Gilboa Scuba Patrol??

[diverbrian]

Mike almost expects me to fill one out every time I dive the quarry anymore. He knows that I dive doubles, so I don't even get "the friendly talk" about the hazards. It is simply part of my routine in the morning.

What does it ask? It asks logical things, like your level of training, redundancy of equipment, exposure protection, and your planned profile or profiles. No "Nazi" stuff there. It points out the possibility of free-flows. Again, no "Nazi" stuff.

If you want someplace to test out your deep diving equipment, I highly recommend the quarry. I like to use to ease back to my limits without being in the middle of Lake Michgan as I assist with many recreational classes and sometimes my deep dive skills need practice.

Mike runs a safe, fun operation. The problem he runs into are people trying to do too much too fast. For the people that respect the fact that they plan to go to 120-130 ft., it is as safe a place as any and probably safer than most as you are never far from shore if you have an equipment failure or such thing.

 

[MikeFerrara]

biscuit7 once bubbled...
My buoyancy is average, my trim needs so much work I don't even know where to start, but I've never been in the water and assumed a bottom was there in case I needed to work something out (obviously excluding pool work). I guess I'm just not fully versed in the way most people dive, or get started diving, or something.....

R

Other instructors can of course do as they see fit. Just as a point of reference though if you were my student and you feel your bc is only average and your trim needs a lot of work...that's where we would start. If you wanted to go deep we would do it when we both felt you were squared away. We would both be able to relax and enjoy the dive. It's not that you can't hold your depth pretty good without a bottom under you, the question is can you do it while handling a minor problem or task like a free flow or a lost mask? As I stated earlier the environment itself is a potential source of stress. When you pile too many stressors up all at once it's bad. Controling the timming and number of stressors is also part of the instructors job. When they come at the right speed the student learns, improves and extends their limits. If they are too many, too fast the stdent can crash and burn.

 

[Dan Gibson]

I got news for you. Mike already asks people to report these idiots to him. He has no problem kicking someone off his property for not following rules. You forget that when some DA decides to put himself at risk, it affects more than just that DA. It costs Mike in insurance which we all ultimately pay for. It's also a pretty tough ordeal for him to go through when someone gets hurt.

Brad B once bubbled...
So what, are we are gonna have roving Scuba Nazi's telling us where we should or should not be. Observing bubbles from a kayak and a DM on each buddy team? You gotta be a Democrat! I am sorry Diveski01 but your comment "Protect them from themselves" pretty much sums up your entire BS post. Take care of yourself and your buddy and don't worry about me. If some DA decides to slip over "the wall"and die they are just another candidate for the Darwin awards. And I, quite frankly, am pleased every time the human gene pool gets adjusted for the better. I spearfish, dive solo and muck around in no vis with lots of Alligators and none of that should concern anyone else on this board as long as they aren't out there with me. If they are that is their choice. As far as the Ski Patrol idea goes I don't know what its like now, but back in the day what most of us did was drive up the night of a storm, crash in our cars after partying pretty much all nite, gear up, smoke a few/drink a few and then go find the good powder while making sure the in-bounds runs were safe for the tourists who arrived at 9:00. Bottom line is you don't need to worry about the abilities of anyone but yourself and those you are directly responsible for.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I have to second what Dan said. With the added statement that it does more than cost Mike in insurance. Mike genuinly cares about the people who dive there. He takes it pretty hard when somebody gets hurt and he wants to do what he can to avoid it. Like many would, I think he can't help wonder what he could have done different. His jaw hangs pretty low following one of these incedents. I can't help but get a little bent out of shape when an instructors attitude is "if you do this long enough it's going to happen" or some such thing.

He never has had and I doubt he ever does have more than a few common sense type rules that he asks divers to follow. You know what they say though...common sense isn't so common.

 

[diverbrian]

Thanks for putting that into brief words Mike. All people need to do there is display some common sense. There are warnings all over the place when you sign in about the possiblity of free-flows and how cold the water is.

But as Mike said, sometimes what we think of as common sense isn't so common and people underestimate that environment because it is a quarry. When that happens, sometimes you get lucky and nothing happens. Other times, well......

Nobody wants to see people get hurt. It is not just the insurance. Mike W. cares about the divers visiting that quarry and wants to see them come back and yes, when I get my tanks filled, he will will ask me if I had a GOOD TIME on my dives. It is fun for no one when the ambulances have to roll in there.

 

[Diver Lori]

Bad idea, period. We're over-regulated in our everyday life enough as it is....we DON'T need anymore of it from the private sector either.

At the risk of being called "farm animal stupid" I think this horse has been beaten to death...no pun intended, and should really be moved past.

