Buddies

[FSUDive]

I myself am not a DIR diver...totally. I have gotten many great tips from DIR divers, but some things I difer on.

But I've been reading alot of diving books lately: The Last Dive, Diver Down, Deep Descent, Shadow Divers and a few others. And I've found two major trends between all the books.

1) Loooots of Wreck divers dive solo. And I would say that many of the guys written about in those books were "qualified" to do so.

2)The second trend is that all the guys that died or got bent bad in the books paniced and shot to the surface or wasn't thinking well. Most of them still had air in one of their tanks or in their decompression tanks. They at least could have breathed of their travel gas and maybe made it to a safe depth to decompress instead of drowning.

I read of deaths where guys had gas in one tank, but not the potehr and thamanifold was off, they overbreathed the reg and thought they were out of air and many other things, and many of them paniced and swam right past decompressing divers on the line for the surface.

Soooo, my conclusion and thoughts in writing this thread were that I've come away from my readings, thinking that diving without a buddy is foolish. Yes, there are times when a buddy can be a hindrance(when hes panicing), but panic, i think is a main cuase that snowballs all accidents. If you had a buddy, just to smack you in the face and say "CALM DOWN" many of those guys would have survived.

Just my opinion in agreement with one of the DIR principles.

 

[Meng_Tze]

I myself am not a DIR diver...totally. I have gotten many great tips from DIR divers, but some things I difer on.

But I've been reading alot of diving books lately: The Last Dive, Diver Down, Deep Descent, Shadow Divers and a few others. And I've found two major trends between all the books.

1) Loooots of Wreck divers dive solo. And I would say that many of the guys written about in those books were "qualified" to do so.

2)The second trend is that all the guys that died or got bent bad in the books paniced and shot to the surface or wasn't thinking well. Most of them still had air in one of their tanks or in their decompression tanks. They at least could have breathed of their travel gas and maybe made it to a safe depth to decompress instead of drowning.

I read of deaths where guys had gas in one tank, but not the potehr and thamanifold was off, they overbreathed the reg and thought they were out of air and many other things, and many of them paniced and swam right past decompressing divers on the line for the surface.

Soooo, my conclusion and thoughts in writing this thread were that I've come away from my readings, thinking that diving without a buddy is foolish. Yes, there are times when a buddy can be a hindrance(when hes panicing), but panic, i think is a main cuase that snowballs all accidents. If you had a buddy, just to smack you in the face and say "CALM DOWN" many of those guys would have survived.

Just my opinion in agreement with one of the DIR principles.

Thing is: Every one is 'qualified' to dive solo. There is no law or Dive police to check on divers. The question is: Should one dive solo, moreover should one dive solo in an overhead environment.... the answer is ...ehm, NO!! It is dangerous and if the ***** hist the fan, it is messy and gets dark VERY quickly.'

'He who fights with Dragons should be careful not to become a Dragon. When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you......' (Take risks and the risk becomes you.... I borrowed that one)

As for the other issues, one never knows what happened..... we weren't there, did not experience their situation. It could be anything, maybe not even panic. Tunnel vision, narced, hypoxia, hyperoxia, you name it... My buddies are no hinderance, they are my second pair of eyes and 'keep me honest'.