Article: Self Reliance and Tech Diving

[Dr. Lecter]

Well, what do you call someone who has the ability to provide life to a "buddy" but who willfully refuses other than selfish? I'm sorry, but the OP's POV IS selfish whether you call it "self-reliant" or "solo" or "blue cheese." Anyone who writes is NOT a "buddy" or a "teammate" but merely selfish.

In fact, were the OP to act in this manner within the legal boundaries of my state (Washington), it would be an interesting question if he is even acting legally.

While an interesting article, it absolutely convinces me that I want nothing to do with someone with his, or some like minded, mindset -- whether in the water or out.

In what way is it selfish to either dive without a buddy, and/or to set clear boundaries at the surface as to what assistance you will or will not provide on the bottom?

If we both have an hour+ deco obligation, our respective dive plans called for us to each carry our own deco gas/safety reserve but no more, and just before beginning the ascent you have a catastrophic failure that costs you your gas... how is it selfish for me to do the math in my head and tell you to follow your plan, rather than compromising my own? If you want to argue that it's irresponsible or morally wrong to set up such a dive plan in the first place (and I suspect you team divers would, given your gas planning approach), so be it. But nobody is having the rules of the dive sprung on them for the first time at the bottom.

Would I do everything I could within the boundaries of my reserves and plan to get you as far through deco and up the line as I could before sending you on your own way? So far as I could safely do so, of course I would. Would I insist you switch back to your own gas and take your chances once I calculated that the risk to my own safety was too great, and fight to protect myself if you were too selfish to follow your own plan? Yes, I would. I hadn't realized that DIR's philosophy included the tenet that two chamber riders/bodies were better than one.

As an aside, your legality comment is as ignorant as it is unnecessary and pointless. Ignorant, in that no U.S. jurisdiction requires a private citizen to put themself at risk to rescue another unless they directly and proximately cause the crisis in which the other finds themselves. One may not untie a trespassing boat from one's dock in a storm -- life and limb trump property rights -- but the gas for one's dive is not an issue of property rights. Unnecessary and pointless, in that there's little chance of any reliable evidence of what happens on a dive reaching the surface and, in any event, the last thing anyone would be thinking about in what is a self-defense situation is 'gee, is this possibly a tort?!'

 

[HowardE]

Howard, I understand, I think, the approach John is taking. I just don't like it. I respect his enormous diving experience, which dwarfs mine. His approach was formed in a crucible of very deep diving in very challenging conditions, with the kind of cowboy mentality you had to have to do those dives.

I prefer diving with people who believe that you become the strongest diver you can possibly become, and you dive with similar team members, but you also commit to help one another.

There is a horrible story of a British woman who got violently ill the better part of a mile from the entrance to the cave she was diving. Her teammates brought her out. Those are the people I want to dive with, not someone who would look at me and say, "You shouldn't have eaten the ceviche. See ya!"

There is no cowboy mentality at all. None at all.

 

[Peter Guy]

Dr. L -- You really had to bring up "DIR" in this?

FYI -- solo diving is fine -- solo technical diving is fine -- same day same ocean diving is fine -- HOWEVER, this notion of diving solo or "same day, same ocean" is NOT diving with a "buddy" regardless of how you try to state it. If you have no obligation to your buddy you are solo -- it is as simple as that. OTOH, if you have a buddy, then you have an obligation to that buddy -- and that includes making sure you have the reserves needed to get you and your buddy to your next gas switch (whether that be your "Xfoot" bottle or that big air tank in the sky).

The OP wrote

I teach Trimix, and I train divers to share air and buddy breathe, but these are not practical skills. These are confidence building skills like using the blackout mask. These are also exercises to prove to divers that they never want to involve a buddy in a gas supply emergency other than passing off a bottle, so they need to be diligent about being self reliant.

If I am on a deep open circuit wreck dive (where I am not instructing students) I am not even using a long hose on my bottom gas. I am willing to help any diver manage a problem, buddy or not, however supplying gas to another diver, especially on the bottom, is unnecessary and incredibly dangerous for both parties.

I know I'm not alone in finding this to be an amazing statement and one that is contrary to all of the instruction in technical diving I've had. Really, doing an air share is "incredibly dangerous for both parties?" Well, it may well be "incredibly dangerous" if you have planned NOT to have the gas reserves to get you and your buddy to your next gas switch -- but what is wrong with that?

Dr. L, one of the basic tenets of emergencies is NOT to make a second victim. So, if you know you don't have the gas to get you and your now helpless "buddy" to the next gas switch, then, yes, at least one of you is in a very bad way. OTOH, IF you have the resources to keep your buddy alive, would not using those resources be the thing to do?

Again, IF your plan is to have just enough to get you to your next gas switch, then you are solo regardless of whether you got into the water with someone else. However, if you have a buddy, then you had better make sure you have the mindset, and the resources, necessary to be a buddy. You can be a solo diver or a buddy diver -- you can't be both.

----
Note -- just for the record -- this is a discussion of "recreational diving" NOT commercial diving which has a whole 'nuther set of parameters.

 

[sock]

In what way is it selfish to either dive without a buddy, and/or to set clear boundaries at the surface as to what assistance you will or will not provide on the bottom?

If we both have an hour+ deco obligation, our respective dive plans called for us to each carry our own deco gas/safety reserve but no more, and just before beginning the ascent you have a catastrophic failure that costs you your gas... how is it selfish for me to do the math in my head and tell you to follow your plan, rather than compromising my own? If you want to argue that it's irresponsible or morally wrong to set up such a dive plan in the first place (and I suspect you team divers would, given your gas planning approach), so be it. But nobody is having the rules of the dive sprung on them for the first time at the bottom.

