Guess who's a newbie TRIMIX diver?!? (and sorta Lake Travis report of 8/13)

[battles2a5]

Good boy

 

[Teknadv3x]

I dunno, I have to laugh... just because something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean it's PROBABLE....

I'm sure there's merits for arguing for or against various gas mixes and decos... but slamming people for wearing wet suits? C'mon...

Just to take an informal poll - this is supposed to be FUN, right?

Chief,
If you would of been sporting a set of Alum.80s . I would of never made the post..however you were not so I made the post. Remember one thing this type of diving is all about risk management. Your going to do what your going to do. However if my post opens someones eyes, then it was not wasted.
Out of curiosity how much line on your saftey Spool or reel does it have?

 

[FIXXERVI6]

I have whitnessed a wing failure, and I've heard first hand from a person about their wing failing.

Something else to think about in a cave, if you try to "walk out" not only will the vis be 0, you won't have enough gas to make it out, and, what about those caves that have unkown feet of silt on the floor before you hit rock, I've put my arm in up to my shoulder before (silt out situation I didn't know there was a bottom where I was at couldn't see it) and never hit something solid, I couldn't imagine trying to walk or crawl throught that.

My motto is, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong.

I'll ask again - What algorithm were you using on your dives?

Question about the lift bags, has anyone actually tried to use a lift bag to get themselves off the bottom? Seams like it would be a very tricky endevor and its not some I rely upon myself.

 

[battles2a5]

Question about the lift bags, has anyone actually tried to use a lift bag to get themselves off the bottom? Seams like it would be a very tricky endevor and its not some I rely upon myself.

I've practiced it, never had to use it. I actually like it more than using the drysuit for back-up bouyancy. It's pretty easy (at least w/ a dive rite bag). Deploy it, put a small puff of air in to stand it up, then slip your arm through the straps until they are around your upper arm. Make sure the dump is facing you. From there, you should be able to pull the bag open with your left hand and exhale into it to increase lift, pull the dump to vent. Pretty simple. It may not be pretty, but it will get you up or out from pretty much anything. I like that better than the drysuit since you won't have a big bubble to manage and it still keeps both hands free.

 

[k-valve]

you shouldn't be bobbing in lake travis, and passing 20' on o2 isn't an instant death sentance.

All true, but Daylonious was a student diver at the time...not certified or experienced. I imagine that's why his instructor had him on 80%. Fact is, unless you are doing extended deco the time difference between using 80% and 100% isn't much, so using 80% for safety purposes makes sense in this case...at least to me anyway.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

I'm not dogging the fact he used 80% just curious why.

If the fact of the matter is 80% was picked for safety then to be honost any student or inexperienced diver that 80% is used on for "safety" is just wrong, go back and get more experience etc. ESPECIALLY with helium, talk about an unforgiving mix if you mess up. A student should be able to hold stops at the OW saftey stop level and at a minimum at the deco level, trimix stop holds should be cake.

If an instructor has any doubt or suspect that a student can't hold a 20' stop what are they doing teaching them?

I don't agree with classes being softened or buffered at all, for example, if your certified to dive air to 130 feet as advanced divers are then I feel they should have to show their compitence at 130 feet on air during training, not '65' then here you go a card for 130 feet.

Is that the answer, 80% was picked for saftey? I was under the impression 80% was used just to have a second gas to fill a requirement of two gases.

Before anyone thinks I'm a GI3 clone you should know that when I dove the Oriskany the contingancy bottle that we hung for our team was 80% due to seas just in case we had to come up in bad conditions.

 

[k-valve]

I'm sure this will result in a flame, but I can't resist -

We're talking about complete wing failure right?

Why not throw in catastrophic manifold failure?

Burst disk failure?

I dunno, I have to laugh... just because something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean it's PROBABLE....

I'm sure there's merits for arguing for or against various gas mixes and decos... but slamming people for wearing wetsuits? C'mon...

Just to take an informal poll - this is supposed to be FUN, right?

I think everyone is actually trying to be nice about it. You may feel like you're being slammed, but this isn't even close. Try posting this in the Hogarthian or DIR forums. Then you'll know what it's like to get slammed.

