and I just stayed in my lane but was curious about the general consensus. 'Its not a problem until it is.'

Average depth was 71 feet. Average dive time was 46 min.

Really crazy…and dangerous. I’d steer clear of that diver if I was diving with them. Wow.

 

[Catito]

Well, I have a pretty strong reaction to this, and that is that this is a very, very bad idea and practice. The out-of-air diver (I assume she is OOA or why would she share air at every safety stop?) is learning really bad habits, which is to say she's learning to dive her tank dry and then always rely on someone else having air. This is blindingly obviously a recipe for disaster. One day, she will look up and her buddy will also be out of air, maybe because of fighting a current or a leak or what have you, and then what?

I say this as a self-confessed air hog photographer. The thought of planning to share gas just never occurred to me, nor should it have.

If she is not OOA, then I still think this is a bad practice if done more than once or twice, FOR practice. It sends the signal to everyone else in the group that there is a safety situation, which can then create its own issues.

Just a terrible practice IMHO.

Totally agree

 

[mcohen1021]

The OP doesn’t explicitly say that the diver in question was out of air,

What part of the title of this thread did you not understand?

 

[boulderjohn]

What part of the title of this thread did you not understand?

As a number of posts indicated earlier in the thread, the rest of the post and discussion suggests that the title of the thread is inaccurate. It happens.

 

[uncfnp]

What part of the title of this thread did you not understand?

Most likely it was unintentional but the title is click bait. If you spend a bit of time reading through the subsequent posts you will find that none of them discuss an OOA situation but rather a diver sharing air, presumably to extend the dive. You will also find a number of very experienced divers say that in certain situations they would share air to extend a dive and reference to several dive shops that do this as well.

 

[Joneill]

As a number of posts indicated earlier in the thread, the rest of the post and discussion suggests that the title of the thread is inaccurate. It happens.

Regardless, at the very least, this diver was obviously needing to share air as they were either very low or about to shortly run out of air. Why else would you share air systemically in the same way on multiple dives? I get that could happen with a new diver on occasion (but shows really poor awareness as a diver if not an equipment failure) - but this seemed to be normal practice for this diver with this group.

I don’t think this behavior is a good thing to normalize as being an acceptable way for an “air hog” to extend bottom time with the rest of their group (esp the part where the diver was jumping from person to person to get air). The only way that person would get air from me would be if we headed to the surface as we shared (and they’d get a refusal from me if they tried again on a subsequent dive).

 

[mcohen1021]

Most likely it was unintentional but the title is click bait. If you spend a bit of time reading through the subsequent posts you will find that none of them discuss an OOA situation but rather a diver sharing air, presumably to extend the dive. You will also find a number of very experienced divers say that in certain situations they would share air to extend a dive and reference to several dive shops that do this as well.

But I'm going off of the original post and not everybody's opinions of what they think he meant... He said out of air and I such

 

[boulderjohn]

But I'm going off of the original post and not everybody's opinions of what they think he meant... He said out of air and I such

Here is what the first post said:

I am new to diving with 64 dives over the last 12 months but this was my first Trip with a group. I didn't notice until about the 3rd dive but one diver would start sharing air with her buddy towards the end of the dive. Then the diver started jumping from diver to diver to share their air until we surfaced. This happened nearly every dive.

It just said that the diver regularly shared air "towards the end of the dive." The poster's title indicating she was OOA was conjecture. He has no way of knowing the amount of air in her tank. She could have been just making sure she got back on the boat with the frequently required 500 PSI.

 

[boulderjohn]

Regardless, at the very least, this diver was obviously needing to share air as they were either very low or about to shortly run out of air.

And how do you know this to be the case?

As was pointed out in the thread, some people plan to share air before they get very low so that they never get very low. In a case discussed earlier in the thread, people spoke of a policy of sharing air when the diver reached 1,000 PSI so that the group could continue without the diver ever getting very low on air.

 

[Joneill]

And how do you know this to be the case?

As was pointed out in the thread, some people plan to share air before they get very low so that they never get very low. In a case discussed earlier in the thread, people spoke of a policy of sharing air when the diver reached 1,000 PSI so that the group could continue without the diver ever getting very low on air.

It’s a guess like everyone else here is doing as it is odd/uncommon behavior, in my opinion/experience.

I’ve done over 350 dives since I got cerified in 2015 (not a lot compared to others but still significant) in the Caribbean, French Polynesia and Indonesia and have only seen air shared once - that was with Ocean Frontiers in GCM: DM/Guide shared air with a kid who had sucked his tank low. He still ended up having to take the kid up early as a result.

In any event, it’s bad practice to plan for the kind of behavior described in the OP. Get a bigger tank, work on fitness or surface early.