Diver in travel group kept running out of air and sharing on every dive?

[BRT]

You're right. If it is consensual, and the parties are familiar with common procedures and capacities, there is minimum risk. I was thinking of the situation described in the OP. Expecting non emergency free air from strangers is at best presumptuous and rude.

I am in full agreement. But for a new diver looking on it would be hard to tell. An experienced diver would note the lack of concern.

 

[uncfnp]

Just to be clear, there are various forms of consent. It can be verbal, this assumes the group discussed the diver’s plan in advance and this is certainly possible. But regardless, consent can also be, and commonly is, implied. The fact that the group continued this procedure over the course of several dives, as stated by the op, demonstrates implied consent at the very least.

This happened nearly every dive.

 

[johndiver999]

Now that we are onto the topic of consent --
I'm beginning to suspect that the "she" was some hot young thing in a bikini. Perhaps that is relevant in understanding the apparent degree of receptiveness displayed by several of the "long hose donors"?

 

[BRT]

Just to be clear, there are various forms of consent. It can be verbal, this assumes the group discussed the diver’s plan in advance and this is certainly possible. But regardless, consent can also be, and commonly is, implied. The fact that the group continued this procedure over the course of several dives, as stated by the op, demonstrates implied consent at the very least.

This is my assumption. If I go up to a stranger and ask for air they will give me air but then they will be looking at my gauges, and looking at their computers and heading for a safety stop. There will not be someone swimming from diver to diver borrowing air unless they all know what is going on.

 

[pauldw]

Just returned from a Dive Shop Trip to Belize. The trip was great. The dive shop owners were awesome to travel with and everyone got along.

I am new to diving with 64 dives over the last 12 months but this was my first Trip with a group. I didn't notice until about the 3rd dive but one diver would start sharing air with her buddy towards the end of the dive. Then the diver started jumping from diver to diver to share their air until we surfaced. This happened nearly every dive.

I was perplexed. To me this is a major dive accident waiting to happen and they (the diver and her buddy/father) acted like it was no big deal.

Am I just being an uptight new diver?

No, you aren't being uptight. It's inexplicable to me, what these people were doing with, presumably, mostly strangers. If someone is out of air or low on air, as soon as they go to someone else, both should immediately head for the surface. If someone isn't out of air or low on air, but they're going around trying to get other people on a vacation dive boat that they don't know and haven't coordinated with to let them breath other people's air, then they're an idiot, you're not as safe as you should be, and someone has completely missed a concept called "dive planning," not to mention failing to remember their dive training (training aimed at keeping vacation divers safe, rather than limiting the mighty super divers who are opining here based on their own supposed stupendous excellence). People don't need much practice to know how to breathe off of someone else's octopus, because it's obvious. They probably don't need practice on buddy breathing at all, because that's not really a thing anymore, from what I've heard. You might want to practice something, though, if they come over to you: checking their weight belt buckle, to make sure it releases completely.

 

[SKS22]

Some of you would hate what my family did back in the day! Both my kids learned to dive at 10 yo. Both started out on ~60s and at 10 years old could out last me on a 100... But then the teenage years hit. My son went from the 10th percentile in height to the 60th in two years. I'm sure you can guess what happened to his consumption rate. Around 1500 psi he'd check the air of everyone he knew on the dive and then do his part to make sure that everyone (including him) was about even. LoL. The air sippers knew to ready that Octo when he checked their gas. My daughter was more reasonable, but she wasn't above practicing OOA with a sipper from time to time.

My kids knew who the sippers were, LoL!

 

[johndiver999]

No, you aren't being uptight. It's inexplicable to me, what these people were doing .........People don't need much practice to know how to breathe off of someone else's octopus, because it's obvious. They probably don't need practice on buddy breathing at all, because that's not really a thing anymore, from what I've heard. ....

I kinda disagree. When an accident happens and a diver is required, to share air, it suddenly becomes much more intense than a silly drill - or even practice in a calm situation.

I had a buddy take my octopus once at 80 feet and he was air starved before reaching me and was sucking down air at an incredible rate. It should not have been, but it was somewhat stressful to me as I watched the bottom of my spg fall out during the ascent. We made it but there was no real margin from just 80-90 feet.

Sharing air and managing an ascent with no guideline or reference and venting two BC's (and possibly dry suits) and remaining in close proximity is not as trivial as it sounds when talking about it from behind a desk. I think there is a lot of potential value in both divers getting used to sharing air. If this practice is accomplished with a secondary benefit of extending the dive and allowing an equalization of air supplies between buddy teams, I don't think it is crazy or dangerous - as long as each diver retains enough gas to manage an ascent should one scuba unit fail during the dive.

Have you ever been involved in an actual emergency ascent where sharing gas was necessitated? I have had a few. One was so upsetting to me that I discontinued diving for the day, my hands were shaking and I was literally on the verge of tears.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Sounds like she needs a bigger tank.
Or
If she comes around mooching air (she's a mooch because she not OOA she just doesn't know how to manage her air), you give her your octo but detune it and also have it cranked in and shut off the Venturi so it's a miserable sucker to breathe off. That might be the last time she hits you up.

If she's with her own group, it sounds like she was with some dive club and they knew the drill, great!
None of my business, have fun. I'm not the safety police that goes around telling everyone what they're doing wrong. I hate those types!
Have a great day.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Now that we are onto the topic of consent --
I'm beginning to suspect that the "she" was some hot young thing in a bikini. Perhaps that is relevant in understanding the apparent degree of receptiveness displayed by several of the "long hose donors"?

say is aint so?

 

[DanBMW]

Please explain why chronic, casual, consensual air sharing is a bad thing? People looking on, as the OP was, do not have a clear idea of what is happening. I'm not talking about OOA. The OP assumed that the diver receiving air was OOA, simply because they were sharing air. I am confident, from my experience doing this, that the person was not out of air. They simply used air faster than others in their group and extended the group's dive by sharing. We have a buddy that we have done this with for years. Bigger tanks? Yeah, we bring 120's while we dive 80's. This buddy, very simply, was an air hog. My wife doesn't breath underwater. When the divemasters are at minimums she commonly has 12-1400 lb left. I'm not as good as her but we both commonly run the DM's out of air. So our buddy often spent part of his dive on my wife's regulator. Sometimes on mine. Not because he was OOA. But because we knew he would get low on air and need to go up before us. We got used to telling new DM's that we might do this because it gives them wide eyes if they don't know what is going on. We don't bother telling everybody else on the boat. I fail to see the danger in this but would be happy if someone explained it to me. I suspect that any of the three of us is better at sharing air than someone who doesn't do this often.

For the record, our air hog friend has improved a lot over the years and with a larger tank can now hold his own.

Pre arraigned is ok. A surprise to an unsuspecting diver is not.