Can/should PADI Open Water divers go down to the Yongala?

[freeze43]

Hi,

just looked at some breathtaking pictures of the Yongala and I desperately want to go down there for the sea life. However, a few websites have commented that I would have to take an advanced course in order to go down there. Its maximum depth is 30m... I fairly sure I'm allowed to go down that deep (with no decompression).

Is it that its quite a dangerous dive?

 

[Mantra]

With a low number of dives and plain OW you might find it hard to get a dive op to take you.

In terms of being 'allowed' - if you were certified with PADI then the recommended max depth for you is 18 metres. With respect, the fact that you don't know this is a bit of a red flag.

How deep have you dived so far? My wife and I dove a little wreck off Bohol yesterday and both got quite narced at 33m. It can happen at 30m. The sensation could be hazardous to someone not knowing what was happening (I got quite dizzy, for example. My wife, who is VERY calm underwater felt some uncharacteristic anxiety - but was able to identify it as 'not being real').

You're right that a no deco dive to 30m is quite a safe profile, comparatively speaking. Chances are, you'd be fine doing it. But is there any reason you wouldn't want to do AOW first? With the right instructor getting introduced to night diving, learning some navigation skills and maybe working more on buoyancy etc can be quite useful. Getting a first taste of narcosis under supervision is very handy too. If you really don't want to do AOW, by PADI standards all you need is one deep 'adventure dive' to be clear to dive to 30m. Of course there are no 'scuba police' to pull you over under water, but reputable dive shops will tend to restrict divers based on experience and training.

I'm really looking forward to diving the Yongala one day too! I totally get the appeal.

 

[DevonDiver]

There's no scuba police. However, there is prudent advice to dive 'conservatively and within the limits of your training and experience'.

The Open Water course doesn't train you to dive below 18m/60ft. Neither does it provide experience to do so. Neither does it educate, or provide experience of, diving upon wrecks (which have distinct hazards beyond open water/reef diving.

It's wrong to look at certification cards as 'licenses'. They aren't. They are proof of training - nothing more, nothing less. The decision to undertake X, Y or Z dives is for the individual diver to make. The diver is given plenty of sound advice to aid that decision making - most of the advice is presented clearly and reinforced in the OW course materials and exams.

Some dive operations, however, may have business policies that dictate enforcing those agency recommendations, upon the basis of the proof of training you can provide. That's pretty sensible in general, both from a diver safety and liability perspective.

If you want to dive the Yongala, you will need:

1) A dive operation willing to take you there.

2) To make an honest appraisal of your diving ability in comparison with the risks that you will undertake on the dive.

3) To understand what those risks are.

4) To understand what your capabilities are.

*Note: Achieving points 3 & 4 may point towards the necessity for further training and experience.

 

[pasley]

DevonDiver has spoken wisely as have others. Your dive profile shows you to be in your first 25 dives. You are still early in your dive career and mastering the skills taught you in BOW and may still be in that "Oops, I forgot to do my 3 minute safety stop at 4m/15 feet", or was unable to control your buoyancy enought to stop at your safety stop, phase most of us go through after just getting certified.

Important point to note is this simple yet complex saying "You don't know what you don't know".

Your current training prepared (trained) you to dive to 18 meters/60 feet in an open water environment (free to ascend directly to the surface at any time during the dive, no overhead enviroment and no deco stops required) and no deeper. You are not trained to dive deeper than that.

It is easy to say "18m/60Ft, 30m/100Ft what's the difference? It is all SCUBA diving and just deeper." But you don't know what you don't know. You don't know about the new risk associated with diving below 18m/60ft because you have not been trained to do so.

 

[freeze43]

That was very illuminating. I did the course some time ago and then investigated what was considered a safe depth and found it quite hard in the literature I had been given to find a good answer. Another diver I know said 30m. Shouldn't have relied on that!

I'm definitely up for taking my time getting experienced with scuba. I live quite a way from townsville so I'm gauging the Yongala as a treat after getting a lot more dives under my belt. My main concern was with further training, which I'm happy to do if it means getting down there safely :-D

 

[TSandM]

You know, it's great to have a dive like that as a goal, to keep you focused on learning and improving skills. A while back, I fell in love with the idea of diving on the cloud sponges in Saanich Inlet on Vancouver Island. I read about the dive and decided how I wanted to do it, and realized it required some equipment and skills I didn't have. So I went and got them and practiced, and then it was really fun to go do the dive I envisioned and have it turn out perfectly.

You can do the same thing. Do a bunch of diving within the training and experience you have, take some more training, extend those limits, and hold the Yongala out as a carrot for yourself, so that when you go to do it, you not only enjoy the dive, but enjoy the feeling of accomplishment of having been properly prepared for it!

