Negative entry vs Using a downline

[DaleC]

BS.
Of all the arguments that do not translate down to the rec level as it is practiced by today's diver, muscle memory and standardization are the worst and I would argue, dangerous principles, if it were not for the low risk associated with rec diving in general.

Most rec divers donate an octo from the triangle and retain the primary.
Most vacation divers do not bring their own rig, they rent, usually some form of jacket or rear inflate BCD.
Most will dive computers and will not be comfortable with, or accept, mental deco calculations on the fly.
Most will not have gear where one expects it to be.
... so nothing about the people and gear of rec diving will be standardized.

Variety being the predominant principle, any regime that does not address that as something that will be encountered does not prepare the diver properly for those conditions. Adaptability is the guiding principle to be learned (along with self reliance IMO). An agency that suggests diving a vastly different system in those conditions violates it's own beliefs. The DIR rig is not standard there and should therefore, for the sake of cohesion, be dropped in most rec settings, most of the time.

What DIR divers tend to do is self limit their exposure to mainstream divers, unless those cede operational control. They skew travel and diving ahead of time and tend to go where other DIR divers can meet them and where DIR kit is available. Great, in itself, but not how most others divers operate. Suggesting it as the "go to" regime is myopic considering what most divers will actually encounter.

As to the scooter. One of my friends owns two and brought one out for me to try. No change in gear, no learning curve. Stop making things sound harder than they are. Most people do not try a scooter for the first time, penetrating a 2 mile cave system. They try it OW in benign conditions.. like/don't like, try some more, tweak some gear... It, like most other things, is a gradual process and in that time there is room for learning and adapting.

Anyone still using DOS BIOS to input their data here?

 

[The Chairman]

I don't get it. DIR utilizes a Hogarthian rig, set up in a particular fashion. Big deal. Most DIR adherents are like like most tech divers: simple wannabes. Hey, I'm one too. You either drink the Koolaid or you don't. In the end, it doesn't matter for most of the diving done by most of the people.

How does this translate into using a down line or not?

 

[danvolker]

I don't get it. DIR utilizes a Hogarthian rig, set up in a particular fashion. Big deal. Most DIR adherents are like like most tech divers: simple wannabes. Hey, I'm one too. You either drink the Koolaid or you don't. In the end, it doesn't matter for most of the diving done by most of the people.

How does this translate into using a down line or not?

Maybe you missed it, but that topic was impossible to discuss--too many divers were insulted by the suggestion that there was a way to ascend and descend without a line.....that could be better....and my delivery of this made it even worse

I am starting to think Scubaboard is sort of like a bible class, and NetDoc is the Pope, and discussions run within religious boundaries--and if they go beyond these, there is h*ll to pay for the heretic in question.

 

[The Chairman]

Is this because I posted the pic of Jesus riding a dinosaur???

Dude, I didn't derail this thread. I'm just trying to see what the outcome of it really was. Personally, I prefer a hot drop but there are a number of dive ops who don't like them at all. Either way, I'm good to go. It's always fun.

 

[TSandM]

I think it's highly unlikely that the recreational diver who does one or two trips a year and rents all his equipment would ever put in the amount of work required to be a GUE diver. People who select the system tend to be more avid divers, and usually own their own equipment. And in the 8 years I've been diving, the expansion of interest in tech has meant that nobody even raises eyebrows at my long hose in the tropics. The last two trips we have made, most of the guides have been diving backplate setups.

Variety being the predominant principle, any regime that does not address that as something that will be encountered does not prepare the diver properly for those conditions. Adaptability is the guiding principle to be learned (along with self reliance IMO). An agency that suggests diving a vastly different system in those conditions violates it's own beliefs. The DIR rig is not standard there and should therefore, for the sake of cohesion, be dropped in most rec settings, most of the time.

This paragraph is internally inconsistent. Divers need to learn a variety of setups because rental gear is not standardized, but the DIR system should be abandoned in those settings because it is non-standard?

