Deep Diving on Air

[dumpsterDiver]

This has to be one of the stupidest threads I have read. What is wrong with some of you all?

Opal is dead. This once vibrant young woman spent her last month on earth blinking at people in an attempt to communicate.

Gabi is paralyzed from the chest down and can not go to the bathroom without help.

Heath can walk but is in constant pain where it feels like his skin is on fire.

All because they thought diving deep on a single tank was cool? How stupid is that? Talk about your Darwin award winners......

I read some of the posts about that, it was terrible. But people also have to recognize that diving to say 160 feet on air (exceeding the recreational limit by 30 feet) is not, for some people, a reckless endeavor, especially if they are carrying a bail out bottle and have planned adequately for contingencies. It also helps a lot to have performed dozens or hundreds of similar dives to a slightly lesser depth without too much trouble.

Diving to 300 feet and then having someone narc out while a 3-person team is wearing what, three 80 cu-ft tanks? Is a far, far different scenario.

"Deep air" means nothing to me other than exceeding a recreational depth limit, while for some others it seems to connote diving to 3 or 400 feet with a single tank and no redundancy....who here is arguing that a dive like that is not stupid?

The term "Deep air" is like waiving a red flag in front of a bull to some of you, and it makes it difficult to have a reasonable conversation..

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

The OP never indicates he was using doubles or even a pony. I made the assumption he is doing this dive on a single tank without anything but a buddy also on a single. Most Tech divers make a strong point on explaining what they are diving, and tank sizes/configuration, gas mixes, stops, deco obligations, etc.. The Op did none of that. As the Op does not say I am making an assumption, as is everyone.

Seems to me one tragic stupid dive lead to these discussions.....you think I am incorrect?

Well, perhaps the OP was not typing like a Tech diver because he is not a Tech diver. This thread is not in the Technical Dive forum. Many of the members participating in this thread are not Tech divers.

Since we are not Tech divers why do you assume the OP's assumptions, or "our" assumptions, with regards to the topic of this thread are anything like "yours"?



edit; seems to me that the "discussions" about that one tragic stupid dive in the New and Basic forums is a more likely "root cause" of threads like this in the Advanced Forum.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Hell I might as well throw more fuel on the fire....

For me personally, I am MORE comfortable at 160 feet, wearing a big steel tank, a bail out bottle and doing a little light deco (while solo) than diving to 115 feet with a single 80 tank and buddied up with some "yahoo" I never met from a dive charter. :mooner:

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

As long as we are throwing more fuel on the fire; recent posts in the Solo sub-forum have illuminated the vast gulf between the intent of the Solo forum and the intent of Tech divers.

And I think there could be a viable Kayak Diving sub-forum.

Seems like Solo, Kayak and Deep Air / Short Deco could easily be sub-forums in Advanced Scuba Discussions.

 

[knowone]

WTF is a tech diver?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

"Deep air" means nothing to me other than exceeding a recreational depth limit, while for some others it seems to connote diving to 3 or 400 feet with a single tank and no redundancy....who here is arguing that a dive like that is not stupid?

The term "Deep air" is like waiving a red flag in front of a bull to some of you, and it makes it difficult to have a reasonable conversation..

I have no issues diving to 3' with a single tank and no redundant equipment.

But 400' would give me serious pause with any type of OC equipment even with appropriate gas mixes.

------

The discussion of the term "tech diver" always devolves into semantics, but in general it implies a diver who has proper training and equipment to safely conduct dives in a soft or hard overhead environment at depths below normal recreational limits. A critical element of technical diving is that with the overhead environment, bolting to the surface is not an option in an emergency, but rather must be addressed in the water with the resources available.

A single tank bounce dive isn't in the same universe.

-----

My first post in this thread was one of the first to clearly equate the OP's dive with the generally regarded stupid-as-$hit practice of bounce diving on air with a single tank and no effort has been made by the OP to challenge that assumption.

 

[knowone]

And yet from the start the brain muscle is constantly stifled by condoning stupid sh*t such as surfacing for any half arsed reason
whereby the main muscle is encouraged to take a back seat and wither

 

[DCBC]

Oh no, not another deep air thread! Look-out for the angry mob.....

 

[Bob DBF]

WTF is a tech diver?

Tech diver is a made up term to differentiate a group of divers so they don't have to admit to being recreational divers. If they were commercial or scientific divers they would not need the distinction.


Bob
------------------------
All diving was considered technical at one time.

 

[boulderjohn]

Tech diver is a made up term to differentiate a group of divers so they don't have to admit to being recreational divers. If they were commercial or scientific divers they would not need the distinction.


Bob
------------------------
All diving was considered technical at one time.

If you look up most words in a dictionary, you will find that they have multiple meanings, some quite different. One should use context clues to determine which meaning is intended. Additionally, a good dictionary will show that definitions change over time, and it would be wrong to apply an obsolete definition of a term to a modern context. For example, when Shakespeare used the word nice, it meant silly or foolish.

Over the years, a very clear distinction has arisen between recreational and technical diving. A number of diving agencies offer definitions to clarify the difference. NOAA has contributed a definition as well. The definitions are not identical, but they are pretty close. This Wikipedia article does a pretty good job of summing it up. In essence, a recreational diver is one whose training and experience lies within the limits of no decompression diving and overhead environments. A technical diver is one who exceeds those limits while making use of appropriate training and equipment.

Now, you can always say you don't want to use these definitions that are almost universally agreed upon within the diving community. You can limit your use of recreational to its meaning of noncommercial, even though that is not the context being used here. You can refuse to use modern definitions of words, even when others clearly are using them. That's actually a nice position to take. At the same time, you should recognize that this is not what the majority means.