He unavailable - DeepAir again?

[kensuf]

I think we should all be grateful that GI3 was engaged in a niche sport instead of being the US ambassador to the Soviet Union. Only cockroaches would be alive right now.

It's all about perspective people.

EDIT: I stand corrected: 8 Animals That Would Happily Survive A Nuclear War

What he wrote on the internet, and the manner in which he wrote it, was for shock value - in person he was nothing like his internet persona.

As a bit of background, the early and mid-90s were a wild west when it comes to technical diving, something as simple as properly analyzing and marking your bottles was not standard practice. As a result, there were a number of fatalities. In a span of a few months he was involved with a body recovery of a student in tech training that made an improper gas switch (her bottles were not labelled), there was a guy that sometimes helped out the WKPP that also drowned at a non-WKPP site due to an improper gas switch (again, unlabelled bottles), then a few months later there was a 3 person fatality that included a student in tech training, the instructor and a third person. All affected him pretty deeply and he felt the only way he could get the attention of training agencies and the general public was by being as outrageous as he possibly could.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

What he wrote on the internet, and the manner in which he wrote it, was for shock value - in person he was nothing like his internet persona.

As a bit of background, the early and mid-90s were a wild west when it comes to technical diving, something as simple as properly analyzing and marking your bottles was not standard practice. As a result, there were a number of fatalities. In a span of a few months he was involved with a body recovery of a student in tech training that made an improper gas switch (her bottles were not labelled), there was a guy that sometimes helped out the WKPP that also drowned at a non-WKPP site due to an improper gas switch (again, unlabelled bottles), then a few months later there was a 3 person fatality that included a student in tech training, the instructor and a third person. All affected him pretty deeply and he felt the only way he could get the attention of training agencies and the general public was by being as outrageous as he possibly could.

I'll have to dig it up, but there was a transcript at some talk he gave where he was the same. I get it is for shock value. I don't quite get his agenda. Did he just want to annoy people or actually wanted to get points across.

 

[kensuf]

I'll have to dig it up, but there was a transcript at some talk he gave where he was the same. I get it is for shock value. I don't quite get his agenda. Did he just want to annoy people or actually wanted to get points across.

I knew him quite well, he taught me how to dive trimix back in 1995, when I say he was different in person I am speaking from first hand knowledge. He grew very frustrated with a brick wall of people arguing against things like bottle marking when there were fatalities with alarming frequency.

If you dig through the old techdiver list archives (I believe they're still on aquanaut) you'll see that there were people constantly arguing against things that we consider normal standard practices today.

 

[admikar]

EDIT: I stand corrected: 8 Animals That Would Happily Survive A Nuclear War

Stand corrected again. Only 7. They put humans as a joke.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Stand corrected again. Only 7. They put humans as a joke.

I read the article

 

[rjack321]

If you dig through the old techdiver list archives (I believe they're still on aquanaut) you'll see that there were people constantly arguing against things that we consider normal standard practices today.

The old IANTD big square green "deco gas" stickers where you filled in the mix and the MOD with a grease pencil were still pretty common around here as recently as 10 yrs ago. Only in the last decade have the last 25-30% of divers (finally) come around to permanently marking the MOD only on their deco and stage bottles without all the extraneous wording, labeling and grease pencil fill in the blank _____. There are probably a few holdouts from the early days, but most of them have quit, died, or otherwise moved on from tech diving.

Similarly for awhile there most OC folks were adding the "heliox" option to their AN/DP and similar courses when available. At least down here in the States. The BC folks with their more expensive helium and deep shore diving site (Whytecliff) that they often dive over and over have been a bit more accepting of higher ENDs. I'm not sure if people are still taking those heliox options in those classes with the rising prices.

 

[tursiops]

The first issue of Tech Diving Mag (2010) had an article by Bret Gilliam that gave the history of deep diving. Really worth reading for the historical perspective.

Somewhat off topic was the first article in the link above, where Gilliam says:

"Then there is the supposed depth limit of 130 feet for scuba diving.​

At a recent international conference on diving safety held in 1991,​

representatives of the national scuba certification agencies were​

queried on the basis for the 130-foot rule. Although most admitted​

that they did not know its origin, all held true to the precept that it was​

a Navy recommendation and therefore it must be right.​

Once again, the Navy reference was subjected to misinterpretation by​

well-meaning educators. In actual practice the Navy had found that it​

was not productive to assign a diver to a task deeper that 130 feet since​

he would have an allowable bottom time of only 10 minutes; scarcely​

enough time to evaluate an assignment and accomplish any useful​

work. If he was to do a job effectively this deep it was more efficient to​

equip him with a surface supplied gas source so he could complete the​

project and then manage his decompression. Somehow along the way,​

the sport diving industry misapplied the Navy’s proprietary working​

diver recommendation into a sweeping condemnation of any diving​

below 130 feet. This has come back to haunt the certification agencies​

in two ways: 1) Since the depth “limit” is almost universally ignored​

by all but entry level divers, a significant segment of the sport diving​

population has been effectively forced into “outlaw” diving profiles​

and consistently deny deep diving thus distorting actual diving trends​

and statistics, 2) Increasingly more diving personal injury and wrongful​

death lawsuits are litigated on arguments of negligence based solely​

on the depth of the dive exceeding the “safe” limit of 130 feet."​