I am always honest with myself, or have I?
I have been diving with resort courses since about 1997, but in 2003 I decided I am going to finally take the time to finally get my certification and did the PADI Open Water. While I have only 14 dives logged, my plans have me all the way to Dive Master as soon as possible (already have my advanced cert in the works for the next time I am home). I am a firm believer in this whole training and experience thing, but I cannot help but feel confident as a diver as it is a passion of mine and has been since I was a little child and with uneventful dives through out my diving career compounding that confidence.
But when I was reading the Belize Tragedy thread in particular I became a little rattled because this could have easily been me, although I would not have tried to make the swim, knowing my limitations and all that. So the question I want answered is this, while we all know diving is a very serious thing and our lives are at stake every time we go down, I do not really subscribe to the over-cautious club in most respects and diving is no different. But I always assumed by using my knowledge and skills that none of this will ever happen to me. Am I right? Or do most divers have scary learning experiences like the uncontrolled ascent story? I just always assumed that these things will never happen to me and if they did I have enough knowledge to deal with it when they occur, is this true? Everyone I dive with agrees that I dive better than my experience would usually allow and this has fed my ego some, but I depend on my regular DM to decide when I am ready to take new steps, is this also a problem for me? I trust the DM in question implicitly and he has no recorded situations for me to second guess it, but as far as I know he is worthy of the trust I afford him. But I also find that these DM's in the caribbean will bend rules as far as they could without breaking them (like me diving in St. Lucia without my PADI card or any of my information, they just reluctantly took my word for it, then taking me down to a depth about 96 feet, I would like to say quickly, that this was no problem for me to handle, even though I am a bit green for the depth according to traditional views[I think? not too sure though about the traditional views on that depth and the experience needed for it] things like this make me question the level of trust these people deserve) So how much trust can I put in my regular DM(no reason what so ever to question the trust I have in him,but thats so far)?
I know experience and everything makes a huge difference in all these situations, so in sweeping generalisations could you please try and give me some answers to these concerns? Can I expect at least one situation where something goes drastically wrong and the only thing that will save me is my training and some luck?
These questions are more out of curiousity than fear, btw
Have a good one everyone,
Gordo
I have been diving with resort courses since about 1997, but in 2003 I decided I am going to finally take the time to finally get my certification and did the PADI Open Water. While I have only 14 dives logged, my plans have me all the way to Dive Master as soon as possible (already have my advanced cert in the works for the next time I am home). I am a firm believer in this whole training and experience thing, but I cannot help but feel confident as a diver as it is a passion of mine and has been since I was a little child and with uneventful dives through out my diving career compounding that confidence.
But when I was reading the Belize Tragedy thread in particular I became a little rattled because this could have easily been me, although I would not have tried to make the swim, knowing my limitations and all that. So the question I want answered is this, while we all know diving is a very serious thing and our lives are at stake every time we go down, I do not really subscribe to the over-cautious club in most respects and diving is no different. But I always assumed by using my knowledge and skills that none of this will ever happen to me. Am I right? Or do most divers have scary learning experiences like the uncontrolled ascent story? I just always assumed that these things will never happen to me and if they did I have enough knowledge to deal with it when they occur, is this true? Everyone I dive with agrees that I dive better than my experience would usually allow and this has fed my ego some, but I depend on my regular DM to decide when I am ready to take new steps, is this also a problem for me? I trust the DM in question implicitly and he has no recorded situations for me to second guess it, but as far as I know he is worthy of the trust I afford him. But I also find that these DM's in the caribbean will bend rules as far as they could without breaking them (like me diving in St. Lucia without my PADI card or any of my information, they just reluctantly took my word for it, then taking me down to a depth about 96 feet, I would like to say quickly, that this was no problem for me to handle, even though I am a bit green for the depth according to traditional views[I think? not too sure though about the traditional views on that depth and the experience needed for it] things like this make me question the level of trust these people deserve) So how much trust can I put in my regular DM(no reason what so ever to question the trust I have in him,but thats so far)?
I know experience and everything makes a huge difference in all these situations, so in sweeping generalisations could you please try and give me some answers to these concerns? Can I expect at least one situation where something goes drastically wrong and the only thing that will save me is my training and some luck?
These questions are more out of curiousity than fear, btw
Have a good one everyone,
Gordo
