Forced descent in Blue Hole

[Christi]

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.

Kind of like Devils Throat here IMO...there are much better dive sites here and DT is a "log book" dive. It's a nice dive...just not even on my top five list of Coz dives.

 

[D_O_H]

In other threads, I often find myself agreeing with the hole-haters in this thread, but I definitely don't agree here. What is it you guys want? Amigos del Mar shut down? Some kind of scuba police at the blue hole? Maybe quiz divers about their experience level at their local quarries to make sure they're not going to be in over their heads?

Seriously, what do you guys think should be changed in order to remedy the apparently horrible situation at the blue hole?

Divers are responsible for their own safety. Dive ops are responsible for providing the infrastructure (clean air, safe boat, etc.) and information (site briefing, accurate Q&A) necessary to let divers look out for their own safety. I can't speak for any of the other dive ops serving the blue hole, but this is exactly what Amigos del Mar does. Before I signed up for the blue hole trip, they answered all of my questions (and I had a lot of them) honestly and accurately to enable me and my buddy to decide whether to go and to plan our dive.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are too dumb to look out for their own best interests.

It is probably in the interest of most dive ops to act, to one degree or another, as scuba police anyway. If they don't, they are likely to have constant CF dives and irritate cusomers. Or, worse, end up with dead customers. ADM does this to some degree. They give a very detailed and sobering dive briefing. They send an inordinate number of DMs down with the dive group (I think we had something like 1 DM for every 3 divers). They hang a few tanks and some weights at 20 feet, just in case. They had a very competent and professional staff looking out for everyone's safety as best they (or anyone) could. These are all things I don't expect the dive op to do, though I think it reflects well on them that they care enough to do it.

A lot of people want to dive the blue hole when in Belize. As long as this is true (at least until the International Federation of Scuba Police is formed), there will be ops willing to take people there. This is not a bad thing in my book and, based on my experience with Amigos del Mar, I think they do an very good job of meeting this need in the safest way possible.

As for the dive itself, it is possible to have a great dive without going beyond 130' (as I did). It is also possible to have a great dive without entering any overhead environment (as I did).

Are there safer ways to do a dive to 130'? Absolutely - adding more gas and some redundancy would make it safer.

Are you crazy to make this dive with an AL80? I don't think so.

I did this dive as a fairly new diver with pretty average air consumption and returned to the boat with well over 1000 psi. Barring a catestrophic (and very rare) event, I don't think it's crazy for anyone with a cool head, reasonable air consumption and good buoyancy skills to do the dive. You are welcome to disagree with me and welcome to dive (or not dive) the site in whatever manner you wish. What you are not welcome to tell me is that I can't decide for myself whether this is a safe dive and a reasonable plan, which is what I think you guys are trying to do.

 

[1RUSTYRIG]

In other threads, I often find myself agreeing with the hole-haters in this thread, but I definitely don't agree here. What is it you guys want? Amigos del Mar shut down? Some kind of scuba police at the blue hole? Maybe quiz divers about their experience level at their local quarries to make sure they're not going to be in over their heads?

Seriously, what do you guys think should be changed in order to remedy the apparently horrible situation at the blue hole?

Divers are responsible for their own safety. Dive ops are responsible for providing the infrastructure (clean air, safe boat, etc.) and information (site briefing, accurate Q&A) necessary to let divers look out for their own safety. I can't speak for any of the other dive ops serving the blue hole, but this is exactly what Amigos del Mar does. Before I signed up for the blue hole trip, they answered all of my questions (and I had a lot of them) honestly and accurately to enable me and my buddy to decide whether to go and to plan our dive.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are too dumb to look out for their own best interests.

It is probably in the interest of most dive ops to act, to one degree or another, as scuba police anyway. If they don't, they are likely to have constant CF dives and irritate cusomers. Or, worse, end up with dead customers. ADM does this to some degree. They give a very detailed and sobering dive briefing. They send an inordinate number of DMs down with the dive group (I think we had something like 1 DM for every 3 divers). They hang a few tanks and some weights at 20 feet, just in case. They had a very competent and professional staff looking out for everyone's safety as best they (or anyone) could. These are all things I don't expect the dive op to do, though I think it reflects well on them that they care enough to do it.

