Bad scuba advice you've received

[rddvet]

Because disliking someone isn’t against the rules, nor is advice that not everyone agrees with, there’s plenty of people on here that spew bs. Just ignore him if it bothers you.

His stupidity can be amusing. My issue is some of the things he's spewed are just dangerous

 

[Jcp2]

Never hold your breath. Always exhale slowly.

 

[Wookie]

His stupidity can be amusing. My issue is some of the things he's spewed are just dangerous

*puts on mod hat* than file a report. Nothing will get you banned from SB faster than advocating an unsafe diving practice. That starts a cascade of crapstorm in the back room that ends up in longer and longer bans.

But be careful. It must be a true unsafe diving practice, like uncertified solo cave diving with no light, and not some BS DIR rule. Someone likes split fins? Not an unsafe diving practice. Advocates an Air2? So do I, along with a 13 CF pony. Don’t report BS.

 

[Nick_Radov]

When wearing my drysuit, I have always used it for buoyancy. The only time I use my BCD when diving dry is on a 40+ metre dive when I do need to add some air. Most drysuit divers I also only use it for buoyancy.

While that isn't a good practice, you can kind of get away with it when diving with a single tank because just a little gas in the drysuit provides enough lift to balance the weight of the compressed gas in the tank. But add on double tanks, and potentially some stages, and it stops working as well. You end up with with a huge unstable gas bubble shifting all around the suit, alternately trying to burp its way out of the neck seal or send you into an uncontrolled feet-first ascent. An experienced diver can maybe still manage that, but it's not really a safe or comfortable way to dive.

 

[clownfishsydney]

While that isn't a good practice, you can kind of get away with it when diving with a single tank because just a little gas in the drysuit provides enough lift to balance the weight of the compressed gas in the tank. But add on double tanks, and potentially some stages, and it stops working as well. You end up with with a huge unstable gas bubble shifting all around the suit, alternately trying to burp its way out of the neck seal or send you into an uncontrolled feet-first ascent. An experienced diver can maybe still manage that, but it's not really a safe or comfortable way to dive.

And exactly what I do, single tanks although the 40+ m ones have a pony bottle and I do use BCD. No problems on well over 200 deeper dives and more than 2,000 shallower dives.

 

[yle]

I don’t wear my seals that tight and I would blow a seal first.

I've often wondered why the sea lions around here, in So Cal, are so... friendly.

 

[PBcatfish]

Early in my tech diving instruction, while diving at 4,600 feet, I was told there was no reason to adjust a decompression profile for altitude. When I asked why, the person who told me said he dived at Lake Tahoe (over 6,000 feet) without adjustment, and he was fine.

My wife was given a similar opinion by the instructor who gave her a check out dive at altitude. I did a SLED calc anyway, before joining them on the dive as a tourist, since we were diving without computers. I also waited a few hours before driving further up the mountain for the ride home, again due to the results of a SLED calc. The same instructor latter commented that he could do an altitude specialty course, using that same location. We didn't use that instructor again.

Most computers I have used in recent years will automatically adjust for altitude. Dive tables require a correction factor at that kind of altitude. I haven't dove the mountains in more than a decade, so I'm a little rusty on that stuff now, but I think that the cut off was around 1,000 or 1,500 feet of altitude before you needed a correction.

 

[PBcatfish]

Bad advice I have received:

1 Silicone grease is OK to use on oxygen equipment.

2 It's OK to dive nitrox with us even though you are not trained for it. Just stay near me & we can both work off my computer

3 The nitrox in my tank is 33%, set your O2 fraction to 33 so that we will be diving the same profile

4 buy the Sherwood regulator because you will get free parts for life.

5 A wet suit is supposed to fit this tight.

6 These steel 50 tanks are illegal now because they have NPT threads. By law I can't return them to you.

 

[PBcatfish]

how many is a lot -id do 80 trimix dives a year the cost is irrelevant to clarity of thought

I assume that you are saying that the price of trimix is worth the performance and safety advantage it provides. Diving a rebreather can give you the same trimix advantage, while consuming a lot less helium compared to open circuit gear. The price, & sometimes availability, of helium is the big kicker here. Consider what you pay for a tank of tri mix & then divide $12k by that number. That's probably ball park of how many dives it would take to make a rebreather the more cost effective option. Another advantage of a rebreather is that you can carry enough gas to last you a very long time. A rebreather does require more predive maintenance/prep time.

 

[PBcatfish]

...roll your tanks before you analyze, to mix the trimix.......

I don't know about tri mix, but with nitrox this is absolutely true for a partial pressure fill that was just done. I have taken a reading from the same tank before & after rolling it. The difference was several percent. It was a lot more than I expected. I don't remember the actual numbers anymore.