Diving to 200' and Beyond

[MXGratefulDiver]

In Sydney I have a 78 year old who comes out diving on my boat twice a week weather permitting. We have another friend who is 81, has a pacemaker, still tows and launches his own boat and every week (again weather permitting), dives the deep wrecks which are 45 to 50 metres (150 to 165 feet). He uses a single 90 cf tank on a Nitrox mix (25% mostly) with a 30 litre pony bottle.

As to this woman, well, I doubt I would dive as deep as she says she does, but if she wants to do it, why not. She appears to know what she is doing.

... she is old for a reason ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[mmmbelows]

I guess he never had to work and has never been sick.
Assuming he started diving at age 10(!) it is 60 years ago meaning 200 dives per year not missing one ... either he is a pro or he was diving 4 times per weekend never missing one.
Sometimes the number of dives is a bit pampered for show.
Just a bit of skepticism .... and by the way a few years ago we dinosaurs did not log because there was no point in logging. I did start logging in the last 15-20 years (when I did get certified) but I have been diving for over 36, so I really do not know how many, and if I have to gues I would come up with a number higher than reality. Just saying

I find it kind of weird there how you assume everybody lies about everything. The person in question is named Ugo Mazzavillani , he's one of the owners of Six Passengers in Rangiroa, he's a well known persona. If you search the Pacific area forums his name will appear multiple times or you can just search google for him, he will come up. Email him and tell him he's full of **** if it makes you feel better.

 

[mmmbelows]

"A lot more common than you think"--I am certain you are right. But does that make them the "normal" advanced diver in their country? What if there are, just to pick a number, 1000 active "advanced" divers in France? When were most of them trained? Sure, some--more than I think--were trained decades ago, but most of them were trained more recently. How many of them dive the way we are told this woman dived in Curacao? How many are like this woman? A majority of the 1000? Really?

What's the difference? Who cares? People have responded with information to fill in the missing information you lack on this subject, it's kind of rude to keep questioning it over and over again because it doesn't agree with what you aren't aware of.

One thing to be aware of - The Woman Exists. Unless like fsardone, you just want to assume she is lying.

 

[mmmbelows]

" If she had said "I do these dives to challenge myself--like those competitive freedivers or like the people who summit mountains, and I know that what I do is considered risky by today's standards" then that would have sounded more sincere to me.

Wow. Maybe she just likes to dive, like the rest of us. Not sure why she has to have some sort of explanation.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I guess he never had to work and has never been sick.
Assuming he started diving at age 10(!) it is 60 years ago meaning 200 dives per year not missing one ... either he is a pro or he was diving 4 times per weekend never missing one.
Sometimes the number of dives is a bit pampered for show.
Just a bit of skepticism .... and by the way a few years ago we dinosaurs did not log because there was no point in logging. I did start logging in the last 15-20 years (when I did get certified) but I have been diving for over 36, so I really do not know how many, and if I have to gues I would come up with a number higher than reality. Just saying

That's a fair bit of assuming. If you live in a place with easy access to diving it's not that hard to do 200 dives in a year ... I average about 250 a year since I started in 2001 and the majority of those are just fun dives ... and I live in a place where the water's cold and you have to wear a drysuit. Not everyone's limited to just diving on the week-ends ... not even those of us who have a full-time job outside of diving and occasionally get sick.

Now take someone who lives in a tropical place and I can easily see them doing 400-500 dives per year ... especially if they're in the business.

Number of dives isn't a complete measure of a diver's competence, but you do tend to pick up a few things through experience that allows you to "tailor" your approach to diving based on what you've experienced along the way ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[The Chairman]

... she is old for a reason ...

What? Heaven doesn't want her and Hell's afraid she'll take over?

 

[InstructorMatt]

I have come across divers such as her before, the only BIG difference is that the divers I meet are all men and go that deep for spear fishing purposes.
Something to consider also is each individual divers ability to handle and process nitrogen differently. I am aware of some people who adapt to nitrogen narcosis very well and hardly feel it when they dive deep consistently, thus seemingly immune to its affects (but never count on it). Or some divers build a tolerance for narcosis slowly over time and push to go deeper and deeper to feel it again.
I would say she is the rare extreme for old school solo divers. Definitely not the norm for an advanced diver.

 

[fsardone]

That's a fair bit of assuming. If you live in a place with easy access to diving it's not that hard to do 200 dives in a year ... I average about 250 a year since I started in 2001 and the majority of those are just fun dives ... and I live in a place where the water's cold and you have to wear a drysuit. Not everyone's limited to just diving on the week-ends ... not even those of us who have a full-time job outside of diving and occasionally get sick.

