Deep Air

[rjack321]

Actually, in a long conversation I had with Mark Ellyatt this topic came up. His point was that what took the GUE 6 months to plan would be something the "masters" of scuba diving could do "off the cuff".

The point being that what the real "hard core" of the deep diving scene seem to think is "normal diving" is exceedingly challenging (if not death defying) for the "new tek" of our sport.

I'm pretty sure you're going to find that hard to swallow but that's how the deep masters of our sport see the GUE way of doing things... Guppies with ambition and a few good ideas. Hardly more than that.

Mark's nearly fatal dive was done with Wenkie's tables and after that everything GUE was reversed and debunked in terms of deep diving.... None of our sport's masters use GUE DIR prinicples now..... shouldn't that say something?

R..

What a bunch of rambling garbage. Ellyat is no master as evidenced by his own <ehem> "fan" club - those who had to rescue him and get him to a chamber. And Hal Watt's and all the other deep air pioneers didn't have the team to scooter from Turner Sink to Wakulla even if they knew the way. Partly because if they had done that kind of dive on air they'd still be offgassing the N2. They didn't use habitats, or RBs, or anything else but minimal OC gas reserves. And many of them died, look at Caverns Measureless to Man for a long long list of "giants" who died on air.

We had 2 deaths (one on CCR, one on OC) just last month on ENDs substantially greater than 130ft, yet you still propose that this is "safe".

Oh and its "Wienke". His tables are fine; its well established that Mark didn't follow them and bent the poo out of himself.

GUE teaches DecoPlanner with tweaks, and DecoPlanner is basically straight Buhlmann.

Current version of decoplanner includes both buhlmann and VPM.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thal, I don't know whether I went deep too fast. I do know that I had several early experiences with narcosis that taught me forcibly that I didn't want to deal with it again, period. If that meant limiting my dives, that was fine -- that's where my personal hard deck of 100 fsw on non-helium gases comes from. I did discover that diving helium mixes appears to avoid the problem, so I go deeper than that on mix. I do not want to work on adaptation to narcosis. I didn't like it. I don't want to work through it. I am perfectly happy either not to do a dive that will run me into it, or to do it on mix, whichever is possible. I thoroughly enjoy shallow dives, and I am not a dedicated wreck person, so passing up square profile dives to depths deeper than I am comfortable is really no skin off my nose.

I did not mean, in any way, to imply that you should do other wise, it was a mistake on my part to to try to use you as a specific example to what I see as a much more general case.

The general case, and I think it holds for a plethora of diving stuff goes something like this:

In days gone by it took a great deal of skill, determination and practice to accomplish many things that are rather simple today, (e.g., 190 fsw dives were a big dives, not routine).

Getting yourself trained and mentored to the point that you were ready and able to make such dives took a great deal of effort, there were no courses, there were few books, you needed to work your way into and then up through a group.

Today a recently trained O/W diver can, very reasonably, in a fairly short time, be making dives that it took me almost a decade to be really be ready to undertake, and I think that is a step forward and an advance. But ... and it's a big but, so many of the divers who use these approaches today simply don't understand how it was done in the past, and what sort of divers (at least in terms of skills and knowledge base) were doing that sort of diving. They project themselves into those sorts of situations, deprived of mix, sans scooter, no computer, no six foot hose, maybe no auxillary, possibly no SPG. [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]

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Gimble and Fox first dove the Doria [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]on air, with no spg, auxiliary, scooter, power inflator or even BC. Here's [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Fox as he reaches the lifeboats [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]of the Andrea Doria [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]on 27 July 1956.[/FONT]

When they make that projection, they misjudge the situation and see the pioneers as somehow madcap individualists with a deathwish ... but that really was not so; at the same time the new divers, lacking a broader view, strongly cling to the techniques and protocols that are so singularly dependent upon and fall into the only one way to skin a cat trap. I'm not saying that the old ways were better, they weren't. But for a bunch of us who have been diving air in the 130 to 190 foot range for decades, it's just not a big enough deal, in many cases, to warrant the additional expense and complexity.

