Diving beyond cert?

[LI-er]

My apologies for the thread jack. When I see popular misconceptions blindly regurgitated by the ignorant I feel compelled to respond.

That much being said, if the Op feels his skills and comfort levels are appropriate, and is not restricted from obtaining gear or diving the site, the only other factor to consider is whether his dive insurance (if any) would potentially deny a claim if the diver was not certified for the depth at which an accident occurred.

 

[Kendall Raine]

The most important thing is knowing you have sufficient gas for you and your buddy to ascend to the surface in the case that one of you suffers catastrophic gas loss and you have to share gas to the surface.

I wrote a dive planning doc for my area:
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but the concepts are universal. If you know the site, have a map, go through the process and see how comfortable you are once going through this excessive exercise. The point of the document isn't memorization, but to develop a plan for new places and being comofortable throughout the dive as you monitor your gas consumption and compare to expected cylinder pressures at different points of the dive and always abiding by min gas.

This is really good stuff. An excellent distillation of gas/dive planning philosophy/practice sadly diluted (e.g be back with 300-500 psi) in a lot of recreational diving courses/planning/practice. Do you take your open water students through it or just make it available? Present/test planning scenarios in your courses? If so you are teaching the AP version of recreational scuba courses.

 

[boulderjohn]

How do you distill all that into some very simple, easy-to remember-under-stress rules? The beauty of "be back on the boat with 500 psi" is how simple it is; but it does not tell you how to do that. "Leave the bottom at 700 psi" tells you how to do that, but does not allow for a buddy.

I know some people who argue that it does.

I have heard people argue that given the rarity of OOA ascents (I have only been in the vicinity of one once in over a quarter century of diving), it is silly to end each dive with the abundance of sir needed to bring up an OOA diver with an ascent that includes a safety stop and a reserve on top of that. Bringing an OOA buddy to the surface is a good reason for the "be back with 500 PSI" mantra. Divers within NDLs should be able so surface safely without a safety stop. If a diver successfully reaches the surface with an OOA diver, he or she will be forgiven for getting on the boat with less than 500 PSI.

Note that I am not making this argument--I am just saying I have heard it made.

 

[Kendall Raine]

How do you distill all that into some very simple, easy-to remember-under-stress rules? The beauty of "be back on the boat with 500 psi" is how simple it is; but it does not tell you how to do that. "Leave the bottom at 700 psi" tells you how to do that, but does not allow for a buddy.

What are some simple rules you can distill from your planning document?

This raises a philosophical question: when do gas management rules of thumb (thirds, half plus 200, off the bottom at 700, back by 500, etc.) substitute for understanding the underlying concepts (e.g. rock bottom) behind them? Leaving the bottom with 700 psi is a not a bad rule per se, but under what circumstances does it fail (either because it's too liberal or too conservative)? How is it derived? In any event it does not directly address turn pressure (factoring for example OOG/current/stress event), and so requires many simplifying/limiting assumptions. Divers certified without the knowledge/ability to truly plan a dive (including gas under various contingencies-@rjack321's point in post #8) are cheated of this most fundamental skill-the admonition to "plan the dive and dive the plan" then becomes a joke if students aren't taught skills sufficient to actually plan. Once gas planning is mastered rules of thumb-easy to remember under stress-can be derived for the specific dive. I think that's what @wetb4igetinthewater was getting at.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

This is really good stuff. An excellent distillation of gas/dive planning philosophy/practice sadly diluted (e.g be back with 300-500 psi) in a lot of recreational diving courses/planning/practice. Do you take your open water students through it or just make it available? Present/test planning scenarios in your courses? If so you are teaching the AP version of recreational scuba courses.

The problem I was trying to solve was that consistently, regardless of instructor, students would not go diving with each other after certification. They sought experienced divers to hold their hand on dives. Now this isn't bad in itself, but the problem is that they would not dive themselves with their fellow classmates.

This is a violation of the WRSTC requirement for an autonomous diver. It took a number of years to put this together. I did have students follow fairly recent versions. The most recent version no as I stopped teaching by then.

By having students have check points for cylinder pressure throughout their dive resulted in so much confidence. This document is meant as a confidence building exercise and it worked.

There was no test as I didn't expect my students to memorize. Just build a dive plan and execute it, so they know they don't need to have their hands held for dive sites similar to where they were certified. Now I'm lucky to have taught in an area where there are multiple teaching sites close together, so they got variety. No test also due to the theory of interference. Throw too much and students retain less and less.

If they ever felt nervous about a new site, they could go back to it, but I honestly doubt anyone did.

 

[admikar]

My apologies for the thread jack. When I see popular misconceptions blindly regurgitated by the ignorant I feel compelled to respond.

That much being said, if the Op feels his skills and comfort levels are appropriate, and is not restricted from obtaining gear or diving the site, the only other factor to consider is whether his dive insurance (if any) would potentially deny a claim if the diver was not certified for the depth at which an accident occurred.

CMAS states that for OW you are limited to 20 meters ONLY if you are diving with same level diver. It says nothing about depth with more experienced (higher certification) diver.

 

[Blackcrusader]

My apologies for the thread jack. When I see popular misconceptions blindly regurgitated by the ignorant I feel compelled to respond.

That much being said, if the Op feels his skills and comfort levels are appropriate, and is not restricted from obtaining gear or diving the site, the only other factor to consider is whether his dive insurance (if any) would potentially deny a claim if the diver was not certified for the depth at which an accident occurred.

The misconception is all yours which you regurgitate. Dive limits only apply when an instructor is teaching a student. Once the student has OW then can dive and get more experience and dive to deeper depths. When my son did his OW course I told him not to ask me any questions about his course talk to his instructor. After he got his OW he did another 5 days of diving three dives a day.

He dived with me and was comfortable doing 20 - 25m dives after certification. He's gone on to do his own dive vacations and is still OW.

DAN basic insurance covers any diver to 40m even with OW certification. So do other agencies.
If you have higher level DAN insurance there is no depth limit. OW is certified to the recreational depth limits. 40m.

No agency has any legal authority to say what depth any diver can dive to. What a dive operator does is up to that operator.

 

[Wheeler925]

Thanks for everyone's input. I'll plan accordingly and be prepared with my buddy to ascend if I start getting uncomfortable. I didn't plan on this being so controversial.

 

[admikar]

Thanks for everyone's input. I'll plan accordingly and be prepared with my buddy to ascend if I start getting uncomfortable. I didn't plan on this being so controversial.

It isn't.
Dive and enjoy yourself.

 

[arew+4]

Thanks for everyone's input. I'll plan accordingly and be prepared with my buddy to ascend if I start getting uncomfortable. I didn't plan on this being so controversial.

It's Scuba Board, everything is controversial.