c-card validity and diving addiction!

[creamofwheat]

Ok. I only have my OW cert, but terrible, rule breaking me hit 77ft on one of my most recent dives, and 69ft on the dive following it. (dives number 13 and 14). Yea yea, i know, bad. i broke the rules. if it makes it any better, i was diving with a much more experienced diver. but truth be told, i am totally comfortable at that depth. most of my dives prior have been 40-60ft, and i have been working on just getting comfortable before taking AOW (which i am actually registered to take in february...already looking through my manual).

Someone takes OW, does no dives, and goes right into AOW. By dive number 9, they have already hit 100ft (for the deep dive) and are now certifed to dive to 100ft, with no dives not involving an instructor.

i am not criticizing here, i promise.

but i'm just wondering. it cant really be *that* bad that i have gone deeper than my alleged 60ft limit, can it? i am totally comfortable down there. i dont even think about my breathing and how weird it is to breathe underwater, because, well, it's just not weird to breathe underwater anymore. it has become an unconscious action for me already. buoyancy control is improving a lot. i can now hold safety stops at the end of a dive. i can descend without hitting the bottom now. i've been dropping weight. so basically, im becoming very comfortable under the water and totally relax as soon as i begin to descend. poof! stress goes away. still have TONS of work to do however, and always will. i am by no means a good diver. definitely still new, and it is an obvious fact.

but i guess it just kinda makes me question the validity of the c-cards. i mean, i dive in a dry suit, and dont have the drysuit c-card. i have dove deeper than my 60ft limit without the c-card and felt totally comfortable. definitely cautious, but comfortable nonetheless. and im still alive and doing just fine.

now the other thing i wanted to ask...does diving addiction EVER go away? i mean seriously. i get the jitters if i dont get at least one dive a week in. i get even worse if i go 2 weeks without a dive. it's like withdrawl or something. "must. go. diving." has quickly become my new mantra. so, to all the experienced divers out there...does the excitement ever fade, or will i just have to suffer withdrawl from diving for the rest of my life if i miss a week???

ok now i really want to go diving.

 

[TSandM]

As far as I can tell, if it goes away, it takes years. Bob's four years into this, and 1500 dives, and he can actually get excited about taking a possible diving day and riding my horse . . . whereas I abandon said horse whenever there's somebody available to go diving with.

As far as the depth thing goes . . . did you calculate the minimum gas required to get you and your buddy to the surface from the dives you did? Did you figure out your gas requirements for the dive, and what the parameters were (all useable gas, halves, thirds) for how much gas you could use? Did you know how much gas your buddy was carrying, and what his rmv or sac is? If so, you knew what you needed to know, as far as I am aware. Depth is an issue not because it's deep, but because you use more air down there, you have more narcosis down there, and the surface is further away as a place to solve problems when you're down there.

 

[Darnold9999]

You mean the PADI police didn't catch you!! they must have been at Whytecliff on Tuesday.

Its a guide not the law, you are taking baby steps, i.e. not going beyond your comfort level and with an experienced diver. Take the AOW course, and then rescue course a little bit later, if you get a good instructor you will learn lots and be a safer diver.

From the sound of it you don't really need the dry suit course. You probably do need to really understand the issues when going deeper, not just go deeper because it is comfortable and others around you are doing it. You burn gas at a ferocious rate as you get deeper and if you are not paying constant attention to your air, narcosis can make you forget how long you have been looking at that interesting rock formation or fish or whatever.

Re the excitement, yes it wears off, then you go do a dive you've never done before or a place you've never been before and it gets you again. Or you take a new diver out and see the excitement from fresh eyes and you realize what you are not seeing.

Was out with someone on their first ocean dives recently. He headed off into the blue chasing jellyfish. I pretty much ignore them, but they can be fascinating - sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see what is right in front of you.

 

[Ron Brandt]

The only time people take a dry suit "course" of ant kind is usually a dive towards their AOW.

I hate to say this being an instructor but back when I got cetified by three agencies ,PADI,NAUI and ACUC you were good to 100 but 130 was still ok. 100 to 130 was used either as a speciality or to do the deep dive...I can't remember.

Remember on thing...those are only recommended depths.

