Deep Diving on Air

[Rhone Man]

Hey, I have a video for you all.



So these local divers were collecting fish at around 130ft. Each of them did three 3300psi AL80's there. They changed them out by shooting to the surface and having the boatman hand them another BC in the water. They did a fourth at 30ft for about 2 1/2 hours. They do this every day. One of them for the last 25 years....!


Don't try it at home.

BTW: Pity decompressing your bent buddy is not as easy as sticking a needle up his arse, eh?

It is not the first time I have seen something like this. I remember reading about some pearl divers who were routinely doing about 5 dives a day to 180 feet (on air). By any sane reading of the tables, they ought to be dead many times over. But they weren't.

It is also pretty well documented that lobster divers in Nicaragua can do between 10 and 13 dives a day in the 90 foot range (again, all on air - without SPGs for good measure). Now many of them do get bent, but staggeringly, most of them seem not to.

I just chalk it up to: "Huh. Still not doing it."

 

[TSandM]

The incident was reported HERE. As I said, no change to the dive plan.

I still don't see what this has to do with planning a dive which is deliberately on thin margins for gas and requires perfect execution to be completely safely, at a depth where perfect execution might be expected to be a difficult goal to attain.

Maybe I'm seriously biased because we lost a young man here in Puget Sound, a couple of years after I got certified. He did a deep bounce dive on an Al80 on air, with the encouragement of a man he respected, who had been an instructor. He didn't get into trouble, but his buddy did -- narced out of his mind and crawling in the sand. The diver in question saved his buddy, and ran out of gas on ascent. His body wasn't found for about a year. The parallels between this and Opal's death are just too close for comfort. I really, really hate to see anyone die diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

FL up until now I was the only diver that can do those kind of dives. I wonder how many other Deep Air Divers there are.

Funny. In an earlier post you seemed to know the answer already. You said MOST divers do this.

Charlie when you started this thread you were curious on how many people push the limits of diving with air on a regular basis. So far in four days on here do you feel there are a lot of divers that do. Most divers do and if they did not, they would not have training classes for divers that need help in learning how to dive deep.

In another post in one of your many threads, you said that at least a million other divers do this kind of dive, and only a handful of people on ScubaBoard are against it.

After your post about most divers doing it, I wrote a challenge and asked everyone who agrees with you to "like" your post. After several days in which you and friends had the chance to gather the forces and get people to hit the "like" button, a total of 3 people have done it. Here are their names:

Charlie59, smellzlikefish and Akimbo like this.​

By the way, early in the thread will find a post (#4) that cautioned against this kind of diving. At this point 21 different people have hit the "like" button on it, and many, many similar posts have been made by others who did not hit the "like" button on that post.

Your silent majority of a million divers seems to be unusually silent these days.

 

[Peter Guy]

This thread is amazing -- absolutely amazing and on so many levels.

a. The specific topic -- Deep air -- Those who advocate diving deep on air, go for it -- PLEASE. I know I used to LOVE diving deep on air and so did my Dad. We didn't call them "deep air bounce dives" because, well, we just went down, breathed until we had to come up and because the tanks were so small, Deco, what deco? And narcosis -- hey, I loved flying along a wall at a depth beyond my capillary depth gauge! Hmmm, might not remember things exactly as they were, but, what the heck. Also, hope I don't have too much brain damage from the few Deep Air Dives I did, "back in the day."

Oh, but back on topic (sorry, got side tracked by memories of feeling REALLY good). It seems to this naive person that the PRIMARY reason people give for diving "Deep Air" is that trimix is too expensive. (Well, some people say the reason is because it "is fun" -- AND IT IS, honest!!) So, IF cost is a factor, then go for it. Fortunately, the cost of He isn't an issue for me so I'll spring for it -- but then I successfully sold my business and my wife has a good job.

But other than cost, IS there any reason for diving "deep air?"

Now onto another level of why this thread is entertaining:

b. One gets to read, perhaps, the effect of diving "deep air" over and over again in some of the threads. Logic, spelling, grammar, etc. are out the window -- perhaps as a result of some of the long term effects?