I deleted the crazy stuff in your previous post, but the fact is as a trimix diver you are most likely diving in a virtual overhead, right? You know this from your training. If something goes sideways you better be able to take care of it or you're fish food, man.

Some lady this weekend saw me in my NACD t-shirt and starting moaning about one of her kids wanting to be a cave diver. "Too dangerous," she said. I asked what she thought made it dangerous and her reply was, "There is too much that can go wrong." I asked her if she checked her brakes, brake lines and brake fluid every time she got in the car?
"No."
"How about your oil, transmission fluid, etc?"
"No."
"Do you think in details about where you're going and what might happen on the way?"
"No."
Then I said, "Well, if your kid becomes a cave diver he or she will think about that before every dive."

You should too. That equipment and how you configure it is what will keep you alive. If you don't take care of it and choose the appropriate gear for the dive you may not always be so lucky. It doesn't seem all that funny to me and I usually have a pretty good sense of humor although my girlfriend might disagree sometimes.

You just have to decide for yourself what the risks are and whether you're willing to take them. Equipment and gear configuration risks don't make a lot of sense to me when my life is in the balance. Dive your own way...I'm certainly not DIR lemming myself...just think carefully about your choices.

By the way. There is nothing wrong with diving in a wetsuit. That's not what they are on your back about. They are telling you, and rightly so, that you should always have some redundant sort of buoyancy.

A good, 100 lb lift bag works. I've practiced it and it works. Make sure it has a dump valve and a clip. You can clip it to a D-Ring on your harness and add/remove air as needed. Not the best solution, but it's better than drowning.

A drysuit is another option as mentioned before.

A third option (that no decent DIR diver would approve of) is having a dual bladder wing.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

I dive dual bladder wing

And have also dove double steel in wetsuit

 

[k-valve]

I'm not dogging the fact he used 80% just curious why.

If the fact of the matter is 80% was picked for safety then to be honost any student or inexperienced diver that 80% is used on for "safety" is just wrong, go back and get more experience etc. ESPECIALLY with helium, talk about an unforgiving mix if you mess up. A student should be able to hold stops at the OW saftey stop level and at a minimum at the deco level, trimix stop holds should be cake.

If an instructor has any doubt or suspect that a student can't hold a 20' stop what are they doing teaching them?

I don't agree with classes being softened or buffered at all, for example, if your certified to dive air to 130 feet as advanced divers are then I feel they should have to show their compitence at 130 feet on air during training, not '65' then here you go a card for 130 feet.

Is that the answer, 80% was picked for saftey? I was under the impression 80% was used just to have a second gas to fill a requirement of two gases.

Before anyone thinks I'm a GI3 clone you should know that when I dove the Oriskany the contingancy bottle that we hung for our team was 80% due to seas just in case we had to come up in bad conditions.

How do you figure that using EAN80 is "softening" the class? You can still hold the students to a high standard. It just gives you a little more leeway in case your student has a brain fart and does something stupid like hitting the wrong button on their inflator hose. I agree they should be pretty darn good divers by the time they take a tech class, but what's the point of using 100% if you don't need to? Why not give your students a "just in case" safety margin of 10-15 feet if you can? If they've never used 100% they don't know what their O2 tolerance is so why push 'em to the max?

BTW, after all that preaching about not getting sensitive you are sounding pretty sensitive yourself there. Why keep bringing up the George Irving III clone thing? We don't care who is or isn't...at least I don't.

 

[texdiveguy]

I only dive doubles.....both steel and alm. and both dry and wet. For this 'old' weak legged fellow I choice to add a stacked second redundant wing to my kit during all wet dives and even when diving alm. doubles wet......at depth if I were to cramp both legs--get ill or injured, swimming up even alm. doubles could prove to be to much and throw on top trying to maintain deco stop obligations you may find it a bad dive day. While in basic trimix training we practiced lift bag contingency ascents for a lost wing....it's not as easy as one might think if you are in a situation of a un controled descent.....with the 'extra' wing I am quickly able to resolve the issue and make a safe ascent with little trouble. We each must make our very best choices regarding these situations and how to lesson the possible risks.