Are you on good terms with Lady Luck?

[Thalassamania]

VooDoo you make some valid points. While 300 feet down seem a long way. that's only 100 yards, two lengths of an Olympic pool, not what I'd consider a very challenging breath hold swim. The physics and physiology of diving are such that a quick bounce to whatever depth you can deal with from a narcosis and oxygen standpoint followed by a slow relaxing shallow dive really posses little problem if everything goes well. What I think Lynne is referring to is that last clause, "if everything goes well."

 

[Diver0001]

Hale I'll tell ya why TS&M made the thread, she can not dive deep air, and does not like my style of diving, then when the spearo's got involved and members, she can not for the life of her understand, nor her friends, and friends stick together.

I may be the only person on scubaboard who didn't read the other thread.

In diving circles it's unconventional to come out of the closet and admit that you're a risk taker. On the whole I think the diving community is dominated by risk aversion and strict adherence to best practices.... many of which were developed over time by counting risk-takers' bodies.

Like you, I enjoy a good deep-air dive for the fun of it but I don't advertise it. Unlike you, i'm not a fan of Brett at all. He's made some really amazing dives but what you seem to be listening to his "I'm-a-super-hero" stories and overlooking all of his stories of people, some of them buddies, who didn't make it. He's probably had more "accidents" in his circle of divers (or people like you who he inspired) than anyone else alive....

My point is, don't selectively focus only on how uber it makes you feel to make some dangerous dives. Don't forgot to remind yourself every time you do one of these dives that the body count among extreme risk takers is also very high. If you're willing to see that fact for what it is and accept it then ok.

R..

 

[Jax]

Hale I'll tell ya why TS&M made the thread, she can not dive deep air, and does not like my style of diving, then when the spearo's got involved and members, she can not for the life of her understand, nor her friends, and friends stick together.
She made the thread cause of me, If you look at the time I woke and took a look in the middle of the night, read the thread and new what it was trying to accomplish, so I posted right away.

VooDoo . . . c'mon, seriously? :huh: TSandM did this all because of you? That is a little over the top in self-centeredness.

Diving is dangerous, diving is safe, diving is just plain fun.

Exactly TSandM's point --- depending on the thought and preparedness that goes into it, you can reduce the risk of the first and are left with the 2nd and 3rd.

Her point is more along the lines - IMO - of, just because you can drive your car 100mph (160kmh) doesn't mean you should do so. Now, if you want to take your car to the track and drive at that speed -- it is a safer, planned and resourced, activity. However, someone driving their car on Interstates or State Highways, where the road surface isn't made for those speeds, anything can jump in front of you, and you have other people on the road . . . It's just stupid.

The bottom line is that a properly planned and resourced activity - no matter what you are doing - is way more enjoyable with less chance of the activity becoming unpleasant.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Ironically, I think that the most common personality drawn to the sport of scuba diving is the gambler/risk-taker.

That may or may not be true for scuba diving, and it may or may not be true for technical wreck or cave diving. I wan to see the research on all three before I make that statement.

I for one am a very risk averse person and regard cave diving as a very controlled risk sport. There are risks but all of the statistically probable risks are well controlled and if I die in a cave the odds are it will be because I seriously broke the rules/had a spectacular lapse in judgment or because I had the same heart attack that would have killed me on the couch in front of the TV.

More to the point, I've noticed many risk averse cave divers who operate exactly the same way.

On our team luck is not invited on the dive as it is not required and would just be an unnecessary failure point.

 

[Jax]

Ironically, I think that the most common personality drawn to the sport of scuba diving is the gambler/risk-taker.

I've pondered this for a while, and I'd like to disagree.

Those who are NOT drawn to the adventure sports - rodeo, skydiving, motorcycling, diving - are the risk-adverse. Therefore, those that are drawn to the adventure sports are the risk-tolerant, the risk-takers, and the thrill-seekers.

Those that choose to continue to move into riskier sectors of the adventure sports either carefully address the risks and plan and prep for them (risk-takers), or those that feed off the thrill of the risk. (thrill-seekers). Generally, IMO, the thrill-seekers tend to have a more caviler attitude to all the trappings of safety.

But even in the riskier sectors (like tech and cave), there are some that absolutely must tag every safety checkblock, and others that might assess the risk of the unchecked block and accept the additional risk.

It seems that people discover others' risk tolerance, and tend to gravitate towards those with equal tolerance.

In other words, "Birds of a feather flock together."

 

[Bombay High]

Ironically, I think that the most common personality drawn to the sport of scuba diving is the gambler/risk-taker.

There is very little gambling and risk taking involved in this sport. For all practical purposes it is barely a sport. I read in the going pro section a post by a dive master called something Ellis or the other, about how he really learned how to swim when he was doing his divemaster training. What this means is that he could not really swim properly as a rescue diver. This to me is amazing.
And still I see divers calling this an adventure sport ... a bunch of overweight overage geezers who can barely waddle out of the water. What is the risk ? That you are so out of shape that you will collapse carrying your tanks from the car park to the water ?
Divers trying to compare themselves to mountain climbers ... Rheinhold Messner would die of a heart attack if he ever heard .... cmon guys ... wake up... its a walk in the park !!

 

[Jax]

There is very little gambling and risk taking involved in this sport. For all practical purposes it is barely a sport. I read in the going pro section a post by a dive master called something Ellis or the other, about how he really learned how to swim when he was doing his divemaster training. What this means is that he could not really swim properly as a rescue diver. This to me is amazing.
And still I see divers calling this an adventure sport ... a bunch of overweight overage geezers who can barely waddle out of the water. What is the risk ? That you are so out of shape that you will collapse carrying your tanks from the car park to the water ?
Divers trying to compare themselves to mountain climbers ... Rheinhold Messner would die of a heart attack if he ever heard .... cmon guys ... wake up... its a walk in the park !!

Really? Maybe you should talk to someone who's been bent . . .

However, your attitude is the epitome of what I have been saying. Some divers absolutely will not recognize what could go wrong.

 

[Bombay High]

Really? Maybe you should talk to someone who's been bent . . .

However, your attitude is the epitome of what I have been saying. Some divers absolutely will not recognize what could go wrong.

I have been bent ... twice ... through no fault of mine. An error in our deco schedule in the chamber. My point in saying this is that there are a ton of people who imagine they some kind of extreme athletes. They are not. Far from it . They are meat balls looking for trouble .... so far from help that they will never know what hit them. Long after it has.

Jax ... you never did get my point.

 

[Bombay High]

Really? Maybe you should talk to someone who's been bent . . .

However, your attitude is the epitome of what I have been saying. Some divers absolutely will not recognize what could go wrong.

More than talking to people who have been bent, I have been on the same team with people who have been killed while we were on the same job. Bent is easy. We have chambers that help us with that.

 

[Jax]

I have been bent ... twice ... through no fault of mine. An error in our deco schedule in the chamber. My point in saying this is that there are a ton of people who imagine they some kind of extreme athletes. They are not. Far from it . They are meat balls looking for trouble .... so far from help that they will never know what hit them. Long after it has.

Jax ... you never did get my point.

:huh:

Erm, I never saw the "extreme athlete attitude" point as relevant to a thread about planning and recognizing the risks in a dive.

I guess you could say the disparaging "meat balls" as the risk of an unfit diver hitting the drink.