Forced descent in Blue Hole

[1RUSTYRIG]

When some of these divers get hurt is when they go home and think they are able to do a 130 ft dive in their local quarry on their own because they pulled one off in the tropics. That's where I got all my experience directing traffic for ambulances.

IMO if somone, as a beginner, thinks a 130' tropics dive graduates them to solo deep, dark, low vis, cold water dive in freshwater then they are an idiot and we will probably be reading about them in future Darwin award emails.

On a side note, none of us must be vary busy this Friday since we are all over this thread

 

[DandyDon]

I think she said, she didn't go...she was talking about what she heard other folks that did, if I read it correctly.

I think you're correct, on re-read....

Hi everyone.
I'm back from my very first dive trip to Belize. Well, my first dive trip... period.
Anyhow, I listened to all the advice I got about being a newbie and not diving the Blue Hole. But... we met some ladies at our resort who we dove with one day, and they are experienced divers. They decided to do the Blue Hole trip. The boat ride out was 3 hours each way, not 2. Once they got there, the divemaster told them that hey had to go STRAIGHT DOWN AND IF ANYONE COULDN'T EQUALIZE TO ASCEND AND GET IN THE BOAT. They weren't giving anyone any time to descend slowly or to ascend briefly, clear, then continue the descent.
So, needless to say, I sure am glad I didn't pay $220 to ride 6 hours only to be stuck on the boat b/c I don't want to blow my eardrums out.
Have any of you heard of this?????
Angela

I guess she was retelling the story she heard from the other ladies, and why she didn't go. I stand corrected one more time...

On a side note, none of us must be vary busy this Friday since we are all over this thread

I have a stomach bug, just getting over horrible cramps - haven't left the house in 2 days.

 

[cerich]

Agree with Mike here.

I just have issues with the way some (not all by any means) full time DM'd in great places to dive end up pretty complacent because you can get away with an awful lot of stupidity 99.9% of the time.

It's a little like deep air, I've been below 200 on air well over a hundred times never a problem. Others that had the same experience and some who were friends died doing so.

At a certain point you realize that the "fun" or "excitment" isn't worth it and there are other much more sane ways to have just as much fun and excitment in diving.

 

[TheRedHead]

Now see, I would be more scared of a newer diver diving with an extra tank strapped on Can you imagine them getting off the boat :rofl:

Actually, backrolling off a boat with a stage is pretty easy. The hard part is getting back on the boat. :laughing:

And I'm not suggesting beginners do staged deco. That's just the way I would want to do it.

 

[MikeFerrara]

First of all, the platform, with tanks attached, submerged beneath the boat is straight out of the PADI AOW book. Secondly, how many dive operators do you know of that issue pony bottles with their rental gear?

Right out of the PADI AOW tect? That sort of makes my point. Who needs a pony bottle. I don't care to do 130-140 ft dives without redundancy in my back gas...big tank with an hvalve at the least but preferably my doubles. I don't care what some resort has in their rental inventory, that's what I use for a dive like that.

Having a submerged reference point w/ extra air isn't an indication of them taking divers without experience or equipment, it is being prepared.

Prepared for what, is the question. I guess you answered that yourself...divers without experience or equipment. Maybe divers who can't hold their deth for a short safety stop? Is this a dive for them? Diving within the limits of your own training, abilities and equipment is also in the PADI text.

Have you ever dived the Blue Hole? If it wasn't for one section of missing reef it be like diving a really cool quarry. The are reference points galore and even if you surface away from the boat you are in a confined area with no wave action and a short surface swim back to your vessel.

No, I haven't but I have dived lots of other deep OW sites as well as deep caves and, in theory, am qualified to do so. Reference or not and current or not, surfacing away from the boat means that you won't have the advantage of being able to use the silly hang tanks. Getting seperated from the group means that you won't have the DM around to take care of your gas management for you or bail you out. As to it being like a really neat quarry, I've seen quit a few accidents in really neat quarries.

 

[Hank49]

, I've seen quit a few accidents in really neat quarries.

I've seen you mention your high frequency of seeing dive accidents more than a few times on SB Mike....I've had to ask myself..."he says he's from Indiana....not Mayberry, where people must go through the Barney Fife Dive School....how is it that he's seen so many more dive accidents?"....Just curious...

 

[gangrel441]

When we dove the Blue Hole in June of last year, it was aboard the Belize Aggressor III. Of 17 passengers on board, my wife and I were among the least experienced, with AOW and crossing the 50 dive mark during the trip. On our departure trip from Belize City, the captain gave a description of the dive and what is involved, then took a vote among the passengers as to whether they wished to make the dive. The captain gave a very detailed briefing, max depth 130 ft, all divers on air (no EAN), if anyone has serious trouble clearing, dive must be aborted to not eat into everyone else's bottom time, 8 min max at depth, 1 min stop at 60 ft, 5 min stop at 20 ft, 3 min stop at 10 ft. If anyone was uncomfortable making the dive, the other option was to buddy up and do a dive on the fringing reef around the hole. No one did.

While I do think this dive was conducted in a safe manor, and all divers that went were qualified to do so, I agree that this dive isn't for everyone. First, it is more of an "I did it" dive than a truly enjoyable dive. The water is a bit cooler than surrounding sites, the vis is lower, the depth is beyond comfort level for many divers, and the scenery is largely rock formations, rather than reefs and fish. Second, it is beyond the training for basic open water students. If you don't have AOW and a fair number of dives under your belt, you should probably wait on this one until you are more at-home in the water.

 

[Damselfish]

I did this dive from a liveaboard. There was nothing said about bailing if you couldn't drop right down. They did want people to stick together enough that they could keep track - so it was more of a stretched out line not a clump. It was after several days of diving when my ears tend to get sluggish so I was pretty slow going down and bringing up the distant rear with my buddy. But since we weren't figuring it as a square profile it wasn't a problem timewise, and not a problem for the DMs. This is a different situation though, as they have already been diving with the people for days and know if they have to worry or not.

 

[cerich]

a live aboard is a different kettle of fish than how day trippers are operated, different types of divers as well.

I've DM'd both.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Agree with Mike here.

I just have issues with the way some (not all by any means) full time DM'd in great places to dive end up pretty complacent because you can get away with an awful lot of stupidity 99.9% of the time.

It's a little like deep air, I've been below 200 on air well over a hundred times never a problem. Others that had the same experience and some who were friends died doing so.

At a certain point you realize that the "fun" or "excitment" isn't worth it and there are other much more sane ways to have just as much fun and excitment in diving.

My guess is that any one who thinks this is a fun dive would really enjoy it if they had a little better suited equipment and training such that the whole thing wasn't such a fight against the clock. I know there are some wrecks here in the great lakes that are at what I consider borderline depths (100 to the deck and 130 to the bottom) and I enjoy them so much more now that I can spend as much time as I want on them without pushing any limits than I did when I (stupidly) dived them on a single tank as a fairly new diver. We usually stay on the wreck until my wife hits her thermal limits. There's plenty of gas and we never have to spend as much time at deco as we planned for.

The blue hole isn't a dive that I'm in any hurry to do just because there are so many other places I want to dive that are easier to get to or at least closer. My wife wants to dive it but she wants to dive the cavern/cave whatever's there and we'd never pull it off in 8 minutes.