This is the silliest thing I've ever heard. This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to pick a place to start. Do you have any idea how much our knowledge of diving physiology has increased since the 60' s and 70's? How much diving technology and equipment has improved since those days?? I didn't know Opal, and I don't know what her "personal dive philosophy" was....whatever the heck THAT is......
If you need it defined it would be -"
deep diving on air, single tank, bounce diving, belief in in-water recompression."
Seriously, is this really this hard to understand that its a complete mystery to people? Do you think, she forgot to take her trimix along or that it fell off during the dive? There are people doing this every day. This is where scuba came from before it matured to what it is today.
but some things are wrong, because they are wrong. It's one thing to make a mistake because one is unaware that there is a better way. It is shear folly and inexcusable to make such a mistake because you arrogantly choose to disregard the hard learned knowledge of those who went before you. Again...I don't know if this is what she did. I'm just following your line of thought. Regardless of the known and proven dangers associated with diving to such depths on air....there are some physical laws at work here as well, not limited to the vastly increased gas consumption rate at those depths, and that diving on single tanks to that depth, left absolutely no room for error as a result.....Saying that one has a "personal dive philosophy" does not immunize one from being called foolish, and in possession of a foolish philosophy. This accident was completely foreseeable and avoidable. I could go on and on.
Go tell that to all the other divers who still do it and to all the divers that used to do it.
You don't need to define her tragic ending as foolish. It was her choice as it was the choice of many who used to dive this way in the early beginnings of scuba because there wasn't a better way, nor that the risks were truly known back then. There are some people who still do it now even that the risks are better known. If you want to hold people to what you must consider to be simple standards then you can hold the rest of the world to avoiding risky behavior too and that should do it, just like magic there wouldn't be another case of AIDs in the world from people having unprotected sex, won't ever be another unplanned pregnancy, nobody will ever die or be injured because they didn't wear a seat belt and nobody will ever be killed or injured because they didn't wear a helmet on a motorcycle.
People are going to continue to make their own choices, some good and some bad and they will continue to have to live with the outcomes. I'd recommend just getting over it if you can. If you didn't realize it, there are some people not following the text books when it comes to scuba diving, it's just the way it is.
I'll just further add, that I think if you polled Cozumel dive masters, and asked how many have been 200ft or deeper, on air on a single tank, the response is going to easily be way north of 50%.
I'd rather this thread be closed and removed because there isn't a single word to be said that hasn't already been said.
