Breaking the rules Confessional

[chrpai]

I was wondering, what rules have you knowingly and intentionally disregarded in your career? I'll start with a pretty bad one for me:

After being a very active diver from 2000 - 2005, I retired from diving due to medical reasons for my wife. 5 years later she was better and we were in Jamaica and I finally had an opportunity to dive again.

I hadn't been diving in 5 years but that wasn't the problem. I'm the kind of person who has diving in his blood and can get back on the bike with ease. I felt perfectly comfortable in the water the entire week and I was diving with a DM who was really my buddy. See, I had met this DM on previous trips to Jamaica and we had dove dozens of times together often just the two of us as a buddy team. We were comfortable with each other.

Ok, so what did I do that I knew was wrong?

I intentionally and knowingly dove profiles that I didn't plan or log. I had given all of my dive gear away and although I still had my Suunto Mosquito, I didn't know if it would work so I didn't bother changing the battery in it or bring it on the trip. ( Fast forward 2 years and it does work. )

I spoke to the DM about my lack of a bottom timer and/or dive computer and we agreed that I'd just "stay above him" and it would be "ok". I just dove with my DM buddy for the week trusting that his profiles were good and mine were a wee bit more shallow. They were complete passive "trust me" dives with regard to profiles while I was actively engaged in the other aspects of dive planning and execution. I did make sure my ascent rates were good, that I did safety stops ( albeit of unknown lengths ), relaxed between dives and stayed hydrated.

Essentially, the DM was my 'deco captain'.

I got about 12 dives in that week ( couldn't tell you... didn't log any of them... ) and flew home without getting bent.

So flame away and/or contribute your own confessions.

 

[Scott]

So you knew it was wrong, you lived to tell about it, you told us about, fa get about it, go diving....the right way.

Welcome back to diving.

 

[flots am]

So flame away and/or contribute your own confessions.

No flames. You can do a lot of stuff and get away with it most of the time, however the penalty for "not getting away with it" is often quite severe.

The idea of doing things correctly all the time is so that when the brown stuff hits the fan, you'll still be doing the right thing and it won't be a problem.

Even something little like re-boarding a dive boat with your mask on and regulator in your mouth is important. A huge portion of the time, it doesn't matter at all, however if you're re-boarding and a big wave comes by and slaps the boat around like a Tonka toy and knocks you 10' back into the water, upside down and sideways, or smacks you in the mouth with the ladder, there's a big difference in how happy you're going to be, depending on whether the reg is still in your mouth or not.

Everybody makes their own choices and assumes whatever level of risk they're happy with.

flots.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Diving rules are like the "pirates code", more of a recommendation. If you were asked if what you did was safe and should others follow it would be different. We all eventually screw up, learn and go on.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I've done stuff that is considered a felony in some diving circles such as diving with no can light or long hose, not using a drysuit for redundant buoyancy, not having a scooter, not being able to back up very good and as such using a finger to push myself backwards off a rock, holding onto an anchor line once in a while while ascending back to the boat, solo diving, using vintage gear that could kill me and as a result traumatizing somebody else when they have to recover my body, etc.
But other than that I guess I'm an OK diver.

One thing I will never do is dive without my own depth and timing device and a compass.
Even if I do calculations in my head I am one that has to know my own depth and time.
I would never rely solely on someone else for this even if they are the best diver in the world. All humans are capable of having a brain fart once in a while.
The not logging dives, who cares, I don't either.
But if you are doing a lot of dives back to back you might want to jot down some profiles so you can see what's going on and not over do it.
I'm one that would never leave my fate up to a computer either. Maybe I'll get a new one ripped or saying that but I DON'T CARE, RIP AWAY.

Not an ass ripping on you though, but I'm just sayin'

 

[Lorenzoid]

Same topic here? http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...ything-dive-you-knew-you-werent-supposed.html

 

[chrpai]

Is there some rule that you can't talk about the same thing more then once on the internet? If there is, we should have just pulled the plug and turned the internet off years ago.

 

[tracydr]

This past weekend, I dove without my computer. Which means I had no timer, depth gauge or any other means of calculating my depth and time, except for my two buddiy's computer and my knowledge of the thermocline /gas consumption. No excuses. I forgot my wrist computer sitting on the table at home, where I was learning all the buttons and I forgot that the "low battery" light was flashing the last time I dove on my old console computer.
Should I have called the dives and sat out? Probably. I made a calculated decision, knowing that I could base my depth on the extreme temperature change of the thermocline at 45 feet I planned on staying mostly above it, (I didn't bring the drysuit) and dive times would likely be pretty short, since there's not much to see in a little, mudddy cove, anyway.
I would not have done this had I planned on doing a 100 foot dive for 60 minutes or more repetitive dives. In fact, I use two computers most times. I like to have redundancy in my depth/bottom timer system.

 

[TSandM]

I suspect a number of us have done dives without a depth gauge and timer -- I know I have. On one occasion, I used my buddy's gauge, because he had a Liquivision X1, and I could read it as well as I could have read my own On another, my gauge failed partway through the dive. Since the max depth was 30 feet (and it was pretty obvious where THAT was, as there was a very noticeable thermocline there), I wasn't terribly worried about it.

I've dived with a variety of equipment failures. I've had a self-inflating wing, where I just disconnected the LP hose and used my dry suit (and on another occasion, diving wet, just didn't worry about it and orally inflated on the surface). I've dived with small leaks of various kinds, and knowingly underweighted (forgot my camband weights). In each case, I weighed the risk of the dive against the possible issues with the failure, and decided what I was willing to live with. As the dives get deeper or more complex, my tolerance for issues quickly decreases.

I do think it's easy to overdo rule breaking, and complacency sits at the root of many near miss stories (and possibly accidents as well, although we don't get to hear the diver's side of those). You'd better have enough experience to make a GOOD risk assessment for breaking a rule, and you'd better be right.

 

[Bigd2722]

I did a deep dive without computer (integrated hoseless) that had timed out before we got in the water. It was a short deep dive without a designated buddy. I knew my air consumption and everything turned out fine, but I think if I had it to do over, I might reconsider.