Ron

 

[rockjock3]

It won't get you in trouble with anybody but possibly yourself and your buddy. If you are comfortable that is a big part of the equation. Other parts are "are you ready to deal with an emergency where you can't ascend as safely and quickly to the surface if something goes wrong?", "do you know much about Nitrogen Narcosis and all the ways it can effect you?", do you even know if it does affect you?", do you know to what degree it can effect you?", "do you know it can effect you on one dive and not on the next?", "do you know how to stop a runaway ascent caused by a BCD inflator being stuck open (much more important not to have an uncontrolled ascent from a dive as you go deeper)?" and the list goes on. These are not things you have to learn from a class but you should learn from experience.

Having 10 feet of water over you is much different than having 20fsw, 30fsw, etc. over you. Problems can accelerate to emergencies much quicker at 130fsw than they do at 10fsw. Not saying they can't get deadly at 10 feet, but they tend to spiral out of control faster as you go deeper. The only problem isn't "well I am deeper so I use my air faster". There are many things to think about and being able to remain calm and multitask takes on much more importance as you go deeper. Also you need to be even more aware of your buddy because unless you are diving redundant systems they are a more realistic escape hatch from an emergency than just popping your head up from 10 feet below the surface or even just 30-60 feet below it.

I'm not saying you will ever get hurt, but ensure you are well aware of the risks involved and the additional planning involved with deeper dives before you just start jumping off the boat.

One last thing I will leave you with is an example (true story). I have a buddy that I have dove with many times. He has been diving for about 3 years and has about 320 dives under his belt. I met him and have been diving with him for about 5 months. About 1 month ago we went diving and were at about 95fsw. We were down on the bottom for about 10 minutes and I saw a scallopped hammerhead shark, which I pointed out to him. Well, he proceeded to freak and tried to bolt for the surface. I had to keep him down there and it wasn't easy. I tend to keep a very close eye on my buddies, especially my regular buddies, and check all our air often. I knew he had plenty (he did) and I had plenty. I calmed him down and then I took him up nice and slowly. He thanked me later.

He had told me he had dove plenty of times deep, but his definition of plenty and deep was 3-5 dives at the deepest of 60-70fsw (most of his dives were in the 40-50fsw range). At 10fsw he might not have hurt himself by jumping to the surface. From 100fsw he had a pretty good chance of being hurt by shooting to the surface. He was panicked and probably wouldn't have dumped his BC as he went up (further exasberating the problem), might have attracted the shark to him as possible prey by fleeting activity, probably would have had an embolism or at least severe bends. Point is he wasn't prepared for the deeper dives mentally (he knows how to handle himeself UW as I have seen him handle problems before). It just isn't "well I didn't kill myself at 60 so now I can go to 70" type of diving. You need to prepare yourself.

 

[DiverBuoy]

The real issue is setting personal limits based on experience. Clearly from your comments even you can see there are additional things to know at greater depths. An instructor taking you on deeper dives can prepare you for many things, and more specifically evaluate your cognitive abilities and provide valuable feedback in review aftewards. Coming up on an emergency swimming ascent from 35 feet can be challenging when your body is craving that next breath, coming up from 70 feet reminds us of the need for special rules managing gas supplies at greater depth, really with your level of experience and no additional training its quite simply a greater risk. Arguing the points you made, it reminds me of when my grandmother cracks me up and talks about "I remember the days when we didn't wear seatbelts cause cars didn't have them, we lived". I say "Well, that might be true grandma, there were far fewer cars on the road to collide with, and the speeds were slower, and people were more courteous and gracious, but you were still lucky"

A coworker of mine I really respected was known to frequently quote the phrase "Once again ignorance and superstition have been overcome by knowledge and science". My recommendation is get the skills and proper training you need to be safe in the environment and conditions in which you dive.

 

[MoonWrasse]

In addition to the above, there are other safety concerns of going deep. Narcosis may also lure you deeper and deeper, so being cautious is something one needs IMO.

Take the AOW class, it is worth something.

 

[spectrum]

Well I had a few more dives when I went to tease the 60 foot number and went to 72 and I've been back to similar depths a few other times. I'm planning AOW for this coming season. Each of the deeper dives was in fresh water, lake and Quarry and in to full darkness, so it became a night dive no less. I also love night dives and I suspect you wind those even more addicting.