It should be noted that despite hundreds of divers going to the Doria, [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]it was not until 25 years after Gimble and Fox dove there that a diver died there.

[/FONT]As Joel Silverstein put it:

While technical diving surged forward the experience level of divers who now began coming to the Doria continued to diminish. Divers in the past would have 500 or more dives to their credit before even considering the Doria. Today they show up with as few as 100&#8212;but toting their certification and American Express cards.

This is clearly a result of the ease of which someone can buy training. What took early divers hundreds of dives to gain the experience to tolerate the mind-numbing effects of nitrogen narcosis and do the dive, was now being replaced with clear headed albeit inexperienced divers...
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[boomx5]

Actually, in a long conversation I had with Mark Ellyatt this topic came up. His point was that what took the GUE 6 months to plan would be something the "masters" of scuba diving could do "off the cuff".

The point being that what the real "hard core" of the deep diving scene seem to think is "normal diving" is exceedingly challenging (if not death defying) for the "new tek" of our sport.

I'm pretty sure you're going to find that hard to swallow but that's how the deep masters of our sport see the GUE way of doing things... Guppies with ambition and a few good ideas. Hardly more than that.

Mark's nearly fatal dive was done with Wenkie's tables and after that everything GUE was reversed and debunked in terms of deep diving.... None of our sport's masters use GUE DIR prinicples now..... shouldn't that say something?

R..

Hey Ro,

You and I go pretty far back here and on the different lists, and I can't believe you'd actually buy into all this moron's BS....could you? I truely think you're a decent guy and would dive with you tomorrow, just please tell me you don't believe all what this idiot is saying.

 

[Diver0001]

Mark has some quirks that I don't understand, yes. I also don't know him very well. I've met and talked to him at length once. At some level he's certainly bonkers in the sense that he's willing to take risks with his body that certainly aren't good for his health. There can be no doubt about that.

I'm not saying I agree with him, necessarily. He's a unique guy who really can't be bothered with anything outside of his own activities. I do, however, think that he's done enough deep diving that he would jump in the water and go dive the Britannic the way you and I would jump in the water and go dive a wreck at 30 meters.

As for his opinions about DIR, those are his opinions. I'm just the messenger. I think you know that I have more respect for DIR than he does.

I may not know the whole story about the dive he made on Wenkie's table but what he told me was that the table wasn't right and Bruce blamed the programmer for the mistake after the fact. I don't know if that's true, but that's what he told me. He also told me that none of the really deep dives are done on bubble models. All of them are done using modified Haldane. He told me that deco theory starts to break down at some point and things just don't work the same on a 250-300metre dive as they do at 100m.

Once again. This is what I was told. About the deco model thing, I have no real opinion. I've never made a dive deep enough to know but I"m willing to listen to the opinion of someone who has made the dives.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

Is this true? I think manifolded doubles with the hose setup GUE uses is pretty mainstream.

Sure. But those are not GUE or DIR. They use them too.... It's a generalized best practice but certainly not a GUE brainchild.

I think a number of technical agencies are now teaching END < 100 ft, ppO2 of 1.4 or even 1.2 for the working part of the dive. I think they're teaching team skills, and a lot are using the same gas planning strategies that GUE uses. Are you just talking about using RGBM for decompression planning?

I mentioned what he told me about the deco models in the previous post.

I think it's safe to say that nothing about the planning and execution of a 300m bounce dive would be very recognizable to a DIR diver. That's really the realm of macho solo dives. Right from the beginning these kinds of dives have not been "team" efforts. Even when Exley and Bowden did their dive where Exley died, they may have started together but they were both diving solo.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that the people on the ragged edge in some directions aren't compatible with GUE's principles, because GUE is basically like me . . . If the dive can't be done with an acceptable amount of risk mitigation, it doesn't get done.

Exactly.

R..

 

[DCBC]

I don't agree that it's an "instant gratification" sort of thing. Rather, it's the natural progression of society.

When I went to engineering school, I used integral and differential calculus. If I'd had to go through the steps Newton did in developing the maths, I'd have never reached the point of actually applying it. Same with physics, chemistry, and a plethora of science. We take what has been previously learned and build upon it.