Last point:

c. VDGM, I was one of the "teammates" on the dangerous and ill-starred dive when TSandM mistakenly thought she had checked her SPG but later found that what she thought she had, she didn't. Guess what -- it made no difference to the dive or the dive plan. Afterall, the deepest we had planned (55 feet) was well within her dive limit on a 40 -- let alone the 60+ Ft3 she had.

Which does bring up a question -- when is a tank full? By the standards of my friends in "Cave Country" I NEVER dive a full tank since my tanks seem to always come in right around rated pressure.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

TS&M just playing along with bob, I will read the post now, but the point was you told dale he was a bad diver in his diving and I did the same with you and your team dive.

There is not a proven way to stop deaths from diving, every one has there faults, now I proved that NWG has gotten upset If I disagree, and thats just the way he is.

BJ it was a joke, come on keep up the last part was for more youtube vids to come up or more Deep Air divers to come forward.

BJ SB is not even close to enough publicity Of all the divers in the world.


So here we are again, bash a Deep Air Diver, you cant just let it go. no matter what the post, always have to make a comment to argue.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

I can't agree with your way of thing more, if someone post there disbelief I will ost mine about them.

The one thing I'm in 1/2 about is cost on Deep Air, look at the time it takes to go through a tech course, most just want to pop down see it and say to there selves is this worth my time and money to do these kinds of dives.

I am not sure peter how that goes, yet I do believe a lot of it is the money.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

So TSM totally screwed up on one dive. She did not check her pressure until underwater.

This is how people get killed. I actually knew one. he forgot to switch over his tank from one dive to the next, went to 100 plus feet, ran out of air in a few minutes, had nobody there to help him, shot to the surface and I think he got a brain anurism and embolism and died in a few hours....

So she was stupid and careless to get into the water like that. She admits her mistake, shares it with everyone so as to reinforce the idea that we should check our gear. I've done similar and worse things.... Know how many times I've jumped off a boat with the tank turned off?? How one person's careless error on a shallow dive relates to deep air diving, I have no clue?

This should go without saying, but the retard meter in this thread is pegged....continuing to conduct the dive with much less air than she assumed was not an error and was not dangerous.. Her error was simple, had no consequences and serves as a very good example for everyone about excessive familiarity, comfort and assumptions.

 

[Charlie59]

I guess I'll just hang it up. Not only did I break all the laws of nature by going below 130 ft, I thought that you could dive recreational dives with a single tank. Now I look in the latest edition of Scuba Diving and it says it should be mandatory for every diver to dive with a pony bottle. Ugh!

I guess I'm just a caveman in my thoughts. And now I am going to fill a body bag. Like I said, I guess I should give up.

I think I'll switch to a safe sport like skydiving. Well, I would if I wasn't afraid of heights.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Ok I read the dive, NWG I am a liar it was over a year ago. I guess what I do remember is that 20 MINS in the dive was the first time you checked, like you say 500 and you would be out of air sucking hard.

Deep Air Diving you are Monitoring your Air, your heart, your narcosis, your breathing and if a single little tank, a lower pressure than you thought tank, knowing your air pressure and depth is survival no mater what kind of diving you do.

 

[smellzlikefish]

For crying out loud, why is this thread still alive?

Boulder John-I know for a fact that there are more deep air divers than hit "like" on that thread (I can think of three who didn't offhand). I feel like I was one of three participants left who saw your little call for allegiance. I'm sorry I got involved.

I hit that button because:
Yes, I dive deep air. I try not to maintain a cavalier attitude about it and only started after working my way a little deeper over time. If you know the rules and why they are in place, you know where you can bend them a little and still be able to walk afterwards.
No, I don't really care if you agree with it.
No, I don't really advocate it as safe either.
No, I don't care if you dive deep air.

There is a lot of butt-hurting on both sides surrounding this issue. It is seriously getting us nowhere. Stop the chimpanzee-esk poo-flinging and just let it die.