On that first deep dive I was with a diver of similar experience (+-20 dives), we had looked beyond 60 feet on the tables so we weren't totally unprepared but we did over shoot the "plan of 60 feet". We also know that the area bottomed out in the 70s. We were both very comfortable like you seem to be and it was no big deal.

I think the limit has at least a few important aspects.
* Some divers just are not cofortable enough to go that deep and you have at least a better chance of recovering in < 60 feet.
* Some diver just don't have the skills to make the dive well. If you're dealing with darkness, in our case significant cold, it was 42 at depth down from the high 70s on the surface. The bottom was deep silt, you had to stay clear or forget about visibility and the ascent was a longer trip, though we had a nice steep slope to follow as a visual.
*I think one of the advantages of doing some deep training in the form of AOW is exposure to you impairment from narcosis. I really need to get a handle on that before I consider passing 80 feet.

You mentioned you were with a seasoned diver and I think that making those dives is just a natural progression. We all acclimate to diving at different rates. We all have different risk tollerances and senses of adventure and we all have differnet learning styles and I, like you tend to be a look ahead learner. It sounds like you made a few deeper dives within your comfort zone and you're following it up with more training. Have fun & dive safe,
Pete

 

[Web Monkey]

but terrible, rule breaking me hit 77ft

Nobody is going to take away your C-Card for going too deep. Now that you're certified, your life is in your own hands and it's entirely possible for you to have a great dive or kill yourself. It's your responsibility.

The limits were designed to give divers a better chance of reaching the surface alive in case something bad happened.

If you have some sort of problem at 30', you can take your time and sort things out, or do a nice slow ascent to the surface. If you have a problem at 130', you typically have very little time to handle the problem because the NDL (No Decompression Limit) time is much shorter there and your air is used up much faster.

Nothing will happen to you at 77' that couldn't happen at 60', except you have less time to deal with things and bolting to the surface becomes a little more dangerous (it's dangerous at 30' also, but as you go deeper, it becomes more so).

As for the drysuit, while they're not rocket science, you can easily get killed in one if you encounter a situation that you weren't trained for and can't figure out in a couple of seconds.

A drysuit can easily turn into a 300 pound lift bag and have you on the surface faster than you ever dreamed possible. The drysuit class teaches you about various failure modes and how to recover from them.

With a good regulator, it's very easy to go to any depth you want (or any depth you don't want) and still breathe. The trick is to return to the surface safely when you're done.

Terry

Ok. I only have my OW cert, but terrible, rule breaking me hit 77ft on one of my most recent dives, and 69ft on the dive following it. (dives number 13 and 14). Yea yea, i know, bad. i broke the rules.

. . .

but i guess it just kinda makes me question the validity of the c-cards. i mean, i dive in a dry suit, and dont have the drysuit c-card. i have dove deeper than my 60ft limit without the c-card and felt totally comfortable. definitely cautious, but comfortable nonetheless. and im still alive and doing just fine.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

As spectrum inidcates all deep dives are not created equal.

A freshwater dive where a 100 ft depth might mean 40 degree water temps, darkness and limited viz going to zero viz if you or the buddy stirs up the silt is a lot different and a lot more demanding than a 100 ft dive in 80 degree water with 200 ft viz where you can look up and see the boat overhead.

Narcosis becomes a much larger concern as the other demands of the dive increase. In limited visibility and darkness you willl find that the need to navigate by compass or terrain, use a light, maintain close contact with a buddy etc, and all of those things add to the task loading and divison of attention that needs to occur to conduct the dive safely and successfully.

To manage those types of demanding deep dives, you need to have the basics and the emergency procedures down to the point that they are second nature so that all your concentration can be focused on critcal parts of the dive.

Personally, I think limits conferrred by a C-card are meaningless in that situation. It comes down to an individual diver's knowledge, skills, mental resources, comfort level and above all - experience. The best way in my opinion to achieve those things is to dive, dive often and slowly and progressively expand the evelope as your skills and knowledge increase. Dive courses play a role vital role in that development process, but what they teach is never a substitute for experience and courses alone will never make you a good diver.