 

[DevonDiver]

Your current training prepared (trained) you to dive to 18 meters/60 feet in an open water environment (free to ascend directly to the surface at any time during the dive, no overhead enviroment and no deco stops required) and no deeper. You are not trained to dive deeper than that.

It is easy to say "18m/60Ft, 30m/100Ft what's the difference? It is all SCUBA diving and just deeper."

I agree and disagree. The Advanced Open Water course doesn't teach many new 'skills' for deeper diving - although a "beyond the minimums" instructor will voluntarily include pertinent information regarding issues such as emergency decompression, gas management and other refinements to core scuba skills.

As I see it, the main reason for restricting novice divers to shallower depths (<18m/60ft) is that the parameters of the dive are inherently more forgiving of mistakes. An uncontrolled ascent from 16m is not as inherently catastrophic as one from 30m. Same goes for out-of-air, or lost buddy etc etc...

You can gain experience -and learn from your mistakes - in the shallows, without significant fear of physiological repercussions. Make all those mistakes... get comfortable...get competent.. in the shallows before progressing deeper.

Putting aside the notion of worthless plastic cards... diving deeper than 18m/60ft should be the preserve of those who are reasonably assured of not making critical errors. Given that the Open Water course is just 4 dives, nobody should graduate that limited training in the belief that they won't, or cannot, make a critical mistake.

Diving wrecks... now that's a different subject... and goes well beyond the hazards of depth alone.

You know, it's great to have a dive like that as a goal, to keep you focused on learning and improving skills.

A beautiful sentiment! In an age of 'instant-gratification', it's certainly positive to retain a sense of purpose. Diving can give you that.

 

[Ste Wart]

When I did the Yongala there were OW's on the boat diving the wreck. Basically the wreck was used for the Deep and Wreck adventure dives of the AOW course.

The wreck itself is fairly easy dive. I had approx 30 dives when I dived it with a buddy. There is a line all the way to the seabed which sits just to the stern of the vessel; this is important as there is usually a current running bow stern on the wreck. The Floor is approx 30m, you head into the current until to reach the bow (or air turn point) and then casually drift back at around 20m (maybe shallower, it was 10 years ago) over the port side of the wreck (it lies on its side).

This dive will dazzle you in ways you never thought possible, I've completed in excess of 2000 dives since the Yongala and nothing has even come close to beating it (my #2 is the Navy Pier of Exmouth, but still a distant second). So expect to be amazed.

If you can do it as part of your AOW then go for it, for you will have instruction and a level of extra security on the dive. However instructors will do what they want during the dive, their route, their dive plan, their time (although you may not realise this ). Too truly enjoy the wreck you need to take your time over it and be amazed by how stunning the site is and how much life surrounds it (Sharks, Rays, Turtles, Queensland Groupers). The Thistlegorm is rated as the 2nd best wreck in the world (sometimes 1st), I can tell you the TG is boring quarry dive compared to the majesty of the Yongala.

Bascially you have to do this dive; every diver does, but maybe wait until you can savour it properly.

 

[vladimir]

There's no scuba police. However, there is prudent advice to dive 'conservatively and within the limits of your training and experience'.

The Open Water course doesn't train you to dive below 18m/60ft. Neither does it provide experience to do so. Neither does it educate, or provide experience of, diving upon wrecks (which have distinct hazards beyond open water/reef diving.

It's wrong to look at certification cards as 'licenses'. They aren't. They are proof of training - nothing more, nothing less. The decision to undertake X, Y or Z dives is for the individual diver to make. The diver is given plenty of sound advice to aid that decision making - most of the advice is presented clearly and reinforced in the OW course materials and exams.

Some dive operations, however, may have business policies that dictate enforcing those agency recommendations, upon the basis of the proof of training you can provide. That's pretty sensible in general, both from a diver safety and liability perspective.

If you want to dive the Yongala, you will need:

1) A dive operation willing to take you there.

2) To make an honest appraisal of your diving ability in comparison with the risks that you will undertake on the dive.

3) To understand what those risks are.

4) To understand what your capabilities are.

*Note: Achieving points 3 & 4 may point towards the necessity for further training and experience.

I'm not sure, but I believe the Yongala is in Queensland's jurisdiction, which means there are scuba police, after a sort.

The dive is not inherently risky or difficult, but the conditions varied from benign to challenging in the four dives (two dives a day, one year apart) that I did there. I would say that a Mike Ball liveaboard with the Yongala at the end of its itinerary would be the perfect way to do the dive, if they'll allow it. You'll have 10 to 20 dives of fresh experience before you tackle the dive and the opportunity for further instruction if you (or they) feel you need it.

 

[TSandM]

The Thistlegorm is rated as the 2nd best wreck in the world (sometimes 1st), I can tell you the TG is boring quarry dive compared to the majesty of the Yongala.

This just put the Yongala on my radar, since the Thistlegorm rates as one of the best dives I've done, and I am SO not a wreck person . . .