A public school student that resorts to a calculator rather than having to learn the multiplication tables, relies on the technology rather than his/her own mathematical abilities. I find it difficult to accept this as "the natural progression of society." This student isn't trying to stand on anyones back; it's simply easier...

 

[boomx5]

I'm not saying I agree with him, necessarily. He's a unique guy who really can't be bothered with anything outside of his own activities. I do, however, think that he's done enough deep diving that he would jump in the water and go dive the Britannic the way you and I would jump in the water and go dive a wreck at 30 meters.

R..

I also have friends that have dove the Britannic and don't think twice about diving those depths. Anyone clown can cut a few tables, strap on some tanks and do a deep bounce dive to show he's the current big kid on the block. That kind of diving is akin to keister-stashing a Louisville Slugger and bragging about how you went deeper than anyone else. Where's the value in such a feat except to break some sort of record to prove that your sack is the biggest. The things that GUE or WKPP have done have contributed to the scientific community...that's why there is planning involved. Depth is irrelivant...it's just a hurdle that is overcome in the planning stages of the dives. The only thing left to do is the dive itself. The project and it's benefits are the end game...not depth as it is for Mark. If that's how he wants to do things...fine! The Louisville Slugger factor pumps bats out by the thousands.

 

[Diver0001]

That kind of diving is akin to keister-stashing a Louisville Slugger and bragging about how you went deeper than anyone else. Where's the value in such a feat except to break some sort of record to prove that your sack is the biggest.

I can't say I understand what motivates record breakers. There are going to be people who want to test the boundaries in everything. I think it's part of human nature to want to know how far you can really go. I suspect that proving you have the biggest sack is part of it, but only part. There seems to be a drive in some people that's hard to explain.

One thing that always amazes me about meeting people who do extraordinary things is that they seldom come across the way you expect them to. I don't know what I really expected when I met him but he's just another guy. Not a clown, not a moron, not a what ever else you might be inclined to want to call him, Scott. He's just another guy who happens to do some pretty outlandish things in the course of his diving. Obviously he's completely sure he's right about some things, but I think when you're pushing the envelope you need to have that quirk in your personality. Total self confidence.

To bring this back to the subject at hand, I know he's done a lot of deep air diving too. I asked him about that. He just said to me that he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke or do drugs and narcosis is just how he gets his kicks. For right or wrong, I think part of deep diving for him is that he just likes the feeling of it.

R..

 

[boomx5]

I don't know what I really expected when I met him but he's just another guy. Not a clown, not a moron, not a what ever else you might be inclined to want to call him, Scott. He's just another guy who happens to do some pretty outlandish things in the course of his diving. Obviously he's completely sure he's right about some things, but I think when you're pushing the envelope you need to have that quirk in your personality. Total self confidence.

R..

Granted...as a person, he may be a decent guy. But his comments about GUE/DIR etc are out of place in my opinion. As is the norm in this sport, the people with the biggest egos tend to believe they are the only game in town. I've read some of his other comments over the past few years and he keeps spewing the same crap...hence my comments. I'll give him his due on his deep record...fine. I for one wouldn't do it...but I have nothing to prove either. Shoot...I also wouldn't pull a double backflip in the X-Games like pastrana, or jump 346' like Robbie Maddison, or free climb Lover's Leap like Dan Osman (R.I.P.). The fact that he's a legend in his own mind and tends to slander what he doesn't understand is what gets me upset. By the way, my comments were not directed at you...just Mark.

 

[Diver0001]

I've read some of his other comments over the past few years and he keeps spewing the same crap...hence my comments.

A lot of us on both sides of the DIR fence had some pretty outrageous things to say to each other back in the day. Evidently, some of us got over it and some of us didn't. As I said, he's just a guy, faults and all. I can certainly understand you getting your back up about it though, so yeah.

The fact that he's a legend in his own mind and tends to slander what he doesn't understand is what gets me upset. By the way, my comments were not directed at you...just Mark.

Good thing. I'm as far from a legend in *anyone's* mind (including my own) as it gets. In terms of records I might hold the record for the least number of noteworthy events in one human life... ... but other than that....

R..