A lot of people want to dive the blue hole when in Belize. As long as this is true (at least until the International Federation of Scuba Police is formed), there will be ops willing to take people there. This is not a bad thing in my book and, based on my experience with Amigos del Mar, I think they do an very good job of meeting this need in the safest way possible.

As for the dive itself, it is possible to have a great dive without going beyond 130' (as I did). It is also possible to have a great dive without entering any overhead environment (as I did).

Are there safer ways to do a dive to 130'? Absolutely - adding more gas and some redundancy would make it safer.

Are you crazy to make this dive with an AL80? I don't think so.

I did this dive as a fairly new diver with pretty average air consumption and returned to the boat with well over 1000 psi. Barring a catestrophic (and very rare) event, I don't think it's crazy for anyone with a cool head, reasonable air consumption and good buoyancy skills to do the dive. You are welcome to disagree with me and welcome to dive (or not dive) the site in whatever manner you wish. What you are not welcome to tell me is that I can't decide for myself whether this is a safe dive and a reasonable plan, which is what I think you guys are trying to do.

Your common sense and personal responsibility antics won't work here D O H! MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Just kidding...I agree 110%

 

[Christi]

Divers are responsible for their own safety. Dive ops are responsible for providing the infrastructure (clean air, safe boat, etc.) and information (site briefing, accurate Q&A) necessary to let divers look out for their own safety...

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are too dumb to look out for their own best interests.

It is probably in the interest of most dive ops to act, to one degree or another, as scuba police anyway. If they don't, they are likely to have constant CF dives and irritate cusomers. Or, worse, end up with dead customers....

...You are welcome to disagree with me and welcome to dive (or not dive) the site in whatever manner you wish. What you are not welcome to tell me I can't decide for myself whether this is a safe dive and a reasonable plan, which is what I think you guys are trying to do.

Very good points.

I will only disagree to a certain extent with you from a dive op perspective.

There ARE people out there that have c-cards who shouldn't, period. There are also divers who think they are MUCH better divers than they are simply because they have a c-card that says "Advanced Open Water" on it...or rescue diver, or master scuba diver...you get the picture.

With all of that said, sometimes we DO have to tell people NO, we cannot/will not take you to Dive Site X. Those who don't want to take our advice or suggestions will absolutely have no problem finding another shop on the island who will take them...that's the sad and scary part.

 

[DandyDon]

I think I used 28% Nitrox.

 

[wreckchick]

I've posted my Blue Hole experience elsewhere on this board so it won't be news to some of you...

I dove with Amigos Del Mar and we had 2 DMs for 12 divers. The group included myself and my then husband with our whopping 7 post-cert dives, a guy doing his VERY FIRST post-cert dive (with a camera) and a bunch of other people. The group made it to 147' with at least one guy below that.

The only person who was not allowed to do the dive was the new certs girlfriend because she only got her Scuba Diver card, not a full OW card. She was allowed to do the other 2 dives that day that both maxed in the 80-100' range.

There are so many things wrong with this scenario that it still gives me chills. I take responsibility for doing the dive to some extent, but when you're being told that "sure, it's an advanced dive, but you guys are fine" it's easy to want to believe that. With that few dives I really had no concept what "advanced" meant when applied to a dive site. We were just diving!

Turns out that ADM had lost a diver in the hole the week before. I don't actually know if the body was ever recovered or what happened in that incident.

I'm not really sure what I want anyone to do about it, but I'm still horrified that anyone let me do that dive. If one person had said, "look, by 'advanced' we mean more that you've got" I'd have stayed home and been happy. I wasn't just allowed to do the dive, I was encouraged to do the dive, that's where I get a little angry.

Rachel

 

[MikeFerrara]

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...

