300 ft Dive, Who Is This?

[Cacia]

I noticed that as well!!! I hate a snorkel attached to my mask -- drives me mad!

hey, hey....until you surface and you're boat is not there and you are in the Molakai express in big seas. (that is where I met JB)

I almost always have a snorkel, sometimes I don't make it back to the boat and my dog Marley cannot drive the boat yet.

No, Jay that was not a shaved head, that was an old head. JB shaves his head but it never looks shiny.

I can't believe ya'll ridicule snorkels, that must be an Air Force thing.

I might be wrong on this, but it is a hunch and I crunched some numbers from altitude charts I found.

I think you are right because with good viz, I have seen that bottom they were on and I have not been that deep.....they are right up against the lava wall, you will notice. It is not that deep there, it slopes off.

Yea, it is not dark enough...you are right. that is something somebody that shoots video notices.

 

[wedivebc]

--Fact is they don't have the gas in a single 80 to do those types of dives and have time to just cruise around like they appeared to be doing in them (don't know if I watched all of them). I don't mean that they don't have the gas as in it wouldn't be safe, I mean they don't have the gas as in they would breathe their tanks dry and dive (unless they are doing some crazy overfills on those al80s.

At that depth they are using about 5cuft/min. Not really that extreme since they probably weren't there for more than about 5 minutes. They also had a seperate deco gas so albeit stupid it is nevertheless possible with those tanks.

 

[ScubaAndDreams]

that's cool and all, but the NITEK does show a PO2 of 2.0 .. watch closely...explain that away.

By the way we never did land on the moon, it was a big movie production

 

[kidspot]

Running the numbers, it's possible to do a dive with a 5 minute BT to 297fsw on an AL80 - (According to their gauge), assuming they switched to 32% at 130 fsw, Decoplanner calls for 19 minutes of deco between 130-10fsw - Total dive time 32 minutes - with a SAC of .50 they would need 49 cf of air and 24 cf of 32% for this dive.

CNS clock however hits 100% 5 minutes into their dive... 620% by dives end.

IF nothing went wrong, they would have enough gas. Rock Bottom (if I'm calculating correctly) would require 84cf just to reach the first deco stop for 2 people at a SAC of 1.0. - On the other hand, if they dove according to a simple rule of thirds (with no planned increase in breathing rate), they should have enough air for 5 minutes of bottom time (SAC of .5)

So it is possible, but I would never recommend someone follow their example. Should they be allowed to continue diving this way? Of course, it is a free country (or supposed to be) Should someone be required to put their life at risk to rescue them if something went wrong? ... Honestly there wouldn't be enough time (An AL80 at 10 ata with a SAC of .5 is only going to last 15.4 minutes), and any recoveries could be planned with more redundancy in mind.

As to the light - it looked like they had full sunlight, so it's possible. Just after Dawn (about 6:45 am) we had 200-250 ft vis the other morning at Molokini.

Possible - yup ... recommended - nope

Would I call them idiots? Nope, but I'm a little kinder hearted than some of ya' ... I would classify this as foolish and perhaps not well thought out (I don't know how much planning they did). While it was a fun video to watch (in a scarey kind of way), I wonder how many new divers might see it and think - "Is that all there is to it? - I can do that" ... that's my real beef in this instance.

If we had a guarantee that nothing ever went wrong while diving, then they were actually being conservative (why not stay down a little longer) ... but in the real world, there is a lot of risk associated with many of their decisions.

Just another 2 cents from someone who has (most likely) far less experience than these guys, or several others who have contributed to this thread in a very knowledgable manner.

Aloha, Tim

P.S. Will I regret posting this ... probably [Post Reply]

 

[Diver Dennis]

I for one like your posts Tim...

 

[rockjock3]

that's cool and all, but the NITEK does show a PO2 of 2.0 .. watch closely...explain that away.

By the way we never did land on the moon, it was a big movie production

Muahahahahaa. Easy. If the computer is set to say 10000ft altitude and they are at an actual depth of 204fsw thier computer should show the ppo2 of 2.0 because the number it is plugging into the equation is the 293fsw that it "thinks" it is at.

Tim,

If you read their computer on the 221fsw dive (I think) why they are swimming along the bottom their Nitek says 30min for dive time. So even if they spent some time shallow and then decided to drop down and run around it still looks faulty. They could have used up 25minutes of gas shallow but would never have had the gas for hitting that depth for 5 more minutes and not coming up dead or bent(I won't say absolutely not, but reasonably not). It doesn't seem logical that they would have swam/swum around and 10-20fsw for 25min before dropping down to hit the bottom for 5 more minutes.

It seems to me if we take all the complicated scenarios out that the simple, and easiest solution (that wouldn't have them dead or bent yet) is they are playing with all of us.

 

[kidspot]

except that too many divers around here do dives just like this ... spooky.

And several have been seriously bent

btw - I didn't watch the 221 fsw dive ... missed that one some how. Also have to remember that some divers have SAC rates in the low .30's and even down into the .20's ... we've seen that in the polls that get taken here on SB.

The backwall of Molokini is a VERY tempting deep "accomplishment" dive... this is one reason ops are reluctant to give out coords for sites like the bomber over here. Lots of divers would attempt it thinking "I'll just drop down and take a look, then bounce right back up again" (there is also the reason that it's nice to have a private site that only 5 or 6 boats know about )

Not saying you are wrong rockjock (Divers lie too, just like "regular" people ) - just wanted to point out that there are a lot of divers (especially the old school crowd here in Hawaii) that go out and do dives like this. Think about the old school black coral divers who would simply inflate their lift bag at depth with enough line to drag them (clipped off to their harness) to their first deco stop... happened a lot, and usually went ok... but not always (which may be why there are so many stories about bent black coral divers around the state)

Aloha, Tim

 

[rockjock3]

Tim,

Yea, know what you mean about the black coral divers. We ran across a couple of them once.

As for them doing the dives, you may very well be right, as nobody but them truly know. I was just pointing out that as for the amount of light and other indicators that the dives they say the did could have very easily been faked by simply setting their computers to another altitude.

I think I want the computer hypothesis to turn out right just because I hate to accept that people do unsafe things like this when it is so easy to do it much safer.

Like others have said earlier. "IF" these guys are doing these dives then it means they are simply doing it for the bragging rights rather than actually trying to accomplish anything for the sport. Crazy, brave, insane, adventurers (said with the highest respect) divers went far beyond in the 80s and 90s and made the sport sooooo much safer for both shallow and deeper diving.

 

[KrisB]

Hey Rockjock,

Just a quick question about the altitude setting -- do you know of any computers that actually do this? The altitude settings on the Suunto computers (and Oceanic, IIRC) simply change the deco tables, they don't adjust the depth reading because of lower atmospheric pressure at the surface.

Granted, it could be a couple of guys lying by using a bummed computer. That might help to explain the long, deep dive that they've filmed. Then again, maybe that dive just started counting at snorkel depths... who knows.

 

[Eau_Girl]

hey, hey....until you surface and you're boat is not there and you are in the Molakai express in big seas. (that is where I met JB)

I almost always have a snorkel, sometimes I don't make it back to the boat and my dog Marley cannot drive the boat yet.

I can't believe ya'll ridicule snorkels, that must be an Air Force thing.

Not ridiculing snorkels. I like one for my BCD pocket so I have it when I need it. I just don't like it dangling around my face when I don't.

Was looking at the video late and night and the image of him at 293ft with a snorkel just struck me as funny -- guess I'm a dork!