To quote a previous poster in this thread......with the amount of divers going "over the wall" as you call it, combined with the amount of accidents.....the percentage is ZERO.

Okay, flame me for having an opinion contrary to the "in-crowd" now......

 

[diverbrian]

We all seem to be in agreement that nothing official should be done now. Great!

We can watch out for each other as we have always done. For instance, I have one dive buddy that I know is underequipped and not trained. He will not go over to that side with ME until he gets the appropriate equipment and training. He agrees with me.

If we all keep thinking safely, at least the situation won't get any worse.

I don't have any experience with AOW classes over there as I took mine in a lake. I did take my Advanced Nitrox there. By then, as Mike F. pointed out, I had to somewhat have my stuff squared away to even get to the open water part of that course. We spent a night working on our basic skills in the pool where one mistake on Buoyancy Control is hard to hide due to the shallow depth before our instructor took us to the quarry. If there are instructors taking relatively raw and underequipped students over to that side and those depths, that needs to be looked into. Unfortunately, there isn't much that we can do about it. That is for the training agencies that certified said instructors.

So, do we here any other ideas to improve things? This thread is as good a place as any to discuss them.

 

[Rick Inman]

I was just dropping down to 90' when I noticed a slight red glow reflecting off of the rock in front of me. I looked back - oh, oh! It's the Scuba Cops!

I pulled over and neutralized. The Scuba Cop came along side and showed me his slate: "Your C-card, please."

This was not good. My six month C-card was expired, the registration on my tank was expired, my DAN insurance had lapsed and I was diving solo. I just hoped I could maintain enough so the guy couldn't tell I was half-narced!

He gazed at my C-card and shook his head. Then he inspected my gauges. He looked up at me and his eyes narrowed. I could read the look. A little low on air for 90 feet, aren't we?

This sucked! These cops are out to get anyone who isn't DIR. I shrugged and pointed up. Just heading up for my saftey stop, oss-sa-fer... hee hee...

He handed me a blue ticket: banned from the site!
Later, I considered fighting it in court. But I thought better of it. I could REALLY end up in trouble if the Scuba Court found out I'd bought my gear from LP!

The END!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Diver Lori once bubbled...
Bad idea, period. We're over-regulated in our everyday life enough as it is....we DON'T need anymore of it from the private sector either.

At the risk of being called "farm animal stupid" I think this horse has been beaten to death...no pun intended, and should really be moved past.

To quote a previous poster in this thread......with the amount of divers going "over the wall" as you call it, combined with the amount of accidents.....the percentage is ZERO.

Okay, flame me for having an opinion contrary to the "in-crowd" now......

hmmm...I agree that "regulation" might no be the answer.

I think the only one who used the term "farm animal stupid" in this thread was me and it was in reference to instructors taking unprepared divers where they aren't ready to go so I won't call you that but...has the subject been beaten to death? Maybe here it has but there a whole lot of divers that will be OW certified in the next couple months and some are going to do their 5th or 6th or 7th lifetime dive on the deep side of that quarry (or some other) after being certified on their knees. I'm thinking they're the ones I'd like to talk to. Move past? I would in a second if I didn't know I was going to be there for more ambulance runs. One year there were nine as I remember. I was only there for two or three of em though.

I don't think the percentage is zero. If you only count the divers on the deep side and subtract the divers who are equiped and trained for cold deep water I'll bet the percentage is way higher than zero. Maybe I'll see if I can get some numbers.

How many times do people have to be hit in the head with the same flipping rock? Oh, but in this case it's always a new person who doesn't know about all the others so every time is like the first. Years ago they put together rules of accident analysis for cave diving. Maybe we need rules of accident analysis for recreational students. It sure seems way more dangerous than cave diving.

The in crowd? Sorry the in crowd is into teaching people to dive on their knees and then taking them on a rocket ride to the surface from the bottom of a cold quarry. That's what the in crowd is into. The in crowd should call the families and tell them that the percentage is ZERO.

 

[MikeFerrara]

diverbrian once bubbled...
We all seem to be in agreement that nothing official should be done now. Great!

We can watch out for each other as we have always done. For instance, I have one dive buddy that I know is underequipped and not trained. He will not go over to that side with ME until he gets the appropriate equipment and training.

That's pretty much my idea. On this board there are instructors, OW students, divers getting ready for AOW ect...

Maybe if there is enough in print in places like this board they'll ask some questions before just walking into the closest dive shop and signing up for a class. Maybe some of the new thirty day instructors who qualified with 95 20 ft quarry dives and a couple of reef dives in the Caribbean will realize that there might be a few things left out of their education. Give me a break...GUE is impressing the whole world because they can hover!