Do you ever break the rules?

[OldNSalty]

NITROX-Never got the card but have done it often...To keep people from freaking out-I did take the class and pass the written section but at the time, check out dives were required. I never did them but I had a source for fills. I probably couldn't get away with it any more and plan to re-take the course again in the near future.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Interesting topic. I think many of the "Rules" are there for a good reason... but with time some are just asking to be "bent" (or broken).

Me:

1.) Solo.
2.) Deep Air.... very deep.
3.) Planned staged deco dives.

All of the above with a basic OW cert. I had good mentors.

These days, all my dives are shallow, no deco (not even close).

Oh, and I got my AOW cert. in 2007 (basic OW was in 1976), just so if I was ever asked, I could dive past 60' on a charter boat

Best wishes.

 

[sockeye02]

I'm a newbie vacation diver (the worst kind of diver? ).
I think the only rules I'd break are the gloves and knife rules. I just HATE gripping slimy, barnacled ascend/descend ropes! Also find my gloves give me more grip when grabbing the edge of a rock to set up a nice, stable shot (rock, not coral )
My knife (a hand me down) has actually saved me once from entanglement with invisible fishing line so I'm kinda attached to it now.
Was wondering if some of the limited boat dive times area result of the boat captain wanting to keep to a schedule rather than for the safety of the divers?

 

[Stoy D Dabbs]

Break the rules!!
This is Interasting topic.

1. I have been diving to below 100 feet deep will before I got my Advance Open Water Certification, Of course I did not know about that.

2. I have been diving with a Dry Suit, And did not know about Dry Suit Certification, I got my first dry suit in 1976.

3. I have been solo diving, and deep!

 

[jjhill]

I think that every diver has, at some point broken or streched the rules. I know I have. Hopefully each time I have broken a rule I have done so conciously and not out of ignorance.

Case in point is a dive I recently did in Cozumel. Some of you may be familiar with the Devils Throat dive, where you enter a swim through at 130 feet. The depth of this dive alone makes it a dive with some increased risks. Before my buddy and I agreed to do the dive, we talked about the increased risk and wheter or not we thought the risk was acceptable. We knew the dive was goig to be deep at 130 ft at the beginning of the dive, spending just a very short time at depth and then ascending the rest of the dive. We were diving AL80's with no pony bottle for any redundancy. Normally for a dive this deep I would sling a pony, but since we were traveling and ind in Mexico I did not have it with me. We both have completed the NAUI Master diver program and had made several dives to this depth, quite a few of them as a buddy team and felt we understood the elevated risks and that they were acceptable so we went ahead and had a great dive.

Contrast that story to another dive team on the boat who also made the same dive as we did. We spoke with them on the boat and then after as we were staying at teh same resort. For both of them this was to be their 3rd dive after finishing their open water course. The deepest they had been prior to this dive was 60 ft. Neither one of them had a dive computer, nor were they using any tables but rather trusting and following the DM. They too did the dive without incident.

Later at the resort we were talking about the dive and I mentioned I was surprised that they took on such a challenging dive so early in their dive training. After all neither of them had been close to that depth before and had no idea if and how much nitrogen narcosis might affect them. Added to the fact that they had no tables or computer and seemed to be okay with trusting and following the DM. He didn't seem to agree that this dive had any elevated risks than the other 2 dives he had done, and said he was "a natural" in the water anyway so for him the risks of such a dive never even entered his mind.

Rules are often bent or broken in diving, I just hope it is done as a concious decision, knowing and accepting the risks that come with that desicion, and not breaking the rules out of sheer ignorance.

 

[DevonDiver]

Yep, I think most of us break rules.

What matters is whether we are sufficiently knowledgable to understand the risks and issues involved with breaking those rules.

I hate to see people breaking rules/limitations, based on a weak understanding of the dangers involved.

 

[TSandM]

I hate to see people breaking rules/limitations, based on a weak understanding of the dangers involved.

It's the pernicious "you don't know what you don't know." My dive to 130 feet in Molokini was done because I didn't have the information to evaluate appropriate gas supplies for the dive.

I have bent some rules in cave diving (but not broken them) and I'm still not sure why the particular dive we did wasn't a good idea. It worries me a great deal that I may not know what I don't know in that case, too.

If you don't have a full understanding of where a rule came from and what it is trying to prevent, you probably shouldn't break it.

 

[lord.harshil]

Well, in my case I am and have been bending minor rules. Can I blame my OWI for starting me off on the wrong foot?

It was my 4th dive (last OW training dive) and we went to this dive site in Pulau Dayang off Peninsular Malaysia called Rainer's Rock. Its outside the sheltered bays and its basically just a rock a little off from shore. Currents are always strong there and the dive site doesn't bottom out at 15m. Goes all the way down to a few hundred meters.

So anyway we go in and straightaway go down to about 24m. Currents are ridiculously strong and everyone is finning just to keep up with the instructor. Then there is a S shaped narrow passage in a huge boulder and he says to us, those of you who can follow me, follow me. Those who can't swim over the rock and meet me on the other side. No DM or AI, just him.

Everyone else swims over the rock to try and meet him, needless to say OW students with less than perfect buoyancy get lost and all manage to ascend safely (somehow)

Me, I try to swim through the crack, get exhausted and stop finning. Current whacks me around the corals and rocks and flushes me out to open sea. No visual references, no bottom and gauge reads 25m and I'm down to 30bar. Oh crap, I start ascending and suddenly my right eardrum hurts like hell. I look at the gauge, 30m. Makes no sense, I've been ascending.

I look down below me and I see people doing a safety stop. huh? what? nevermind, despite my better judgement, I swim "down" to the safety stop divers and pressure eases, needle drops down to 25m again. I carry on till I reach the surface, going as quickly as I dare to go knowing full well the risks of ascending quickly. I pop up with 5bar left. 20 sec later my younger brother who was 13 at the time pops up grinning. He holds up his gauge, giggles and says he ran out of air on the way up. 0bar.

Ever since then I haven't been all that afraid of diving shallow reefs by myself or not aborting a night dive when my rental torch conks out on me ( the vis is about 15m on average).

But man, the OW instructor taught me a LOT without trying to.

 

[String]

Have you ever broken rules, or dived beyond your training?

Yep, frequently and pretty much from day 1.

If so, under what circumstances, and why?

To push my limits and experience a bit and often because i wanted to see something that the current qualification at the time was impossible whilst remaining inside. Also worth mentioning most agencies are RECOMMENDED limits and there are no laws.

 

[redacted]

Yep, I think most of us break rules.

What matters is whether we are sufficiently knowledgable to understand the risks and issues involved with breaking those rules.

I hate to see people breaking rules/limitations, based on a weak understanding of the dangers involved.

I hate to see diver (and others) being taught rules without being provided a sufficient understanding of the basis for rules.