reefrat
Contributor
I am not sure that this is the right place to post this discussion, so moderators please move it if there is somewhere more appropriate.
Recently I was geared up for a single 80 c/ft OC air dive that we planned would be a max depth of 110 ft on a deeper wall off South Caicos TCI, there is no dive op there and for us this was an exploratory trip.
While waiting to jump one of the other divers looks at me and says “why do you always wear all that stuff”?, the rest all had a bit of a chuckle and rolled eyes because they are all using the standard bare minimum scuba gear typical of rec divers everywhere.
The extra “stuff” he was talking about was a a pocket containing a spare mask, a compass, an SMB/spool and a pony- all neatly stowed on my BP harness with no danglies. This is all equipment that I regard as essential redundancy on anything but the most casual/ shallow dive and have had occasions over the last 20 years to require the use of all of it.
In my opinion the redundant equipment I carry (mask, pony/bail-out or spare-air) should be essential basic scuba kit and taught as a minimum requirement all recreational SCUBA. I suspect the reason it isn’t is purely because the extra few hundred dollars expense and maybe one day of training would cost the agencies some basic OW customers.
It really seems to me that the training agencies, at the OW level, really do not take scuba safety seriously enough, or maybe there is just a prevailing ignorance in mainstream rec diving regarding the realities of using life support equipment 100 ft underwater with minimal training and no effective redundancy in the event that ANY primary equipment fails.
As someone once said “Diving is safe, just as long as you remember that it is dangerous”!
Recently I was geared up for a single 80 c/ft OC air dive that we planned would be a max depth of 110 ft on a deeper wall off South Caicos TCI, there is no dive op there and for us this was an exploratory trip.
While waiting to jump one of the other divers looks at me and says “why do you always wear all that stuff”?, the rest all had a bit of a chuckle and rolled eyes because they are all using the standard bare minimum scuba gear typical of rec divers everywhere.
The extra “stuff” he was talking about was a a pocket containing a spare mask, a compass, an SMB/spool and a pony- all neatly stowed on my BP harness with no danglies. This is all equipment that I regard as essential redundancy on anything but the most casual/ shallow dive and have had occasions over the last 20 years to require the use of all of it.
In my opinion the redundant equipment I carry (mask, pony/bail-out or spare-air) should be essential basic scuba kit and taught as a minimum requirement all recreational SCUBA. I suspect the reason it isn’t is purely because the extra few hundred dollars expense and maybe one day of training would cost the agencies some basic OW customers.
It really seems to me that the training agencies, at the OW level, really do not take scuba safety seriously enough, or maybe there is just a prevailing ignorance in mainstream rec diving regarding the realities of using life support equipment 100 ft underwater with minimal training and no effective redundancy in the event that ANY primary equipment fails.
As someone once said “Diving is safe, just as long as you remember that it is dangerous”!
