An age-old question: ways to 60m.

[Blackcrusader]

Sorry, this is a long thread, so I didn't get to read the entire thing, but I'll add my own anecdote.

Thanks for your post. For me one of the things I wont do a deep dive is when I wake up and feel tired.
At my age I don't want to be struggling on a dive. I am not Helium trained so I won't get into that.
However I do not seem to suffer from the issues at depth that others do. I am able to maintain my situational awareness to my depth, monitor my SPG, and my deco obligation.

But I am diving in warm waters 22c - 30c in Tshirt and shorts which is very comfortable for me. I prefer to go with fast currents not swim against them. My leg strength is not the same as it was when I was a cross country runner every week in my younger days.

I like to go slow on dives, slow to descend slow to ascend. I might take 6 minutes to get to 45m if there is something to see on the way down. I've found over exertion on dives really ruins the dives for a lot of people. I did dives in my early dive years which were not very comfortable for me. I used to wreck dive on many weekends but do not do wreck penetration anymore. Above and outside is fine for me.

 

[scubaozy]

Helium is always "available" if you plan far enough ahead and pay what it costs.

"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"

Regardless of back gas selection, I wouldn't do a planned deco dive on a single bottom gas tank.

I have countless deep dives in this configuration, it is in fact pretty common at this side of the pond, especially around Mediterranean, to use a larger capacity steel tank with y or h valve and 2 regs. I would prefer this config over twinset in a lot of cases.

I am in the opinion that the folks who did dive frequently deep on air pre commercialization of recreational tech diving are way more relaxed about it. I was qualified early 2000s in tech and prior that, I was doing frequently deep air dives with stage decompression already, lol, we did not call it tech diving back then, its just normal diving. So, I have never developed such exclusion to deep air as I was still in touch with the dark side as well.

Tech diving all together is deadlier than rec diving, so, how those folks who denounce deep air, ever feel comfortable going tech? It is very contradictory. To me, essentially what is being discussed here is level of risk averseness of the individuals and that is not very objective, it is pointless to debate over. My personal comfort zone ends at 50m but if I have once in a lifetime opportunity to dive a wreck at 60m, I would probably consider it, especially if the conditions are perfect.

 

[Nick_Radov]

Tech diving all together is deadlier than rec diving, so, how those folks who denounce deep air, ever feel comfortable going tech?

We feel comfortable because we have ways of taking virtually all of the risk out, to the extent that driving to the dive site is the deadliest part. Correct gas selection is one part of that but there are other aspects that go beyond what can be explained in a forum post. This is all covered in proper training courses.

 

[scubaozy]

Correct gas selection is one part of that but there are other aspects that go beyond what can be explained in a forum post.

Gas selection is irrelevant, 100 000dives/1 fatality in rec diving and 6000-10000 dives/1 fatality in CCR. These are the odds.

 

[iliketopetsharks]

Gas selection is irrelevant, 100 000dives/1 fatality in rec diving and 6000-10000 dives/1 fatality in CCR. These are the odds.

Are we comparing pineapples to potatoes again?

 

[scubaozy]

Are we comparing pineapples to potatoes again?

I am trying to understand the rationality behind taking 20 times more risk and do CCR diving and at the same time pointing fingers on deep air divers who take perhaps about the same level of risk.

 

[Nick_Radov]

Gas selection is irrelevant, 100 000dives/1 fatality in rec diving and 6000-10000 dives/1 fatality in CCR. These are the odds.

It's sad to see some of the "old timers" who are still innumerate and unclear on the basics. Aggregate odds are rather meaningless when you can take out the risk factors. It's like with driving. The death rates look high over the whole USA. But if you don't drive drunk or sleepy or distracted, don't ride a motorcycle, buy a car with top safety ratings, and keep it properly maintained then the aggregate odds become irrelevant to your personal risk level.

You would understand this if you had ever been properly trained on modern tech diving.

 

[scubaozy]

It's sad to see some of the "old timers" who are still innumerate and unclear on the basics. Aggregate odds are rather meaningless when you can take out the risk factors.
You would understand this if you had ever been properly trained on modern tech diving.

You are taking what I wrote out of context. That statistics does not evaluate any gas selection, your odds of getting killed is significantly increased at the moment you chose tec diving or ccr. If you understood what is taught to you, you would know this.

My argument is that you are already driving drunk when you took up CCR diving because you increased your rate/probability of fatality.

 

[leadduck]

(...)

I am in the opinion that the folks who did dive frequently deep on air pre commercialization of recreational tech diving are way more relaxed about it. I was qualified early 2000s in tech and prior that, I was doing frequently deep air dives with stage decompression already, lol, we did not call it tech diving back then, its just normal diving. So, I have never developed such exclusion to deep air as I was still in touch with the dark side as well.
(...)

When people denounce deep air diving today more than 25 years ago, I don't think it's because people got more risk averse. It's rather that back then we didn't know better, had a few misconceptions about adaptation to nitrogen narcosis. But we know more about it today, and we have more accident reports and are more aware of statistical effects (people are really bad at dealing with small but severe risks, survivorship bias, embarassing near misses are underreported, ...)

So everybody making a well informed decision about taking a risk or not may decide differently today than 25 years ago in the same situation if they learnt that the risk is higher than they thought back then.

 

[Nick_Radov]

You are taking what I wrote out of context. That statistics does not evaluate any gas selection, your odds of getting killed is significantly increased at the moment you chose tec diving or ccr. If you understood what is taught to you, you would know this.
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It's hilarious that you think a slide from some random bottom-of-the-barrel training agency run by has-beens and never-has-beens strengthens your point. It's pontificating clowns like that who who make tech diving dangerous in the first place because they're presuming to teach complex subjects when they aren't even clear on the basics themselves. If you want anyone here to take you seriously you'll have to come up with something more convincing.