Australian GBR: Almost Died

[Diver0001]

One of the the most amazing, fantastic, beautiful, and zen like aspects of diving is experiencing the feeling of virtual weightlessness. This is something that cold water, technical divers, photographers, and other specialists sometimes forget in their quests to accomplish whatever 'mission' they set out to complete. In my most humble opinion, there is nothing more perfect in life than to find yourself in complete bliss while hovering over a reef filled with so many types of technicolor fish, plants and invertebrates, in soothing temperate water, like a ghost haunting over the goings on of life in another world, as if you are just an invisible observer to a world that is completely alien to your own. The freedom to float higher or lower with just a breath of air or a blow from your mouth, to turn sideways and upside down and float with your own bubbles, to quietly inch up to a fish who eyes you curiously as if you were some strange visitor to his world, and just not sure what to make of you.... all off this wonderful pleasure is so diminished by encumbering oneself with excessive and unneeded gear. Too much weight and the thick wet suits that require them, redundant air and safety equipment that is never, ever used, huge cameras and light systems to take pictures of the same marine life that countless others have documented before you.

I'm a vacation diver. I spend a few days a year treasuring the freedom thrills of diving for the sake of diving. I've been doing some hunting too as of late, but despite being task oriented during those dives, I still have not lost the appreciation of just being neutrally buoyant in the water column while the scenery does it's thing around me to delight me and make me feel at peace. I love being light... a simple BCD with few extras. Just the right amount of weight in my pockets. No humongous dive knife. Just a small knife to dispatch any fish I score and maybe cut a bit of mono line fouling the reef or wreck I'm on. When I'm in my zone, I can't even feel the tank on my back. My breathing is slow and my mind is empty. It's just me and the world beneath the surface.

So to me, there IS such a thing as TOO much air on a dive. Plan your dive accordingly and you don't need extra tanks to laden you down. Diving with the minimum amount of equipment simply enhances every dive you do and should not be discouraged as long as you are prepared to handle any unforeseen event.

What you fail to understand is that YOUR motivations for diving are not EVERYONE'S motivations for diving. I personally think this post says more about you than it does about the divers you're talking about and it makes your post come across as judgmental and a little arrogant. Maybe that's something to meditate on.

R..

 

[AdivingBel]

What you fail to understand is that YOUR motivations for diving are not EVERYONE'S motivations for diving. I personally think this post says more about you than it does about the divers you're talking about and it makes your post come across as judgmental and a little arrogant. Maybe that's something to meditate on.

Hmmm...it didn't read that way to me, of course only my opinion . It seemed @hammet clearly voiced it as his/her experience and related a view as a vacation diver. The post seemed to be in response to an earlier poster that couldn't understand why ALL dives shouldn't be conducted with a redundant air supply and made a valid point (if maybe a wee-bit flowery ). Also your post came across a bit snarky (currently meditating on that )...glass houses and all. It's a big ocean. Dive and let dive.

 

[hammet]

What you fail to understand is that YOUR motivations for diving are not EVERYONE'S motivations for diving. I personally think this post says more about you than it does about the divers you're talking about and it makes your post come across as judgmental and a little arrogant. Maybe that's something to meditate on.

R..

I didn't fail to understand it. I get it 100%. People like cave diving. People like cold water diving. People like diving in bright orange surfer shorts with pink polka dots. I don't. I was describing what aspects of diving most appeal to me and a huge part of that is a minimalist approach to equipment where your not encumbered by tons of gear. This includes redundant air supplies which, as discussed to death already in this thread, is not needed with proper dive planning.

 

[doctormike]

Hmmm...it didn't read that way to me,

I don't think that Diver0001's post was snarky at all, and I also read Hammet's post as telling us that we were't enjoying diving properly.

"This is something that cold water, technical divers, photographers, and other specialists sometimes forget in their quests to accomplish whatever 'mission' they set out to complete...Too much weight and the thick wet suits that require them, redundant air and safety equipment that is never, ever used, huge cameras and light systems to take pictures of the same marine life that countless others have documented before you."

