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

[Nick_Radov]

I remember this LCBR rule. As well as their "1 hour only" rule. Their insistence on their "rules" is among the many reasons I haven't booked with Reef Divers since.

I'm not familiar with that particular dive operation but setting a 1 hour run time limit for recreational dives on a "cattle boat" open charter seems pretty reasonable. Most divers will run into gas or deco limits by about that time anyway. Allowing longer dives for random divers with questionable skills increases the risk that someone will get lost or bent or run out of gas. And in some places the surface conditions can deteriorate really fast: recovering divers in the middle of a squall can turn into a real CF. If you want to do longer dives then charter the whole boat with your friends and coordinate plans with the crew.

Sharing air is for when there is a problem (OOA, regulator issue, tank issue etc), not to continue or extend your dive. When you are on your buddies octopus, you should be on your way to the safety stop / surface.

When I'm doing a recreational dive with a teammate who has high gas consumption but otherwise decent skills I'll pass them my long hose at the beginning of the dive and let them breathe off my tank(s) for a few minutes. It's really not a problem as long as everyone stays above minimum gas.

Sure, every diver can reduce their gas consumption by being more efficient in the water, staying calm, and doing more aerobic fitness training. But it takes a while to reach that level. We should make some allowance for newbies as long as it doesn't compromise safety.

 

[JMarc]

This practice is not taught in any class.

Not an issue. There are lot of recommendable practices which aren't thaught, there are a lot of dubious one which are taught.

Your tank your dive. My tank my dive.

That attitude is an issue in my book.

50% of the people reading this agree with me and the other 50% are the ones I hope I never diive with.

I was trying to see what I was missing. But either you lack arguments, or you are as ready to share them as you are ready to share air.

 

[halocline]

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).

You don’t know how much air this diver had left. You don’t know what her motivations were for sharing air. You’re making assumptions based on a 2nd hand description that’s not very precise to begin with, written by someone who also had no way of knowing how much air this person had when she began to share air.

As described, I agree that it doesn’t appear to be good dive management, but it also doesn’t constitute an OOA emergency.

 

[halocline]

Reality is if that is the way they were taught how to dive somebody needs to lose their diving instructor certification.

Reality is those two divers practicing this regularly as a way of diving are putting everybody else on the boat at risk

Reality is the dive operator should lose their ability to take customers out for not stopping this practice

Reality is after the first time I saw this, I'd be leading my own dive away from all of the incompetence

Reality is I can go through this thread and pick out every single one of you that I would never want to dive with

Wow, you’re quite judgmental, based on a lot of assumptions.

 

[Nemrod]

The thread title says she is OOA. OOA to me means there is either a malfunction (other than between the ears) or there is no gas left in the cylinder sufficient to complete the dive or to execute a safe ascent to the surface. The OP may have clarified she was not really out of air so then why say she was in the title? If she is actually out of air she needs to go to the surface with her designated buddy ending the dive. If she has sufficient reserves and is just playing an agreed upon game of air sharing hopscotch, again, as long as I (and my buddy) am not impacted by the silly game, I do not think it necessarily dangerous.

 

[NothingClever]

Then the diver started jumping from diver to diver to share their air until we surfaced. This happened nearly every dive.

That doesn’t sound like training, that just sounds irresponsible and silly.

 

[Blackcrusader]

If you want to practice sharing air that's one thing but to continue a dive sharing air is another thing. and that is not a best practice.

Yes but it not your decision on how others dive. After my son did his OW we did a dive and he was just having a bad dive. All over the place too much mask clearing, buoyancy gone to shite, struggling to be horizontal.. so he has 60 bar left after 30 mins into the dive. I grab my lad put him on my octopus. I had 160 at the time. We got to the safety stop with 60 bar from both of us but were not deep.

Everyone else said thanks for not having us all end the dive early. My lad was rather embarrassed but it was like his 5th dive post OC cert. What you consider best practice or not is up to you.

As @boulderjohn pointed out, someo one being low on air is not the same as out of gas. Certainly one should not assume the worst of a diver extending dive time safely towards the end of a dive. My son would not have asked another diver share air this way.

Reality is you have no authority to come on the board and say an instructor should lose their teaching certification because a diver extended the dive time to safely end the dive. Also claiming that you would not dive with people on this board just shows how you like to virtual signal, I find that quite immature really.

I do dive with a couple of members on this board. If I had the chance I would certainly dive with many of the members who post on this board and I would hope they would reciprocate that.

If people who are on the dive disagree with the diver asking to share air they should let that diver know their reasons why. Other divers may not appreciate that diver doing so.

One one dive trip an Italian woman signaled OOA. So people go to assist her. She has 50 bar. Back on the boat people are asking her why the hell she is giving OOA on 50 bar. Se said her instructor told her it was not allowed to end a dive with less than 50 bar. So she got a lesson right there on OOA means zero air and there is no requirement to have 50 bar at end of dive where we were in the Philippinnes. Queensland Australia has this on commercial dive operators.

Best practise is one thing but what the diver is doing is not unsafe but should not be considered acceptable.

 

[Blackcrusader]

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.

Yeah if the divers sharing air are not concerned why are you if that diver is not asking to share your air?
71 feet is fairly shallow and 45 mins is a short dive time.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I assume that is the average maximum depth and not the average average depth. An average depth of 71 feet is reasonably deep and a 46 min dive could not be done with an AL80 and a typical RMV of around 0.5 cu ft/min, leaving anywhere near a reasonable reserve.

Yup last month in Cebu I was diving without my camera setup. I also switched to Nitrox 32%. Guides and other divers on air which meant my dive plan was that I would stay deeper than 20m when they were low on NDL and had to ascend. Nice peaceful dives. Not quite being the solo diver but the next best thing I guess. I should ask for 40% so I can just do the whole dive still safety stop. Also the dive times are limited to 60 - 65 minutes as most vacation divers by the end of their dives are down to 30 - 60 bar.

After this dive one of the vacation divers commented that they were concerned about me not running out of gas. I was doing 20m average depth over an hours dive so that's 66 feet average depth for the dive. Only the more experienced divers could do the same dive and still end with at least 30 bar. I had 80 bar at the end of this dive on an AL80. But I am definitely not normal on gas consumption.

 

[Blackcrusader]

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

If you just went by the title the issue is on you. If you read the post the diver is not OOA just towards end of dive sharing air with the permission of other divers. Who knows? I've had divers get to 30 bar at the safety stop so I put them on my octopus. They ask me why and I advise them not to drain the tanks and that gauges are not always totally accurate. They thank me for educating them on what a drained tank means for the dive op to service that tank.

We may agree that the diver sharing air is not best practice. But then again maybe it is as so few divers actually do this and when they need to they over react over it. I may think your replies in this thread are an over reaction. You may believe otherwise.