Now take someone who lives in a tropical place and I can easily see them doing 400-500 dives per year ... especially if they're in the business.

Number of dives isn't a complete measure of a diver's competence, but you do tend to pick up a few things through experience that allows you to "tailor" your approach to diving based on what you've experienced along the way ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Agreed, in fact I was not saying impossible but depends upon circumstances.
But most of the time those people, rather than log, estimate based on average dive numbers. When you have thousands a few hundred more or less makes little difference.
Friend of mine works as diver in Navy and in his free time dives and teaches diving .... guess how many dives in a year he does ....
Here in the med I can go diving all year round, it is not tropical but tem does not go below 12-14 C, but I have a family and a demanding job, so if I can average 70 dives a year is a great year for me, before starting work I was diving after school an twice a day during the weekend so 200 250 dives were easy target.

Finally at that time those were 'baby dives' 40 45 minutes on single tank, now are 75-120 minutes dives on rebreather ... number of dives it is not a complete measure of dive competence.

 

[beester]

I can honestly say that at least in the French Med region this is the norm. Most wrecks are in the 30-55m range and most French Niveau 3 divers (cmas ***) will dive these on air, using single 15L tanks.

So let's take a well known wreck like the Donator (Prosper Schaffino), near isle de porquerolles... bottom is 50m, and a typical dive will be drop down to the propellor at 51m then do the top part of the wreck with an avg depth of 42m and a run time of about 15 minutes or 70 bar left in their 15L tank whatever comes first.

So yes this lady might be used to this kind of diving and in this area it's not totally outside the norm. (unfortunately). Both from narcosis and gas management point of view I would no longer do this dive, but it's not the exception.

We even joke about it... saying let's not get a fill of "French Trimix" (= a mix of air, oil and water).

 

[Germie]

That I don't agree with either, 60m is very deep.

I have to expain and correct. 60m is nowadays a depth that can be done relatively safe with the knowledge from nowadays. I mean then trimix, knowledge of diveplanning, gasplanning, stops, etc. So I don't agree on doing this on air, single tank and such things. And I don't agree on doing this without knowledge and not following a course.
Of course, I can never guarantee that you or me will come up without dcs. A 30m dive can cause dcs, a 60m dive can, a lot of 10m dives a day can (even a single if you are really unhappy). But Nowadays we have the knowledge and the guidelines to say 'if you do it this way there is a big chance you don't get dcs'. But it is no absoluty science, so you have always a small chance. 60m is deep, yes, but if you are experienced enough, use your brains, take enough gas, have the right skills, the right materials, the right setting between your ears, you can do such dives.

I used a 56m example on being narked because I thought I was never narked. You learn you get narked deeper than 30m, but if you don't know how being narked feels, then you cannot recognise. I was not narked, I thought, till I started trimixdiving. Then I knew I was always narked too.That is tricky. A lot of people, mostly sportsdivers say they are not narked when diving to 40-50m. But they don't know what to feel. Then, why I went so deep on air? The older members of my club told me they did it on regularly basis in the past, and getting narked was just from books, theoretically, but never a real problem. Remember, I was a sportsdiver then. Yes, cmas 3* certified, but without any knowledge of doing decodives and around 150-200 dives. The only thing I had then was a big 18L single tank. So yes the gasamount was enough for a bounce to such depths, I had a dual outletvalve, but could not manage my valves myself. oops. Around my 200th dive I bought a twinset and wing and so and started technical diving. But I use the only time I saw double as an example that you really get narked.(it was my deepest dive on air). Since I started technical diving I do such dives on twinset, trimix and with decogases.
So I don't agree on doing such deep dives on single tank with air. And 60m on air is too deep too of course.
Then second a lot of divers don't know what to do when they dive outside the NDL. Diving outside the NDL is not directly dangerous but you have to know what to do.
Here you can follow a cmas decompression specialty, but you do deco on backgas, single tank. I don't agree with this, and I don't prefer doing deco on backgas. A diveplan with deco on backgas is a bad plan. (in a real lost decogas scenario you have to, but then you use your backuplan and not your first plan and you have used your brains to make a safe diveplan with all scenarios).

But the 60m on single tank with air I have seen in Lavandou, France in 2012 on the Togowreck. Where we used trimix and decogas. We did longer bottomtimes then the single tank divers.