I think I can shed some light on it for you. A lot of our dive sites are pretty crowded on the weekends (hundreds of divers) . When I was actively teaching I was there every weekend. Gilboa is one of the sites and they've had some years where there were just quit a few divers hurt or at least taken to the hospital as a precaution. It's not uncommon to witness several rapid ascents caused by things like free flows in a weekend and once in a while a diver gets hurt when that happens. If you search the board, you'll find accounts of some of the incidents. Luckily for me I wasn't there when the guy was killed in the DUI dry suit demo or when the guy popped to the surface unconsious from his AOW deep dive because he lost a fin, sank and panicked (though my son was there for that one). Those are two that you'll find accounts of here on the board if I remember right. I've been there for a few ambulance runs and LOTS of incidents that fortunately didn't result in injury. I've had to help a few out of the water and search missing divers. On at least 4 occassions I had my own classes interupted. One was when we were just getting in for an Advanced Nitrox training dive and the screaming started on the other end of the quarry. I couldn't get out of the water in time but my DM who wasn't in yet took off to help. Another time there was screaming of a missing diver. I had 2 of my DMs get my class out of the water while I and another of my DMs who was equiped for it responded and began a search. The diver was only temporarily lost (long enough to get his buddy to scream) and eventually turned up. Another time I was giving a briefing or debriefing on the surface and had to stop to help direct traffic for an incomming ambulance. The diver had his BC inflator stick and couldn't prevent the rapid ascent that followed. Another time I was doing deco with an advance nitrox student when we seen some divers having trouble below us. It turned out to be an instructor and his deep diving specialty student wallowing in the bottom at 125 or so trying to start their hand over hand climb up the line. That time it never got so far out of hand that I had to do anything but I felt obligated to not leave until they got things under control but that left me between a rock and a hard place given my students scheduled decompression. Again, because I had plenty of help I was able to sort of cover both. Another time (not while I was teaching this time) a mom freaked and Jr was left on his own while dad tried to help. We hung with Jr while they pulled mom out screaming. Several other times I was lucky enough to be a ways away and just watch the O2 administration and flashing ambulance lights from a distance. For a while it seemed there was some kind of action every time we were out and I had enough. These days I generally just avoid those places and save myself the nervous stomach and agrivation. Those are just some of the ones at Gilboa. There was also the time I was teaching a rescue class at france park and a solo diver swimming by just happened to have his tank fall of his bask as he swam past and pull the reg from his mouth. LOL I saved his bacon because he was just going to sit there and drown. Then there was the time at haigh quarry that we saw a guy near shore at the surface looking like he was having some trouble. Just about the time we started over he got himself in a chicken wing trying to get his BC on and fell in face first negative and without a reg in his mouth. My wife was closer so she pulled him out. He was a certified solo diver and everything...even had a rented pony bottle. LOL then there was the time....oh well, you should get the idea by now and I didn't even get started on what I've seen on recreational lake Michigan trips.

So how was it that I got to see all that? I guess just because I was there. I was just there. I didn't cause it and none had anything directly to do with me or any one in our party (atleast until the aftermath). I was just there. I have solved the problem though. I rarely go to those places any more. It's just too exciting for me.

The Barney Fife school of diving may be a good description although I've seen the same sort of stuff in other places like Florida although without the ambulances. Vortex on a weekend is truely a site to behold.

Now, the thought of a bunch of these good folks getting together for a dip into the blue hole just gives me the willies.

 

[Christi]

I've posted my Blue Hole experience elsewhere on this board so it won't be news to some of you...

I dove with Amigos Del Mar and we had 2 DMs for 12 divers. The group included myself and my then husband with our whopping 7 post-cert dives, a guy doing his VERY FIRST post-cert dive (with a camera) and a bunch of other people. The group made it to 147' with at least one guy below that.

The only person who was not allowed to do the dive was the new certs girlfriend because she only got her Scuba Diver card, not a full OW card. She was allowed to do the other 2 dives that day that both maxed in the 80-100' range.

There are so many things wrong with this scenario that it still gives me chills. I take responsibility for doing the dive to some extent, but when you're being told that "sure, it's an advanced dive, but you guys are fine" it's easy to want to believe that. With that few dives I really had no concept what "advanced" meant when applied to a dive site. We were just diving!

Turns out that ADM had lost a diver in the hole the week before. I don't actually know if the body was ever recovered or what happened in that incident.

I'm not really sure what I want anyone to do about it, but I'm still horrified that anyone let me do that dive. If one person had said, "look, by 'advanced' we mean more that you've got" I'd have stayed home and been happy. I wasn't just allowed to do the dive, I was encouraged to do the dive, that's where I get a little angry.

Rachel

How long ago was your experience with ADM?

 

[wreckchick]

Summer 2002. Not that long ago.

R

 

[TheRedHead]

Those who don't want to take our advice or suggestions will absolutely have no problem finding another shop on the island who will take them...that's the sad and scary part.

Tell me who they are so I will make sure to never dive with them. All of my experiences in Coz have been positive with safety-oriented dive operations. It's my favorite place to dive.