Would I do everything I could within the boundaries of my reserves and plan to get you as far through deco and up the line as I could before sending you on your own way? So far as I could safely do so, of course I would. Would I insist you switch back to your own gas and take your chances once I calculated that the risk to my own safety was too great, and fight to protect myself if you were too selfish to follow your own plan? Yes, I would. I hadn't realized that DIR's philosophy included the tenet that two chamber riders/bodies were better than one.

As an aside, your legality comment is as ignorant as it is unnecessary and pointless. Ignorant, in that no U.S. jurisdiction requires a private citizen to put themself at risk to rescue another unless they directly and proximately cause the crisis in which the other finds themselves. One may not untie a trespassing boat from one's dock in a storm -- life and limb trump property rights -- but the gas for one's dive is not an issue of property rights. Unnecessary and pointless, in that there's little chance of any reliable evidence of what happens on a dive reaching the surface and, in any event, the last thing anyone would be thinking about in what is a self-defense situation is 'gee, is this possibly a tort?!'

nicely said

 

[Dr. Lecter]

You can be a solo diver or a buddy diver -- you can't be both.

In short: bull. It is undeniably true you can be "solo" for certain contingencies, while providing redundancy as a "buddy" for others, assuming both divers agree as to which are which ahead of time. Who are you to say that if one has a buddy, they have to follow your idea of what responsibilities that relationship entails? I was under the impression that the nature of the buddy relationship was between me and my buddy alone.

I have nothing against those who dive with the preparation, gear, gas, and mentality to complete the dive solo, while also undertaking the additional limitations, obligations, and risks necessary to have and to provide a complete redundancy to another teammember at all points during the dive. But I will not let it pass that someone says it's the only way to dive with a buddy, because it's simply untrue.

 

[Peter Guy]

But I will not let it pass that someone says it's the only way to dive with a buddy, because it's simply untrue.

Former President William Jefferson Clinton perhaps said it best, "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is."

To you, and one supposes Mr. Chatterton, a "buddy" is one that is in the water with you, to others it means something else.

Shall we agree to disagree on "what the meaning of the word [buddy] is?"

 

[danvolker]

You can view the page at ScubaBoard - Scuba Diving Forum - Diving Social Network - Self Reliance and Tech Diving

It sounds like what you consider a buddy, those of us that are DIR or GUE would consider to be an "insta-buddy" or a violation of common sense--in that these people you have never trained with or done significant buddy dives with before, can't possibly be considered to be a real buddy--and certainly not on a tech dive..... Maybe on a 60 foot "baby dive" where a horrible buddy would have a hard time hurting you with any outcomes.....

So in this, I would agree you can't count on these people on your deep dive.... The best divers I have met, have trained together untiil they know exactly what to expect from each other, and they are always aware of the status of their buddy. EAch is absolutely capable, if they needed to be solo diving, but each considers that to be a sub-standard way to dive.
When I would buddy with George Irvine, each of us "could" have been doing these dives solo---I had been spearfishing solo for 2 decades when I first met George.... He had done plenty himself. Core in DIR ( from George) is absolute skill in each buddy, meaning self rescue is at an optimum level. However, If I am doing a 280 foot dive in a 4 mph current, I like the idea of having my REDUNDANT gas supply a few feet off to my side, swimming nearby....

I am trying to be as agreeable as possible, but I don't like the message the way I think it will be understood by many.... Many will think that because Chatterton is a famous deep diver, that they should model themselves after you , and ignore the potential values of real buddies ( not talking about the terrible ones you were obviously concerned about).

In a very real sense, your article is the ANTI DIR/anti GUE argument, which in all liklihood, was the point of your article...

 

[Dr. Lecter]

I am trying to be as agreeable as possible, but I don't like the message the way I think it will be understood by many.... Many will think that because Chatterton is a famous deep diver, that they should model themselves after you , and ignore the potential values of real buddies ( not talking about the terrible ones you were obviously concerned about).

In a very real sense, your article is the ANTI DIR/anti GUE argument, which in all liklihood, was the point of your article...

I'm trying to think of any situation where solo tech divers have dogpiled a prominent diver who wrote about their views on the advantages of the buddy system... and not really recalling any within recent memory. If they did, nobody here would put up with it, because (just like what you just wrote and a number of others here have been dancing around) it's pathetic. Instead of saying why the buddy system is your preferred approach, you challenge whether a contrary view should be expressed at all.

If you feel your belief system is threatened (and your last line indicates you do) by anyone who is (1) inherently credible and (2) saying something different works for them for X, Y, and Z reasons... well, it says a lot more about you than it does about them.

 

[JamesK]

Peter,

I agree with you. I was simply trying to state was I was stating. I was not agreeing with the OP at all. On solo dives, my regulators are my regulators. On team dives, they are the teams, just as theirs is mine. However, I never plan my gas relying on theirs.

 

[danvolker]

I'm trying to think of any situation where solo tech divers have dogpiled a prominent diver who wrote about their views on the advantages of the buddy system... and not really recalling any within recent memory.

If you feel your belief system is threatened (and your last line indicates you do) by anyone who is (1) inherently credible and (2) saying something different works for them for X, Y, and Z reasons... well, it says a lot more about you than it does about them.

Sorry Doc, that's not it.... This is more of a religious conviction kind of a thing... I actually believe that Chatterton's message is dangerous. Not to me, maybe not to you, but to many recreational divers, and to many "new" technical divers. to be clear, it is not my belief system that is threatened, it is the potential mis-use of Chatterton's ideas/system that could threaten many divers --many divers that I don't know. The DIR and GUE crowd would not be threatened, because the DIR / GUE crowd would reject so much of his message, that nothing of any value is likely to get through.....we already know that each of us needs to be self reliant, and to move skills far beyond what other training agencies would strive for----just look at fundies...