Reminds me of one of the liveaboard dives I did in the Maldives. Everyone on the boat except one diver is diving nitrox, using a membrane fill system that always gave us about 30% oxygen. DM leading the dive keeps going deeper, deeper, deeper. I stop at 33 meters, my buddy stopped at 30 meters, I know we won't make it down to that drop off ledge within our MOD. I watch the DM take everyone else down to 45+ meters on 30% nitrox and shake my head. We take another path, have a decent dive without the DM, I pop my SMB and the boat picks us up.
Cozumel incident but lesson learned
- Thread starter gt2003
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Reminds me of another recent thread in which there was a lively debate over how to set our dive computers so that they "allow" you to do what you want. In your scenario, I guess if the DM set his max ppO2 to 1.7 the computer would "allow" him to go to 45 meters. And if he wanted permission to go deeper, he would just need to increase the max ppO2!
Diving Cozumel means drift diving, so you need to either deploy your own SMB or rely on the DM to deploy theirs. My experience has been that if someone signals the DM that they need to surface, he deploys his SMB even though the rest of the group will be in the water for a while. This has been a source of comfort for us, as we know that when we're ready we can simply signal to the DM that we're thumbing the dive, get the ok signal from him, and begin our ascent and safety stop (we're rarely the first to surface, but if we were I would wait for him to deploy his SMB). I think that when you're a beginning diver you perhaps don't have that same confidence that you have the power to thumb the dive and 'do your own thing' whether the DM wants you to or not. It sounds like the OP has this figured out and will act accordingly in the future. Great learning experience. Wish it hadn't come with such a fearful dive for him and his dive buddy.
I didn't read all 8 pages of the thread - sorry - hope I didn't just repeat what someone else said.
I didn't read all 8 pages of the thread - sorry - hope I didn't just repeat what someone else said.
Exactly the right thing to do - if the DM wants to push past recognised limits (MOD for 1.6PPO2 would be approx 43m with 1.4 being approx 36m) then that is up to him but personally I will stick to those limits. While I realise that Oxtox is unlikely for a short duration hop past 1.6 PPO2, I see no reason to push it - the limits have been derived for a reason!
Note that 21 divers followed him down there like good little sheep, only 3 of us did not. Me, my buddy, and the one only diver who wasn't diving nitrox(not certed for it, also only advanced, no deep spec IIRC). Yup, her dive buddy followed the crowd, so she tagged along with me and my buddy instead.
InTheDrink
Contributor
Just FYI. Heading back to Coz in late October 2018. We will be purchasing and learning to use a SMB before we go. My wife and I have discussed numerous times our game plan if the situation above (or similar) repeats itself. Thank you for all the insight, understanding and constructive criticism. This trip will be one to remember for EXCELLENT reasons!
mcohen1021
Contributor
We're going late october too
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