My mission is to enjoy scuba diving. Believe it or not, I enjoy it more with a rebreather and a big camera, having fun making my OWN photos, than I do just hovering over another parrotfish. Not using your redundancy / safety equipment is not some sort of failure, either.

Hammett, if you enjoy minimalist diving, that's great. And I actually agree with you that the problem that the OP had wouldn't be solved by a pony bottle (as I mentioned upthread). But your first post did imply that other types of equipment intensive diving were a problem.

 

[hammet]

I don't think that Diver0001's post was snarky at all, and I also read Hammet's post as telling us that we were't enjoying diving properly.



My mission is to enjoy scuba diving. Believe it or not, I enjoy it more with a rebreather and a big camera, having fun making my OWN photos, than I do just hovering over another parrotfish. Not using your redundancy / safety equipment is not some sort of failure, either.

Hammett, if you enjoy minimalist diving, that's great. And I actually agree with you that the problem that the OP had wouldn't be solved by a pony bottle (as I mentioned upthread). But your first post did imply that other types of equipment intensive diving were a problem.

My FIRST post in the thread state that the OP panicked.
My second post was to counter the position taken that redundant air was a solution to OPs problem. I simply gave a reason, why in my opinion, it is not necessarily an optimal solution.

 

[Soloist]

There is a cornucopia of resplendent dialogue of potatoes, tattoos and purple tentacles, but the narrative is completely void of any pertinent information to really understand the incident. It would be interesting to see the actual dive depths involved, repetitive dive count, gas mixture, NDL, etc. and what the rationale was for swimming with the current on the first leg of a “there and back” and was it truly a decompression stop he violated or simply a blown safety stop. I realize the OP was truly shaken by this experience, which has been a cause for concern throughout this thread with very sage advice given to prevent this type of fiasco in the future, but as stated earlier the story simply depicts a panicked diver.

 

[Diver0001]

Hmmm...it didn't read that way to me, of course only my opinion . It seemed @hammet clearly voiced it as his/her experience and related a view as a vacation diver. The post seemed to be in response to an earlier poster that couldn't understand why ALL dives shouldn't be conducted with a redundant air supply and made a valid point (if maybe a wee-bit flowery ). Also your post came across a bit snarky (currently meditating on that )...glass houses and all. It's a big ocean. Dive and let dive.

This is both the blessing and the curse of social media. We have access to more opinions from more people around the world than we have ever had before but written language is probably the worst possible way for use to communicate with one another. At my work, if someone sends me an email I generally phone them back for this reason... and probably for this reason I have a reputation as a master communicator.

On forums we can't do that, which is a damned shame.

R..

 

[doctormike]

Also, unless I missed it, the OP has been absent from the subsequent discussion, so not sure how much help we are going to be to him/her in terms of incident analysis.

 

[Diver0001]

I was describing what aspects of diving most appeal to me

This is a good summary of what I got from your previous post.

What I should try to express is that the idea of "minimalist" is relative. I certainly understand that. What you seemed to not understand is that the idea of "minimalist" is context dependent.

What is "minimal" to someone diving within the NDL's on a shallow reef in clear visibility and warm water will not be the same as another diver who dives the same reef and wants to take pictures. In your previous post you seemed to write off the whole idea of under water photography because (paraphrased) "everthing has already been photographed".

Similarly, you wrote off redundancy because you don't need it. Solo divers need it. Technical divers need it. It's not stupid. It's necessary in a particular context.

You seem to see no purpose in a number of activities that don't correspond to what "appeals to you". What I tried to point out in my previous post is that YOUR view on diving isn't the ONLY view. What we all need is tolerance. I'm probably a very different "type" of diver than you are. I dive cold, deep wrecks, well over the NDL's, using a buttload of gear and in limited visibility. That's my passion. I may even take a picture or two or use a head-cam on the way. For the same reason I don't judge you for your "type" of diving, I think it's unfair for you to judge others for theirs.

Somehow I still doubt that you get that.

R..

 

[hammet]

@Diver0001
I'm not sure why you would assume that I don't think people should not do cold diving, deep wreck diving, photography, etc. and be properly equipped.
I'm looking forward to going lobster hunting in a few weeks in florida. Should I not bring my lobster bag, lobster loop, or thick gloves on my dives?