I will admit that those of us who dive this way prefer, when possible, to dive with others who have the same or similar training. It makes life easier. But the gear setup works just fine diving with others -- the Cozumel DMs often dive long hose setups, and no more purely "recreational" and unselected group of divers could be found than Cozumel tourists!

 

[danvolker]

Is this because I posted the pic of Jesus riding a dinosaur???

Dude, I didn't derail this thread. I'm just trying to see what the outcome of it really was. Personally, I prefer a hot drop but there are a number of dive ops who don't like them at all. Either way, I'm good to go. It's always fun.

The Jesus comic was not the issue at all....it is the over-riding religious fervor over so many threads....not religion in the sense of Catholicism or Judaism or Buddhism or any of the other big ones....but in the sense of people getting seriously upset when someone suggests their belief is not the ONE TRUE PATH.

Having you ride in on your mount, just made this a more entertaining notion

 

[The Chairman]

Aw, c'mon Dan: passion is a good thing. You've got it in spades and so do a lot of people. People write out of their passion and passionate people bring out the passion in those less afflicted. Apparently, DIR advocates are often known for their passion to the point we suggest that they've "drunk the Koolaid".

 

[boulderjohn]

When I was purely a recreational diver, the people who posted in this forum insisting that I should be using a DIR setup really ticked me off. I thought they were arrogant, and I thought they exaggerated the situation to a ridiculous extreme. There was one DIR diver who was very active then who posted several times that ALL octopuses carried in the golden triangle of recreational diving dragged in the silt, and ALL such regulators are thus damaged and unusable when needed.

I thought that was ridiculous then, and I think it is ridiculous now. With that history, I can see why recreational divers bristle when people push attitudes like that on them. I don't see that very often these days, though, and I am not seeing it in this thread now.

When I started my DIR-based tech training, I bought a backplate and a doubles wing, a set of double tanks, and the related gear. I was thus totally DIR in my technical training, and I was concurrently totally broke in terms of my diving budget. Thus, when I went on recreational dives, I put on a BCD and my old regulator set, and I was perfectly content.

Then I read the story, alluded to earlier, in which a recreational diver drowned because her buddy's octopus had come detached from its holder and was not available to her when she needed it. I immediately spent a few dollars to change the hoses on my regulator set because that was a small price to pay for a safer regulator setup. Maybe it is only a marginal improvement, but it is an improvement.

Eventually I also purchased a single tank wing and a single tank adapter. I believe that complete setup is better than a traditional recreational setup because of its buoyancy and trim characteristics, but for typical recreational dives it is not a huge deal. If I were to show up at a recreational dive site with no gear and had to rent a jacket BCD, a traditional regulator set, and split fins in order to dive, I would rent them without a second thought and go out and have a good time.

Standardization is not that big a deal in recreational diving, either. I do recreational dives with insta-buddies frequently, and they are usually wearing typical recreational gear. Before the dive I go over my gear briefly as a part of the buddy check, and I tell them how I will donate in an OOA emergency. I don't have a problem with the gear they are wearing, and I don't think they care about the gear I am wearing.

The fact that DIR divers have certain ideals they follow in their diving, even in their recreational diving, should have no impact on divers who choose to dive differently. On the other hand, if the DIR individual tries to make that diver feel like some sort of inferior piece of pond scum for not doing it their way, then the DIR individual should not be surprised when that diver is offended.

 

[danvolker]

All I can say is that I have yet to see a DIR diver make a non-DIR diver feel bad on a dive boat.
In the past, on rec-scuba and on SB, there were plenty of DIR's insulting the beliefs of non-DIRs. I am sure I was guilty of insulting plenty. But never on a boat--only in this Internet Discussion concept-where this kind of "sharing" was supposed to be desirable.

Now I think it has gone full circle, with non-DIR's attacking DIR, and dog-pilling.

 

[boulderjohn]

Now I think it has gone full circle, with non-DIR's attacking DIR, and dog-pilling.

That reaction happened a long, long time ago. That is why ScubaBoard has two DIR forums in which you are not allowed to be critical of DIR.