Diving with no O2 kit

[bjack1100]

I usually dive on chartered trips but a friend has a boat in Florida and wants to do some local dives. He is not a licensed captain, does not do charters, and has no O2 kit aboard his boat. To make matters worse, he and his brother got certified 20+ years ago and haven't done more than about 10 dives since then. They want to get back into scuba with me I guess. So my question is this: how safe would you feel doing dives with inexperienced divers and no O2 kit aboard the boat? He does at least have a radio. The 3 of us will be diving together from the boat. My thinking is that we will keep the dives shallow (<50') and close to shore to mitigate risk. Any thoughts?

 

[tbone1004]

bring me on said boat and i'll bring my O2 kit with me I'll even try to bring @victorzamora and his O2 kit with us so when he gets seasick he'll chum the water for us to make spearfishing better

my personal and professional opinion is to get an O2 kit and bring it on the boat, if and only if, you know how to use it... If you don't, then learn how to use it... Course is typically less than $100

Cost of an O2 clean AL40 right now is about $150
Deco reg set is about $220-$300 from DGX
Rescuean is $100
Add about $50 for misc oxygen stuff, and you're in for about $600. Cheapest DAN kit is about $600.

Difference here is that you can take the Al40 in the water with you and dive it, you have more oxygen capacity than the DAN kits, and can use the Rescuean on any regulator that has an inflator hose with the thought that EAN32 is better than air. Grab a bag valve mask, and a non-rebreather mask and you have a deco bottle, ability to ventilate a non-breathing victim, and provide O2 in 2 different ways to a breathing patient.

You can obviously get a lot of this quite a bit cheaper if you buy around, but make sure to add the cost of O2 cleaning and you're likely to be pretty close to the new cost.


Now, you can make the decision not to carry one and that is OK. If you dive a very conservative profile, and are close to shore, you can decide that the risk of someone coming up with DCS is small enough to not be concerned. It is up to you. If they come up with AGE they are likely dead anyway and if you can live with knowing that O2 may have helped if you had it, then go without. If you can't, what is $600?

 

[Damselfish]

It sounds like you're planning to leave the boat unattended while diving? I might be more concerned about that.

 

[KevinNM]

There are a LOT of accidents that follow leaving the boat unattended or with only people who don't know how to operate it on board. When you surface to watch your boat drifting away, nobody know where your are diving or when you'll be back, and you don't a PLB or radio to call for help in a pocket it's probably going to be a pretty bad day.

 

[rongoodman]

I think the O2 kit is the least of your worries.

 

[boulderjohn]

I think the O2 kit is the least of your worries.

That's my thinking exactly. Your friends need retraining, and you don't want to be the one doing it under those circumstances.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Okay, my first thought is that this doesn't belong in he "Basic Scuba" section, but in "Advanced Scuba." Basic scuba divers don't do decompression diver, period! We a long time ago used the term "knife edge" of the no-decompression tables to indicate that we should stay away from dives that got even close to the "knife edge" of decompression. There's a lot of diving to be had in shallow water (less than 20 meters/66 feet).

There are a whole lot of divers who grew up without decompression meters, oxygen, and nitrox mixes in their cylinders. We called these "recreational dives" for a reason--we stayed away from any potential decompression-related problems.

The advent of "Technical Divers" has brought a whole new paradigm into diving, and the resulting complexity, additional training and need for things like oxygen on the boat have developed from the expectation that all dives will be technical dives. This is why I see divers in the tropics on recreational dives using the frog kick, even when it is more inefficient at moving the diver. It is why some recreational divers are slinging multiple cylinders, even when they are unnecessary, add additional drag, and cause the diver additional fatigue when on a recreational dive. It kinda, to me, takes some of the fun out of diving.

And, yes, we dove out of boats without oxygen! Horrors! Just having a boat available was a pleasure in and of itself. Now, even recreational divers don't know how to conduct a dive without a formal divemaster in charge of the boat's divers. I'm not sure whether this is actually "progress," or a regression.

SeaRat

 

[Damselfish]

Basic Scuba seems like the right place, they're talking about relatively shallow dives <50ft. The question was about having an O2 kit on the boat for emergencies, nothing was said about decompression dives.

 

[wedivebc]

Please don't dive off an untended boat, especially with inexperienced divers. Oh and an O2 kit is nice to have.

 

[2airishuman]

I usually dive on chartered trips but a friend has a boat in Florida and wants to do some local dives. He is not a licensed captain, does not do charters, and has no O2 kit aboard his boat. To make matters worse, he and his brother got certified 20+ years ago and haven't done more than about 10 dives since then. They want to get back into scuba with me I guess. So my question is this: how safe would you feel doing dives with inexperienced divers and no O2 kit aboard the boat? He does at least have a radio. The 3 of us will be diving together from the boat. My thinking is that we will keep the dives shallow (<50') and close to shore to mitigate risk. Any thoughts?

Are you comfortable being their instructor?

Are you confident of their seamanship? Particularly with regards to navigation, emergency procedures, confidence, safety equipment, awareness of weather and sees conditions, and observation skills?

You'll always have someone qualified on the boat, right? And take turns diving

Never mind the O2 unless you think the dives pose dcs risks, such as dives on a wall where loss of buoyancy control could lead to dcs