Hey Hoover ~ Did you ruin someone's dive?

[grazie42]

You might look into getting a set of "soft doubles bands" that you can take with you on your travels. That way you can just double up when you get to whatever resort you´re going to.

 

[RiverRat]

You might look into getting a set of "soft doubles bands" that you can take with you on your travels. That way you can just double up when you get to whatever resort you´re going to.

That's a great idea. I think the dive ops should make decent pony systems available for rent too. It would be great for single divers using insta-buddies. It would be additional revenue as well for the operation. Then again, I could see divers abusing it and not really using it for redundancy.

 

[gasgirl]

Quote by android:

"Since we're in a foreign country, I would feign ignorance. I would point at my gauges showing plenty of air, look stupified, keep swimming and keep looking at fish."


Gee, I hope this response is tongue in cheek... that seems to be just asking for an emergency OOA situation... now you're dealing with a panicked diver... yikes! (DAN lists this as one of the most common factors in diving accidents).

My husband and I could not dive together in Grand Cayman because we had our young children with us on the trip. As everyone knows, Grand Cayman is expensive. I am 5 ft nothing and I was buddied up with a 6ft 3in guy who weighed at least three times my body weight. I anticipated the discrepancy in air consumption for our dive plan and I asked if it would be alright to join another buddy team near the mooring line in the event he got to 500 psi and needed to ascend before I did. This was all communicated to everyone involved on the dive boat before we jumped in the water.

On this same trip, my husband went shore diving with someone we met in our condo complex. In this buddy's enthusiasm to go diving, he neglected to tell us he was a newbie, and in retrospect, fooled us with his false bravado. The dive plan was the usual signal at half tank and turn back. He didn't signal to my husband he was low on air until basically he had sucked his tank dry. They surfaced together and had to do a lengthy surface swim back. He was less than honest with his experience level and I'm sure my husband would still have taken him but my husband would have known to check his buddy's air gauge during the dive.

The key seems to be open disclosure to ensure everyone's needs are met in a safe manner. If there is no mutually agreeable solution, then you still have time to make alternative buddy arrangements before jumping in the water and having a ruined or unsafe dive.

 

[mako1]

my dad 58yrs, and 250lbs and my 13yr old are new ow buddies she is 115 wet! he is out of air, my wife and i still had 1400 psi and my daughter had 1900psi. she ended her dive with him, wife and i dove till 500psi. All fine for local diving, but we are taking a trip this summer and want to get my dad a larger tank.The question i have is time under water counts agaist you, but does volume of air breathed under water affect you in anyway?

 

[FatCat]

The question i have is time under water counts agaist you, but does volume of air breathed under water affect you in anyway?

Only if you don't breathe enough of it. So no skip breathing! It'll only give you a headache, or even worse: a blackout.

 

[jstuart1]

When I am on a dive boat and have a buddy assigned to me I let them know up front I use alot of air (usually somewhere in the middle of the group to come up but not first). Anyway I ask them if they want to come up when I do or not. I am comfortable comming up by myself since most of my diving is solo anyway and I watch my air very closely since I know I suck it up.

 

[Randall]

I'm new to diving with only 20 dives to my credit. My first O/W dives after certifiying was in Cayman Brac. I hit the deck in 30 minutes with about 500 PSI for the first 3 dives. My buddy during these dives was a veteran diver of 1000+ dives. His response? "Don't worry about it. EVERYONE has to learn how to breathe underwater. You'll get better as you get experience." You know what? He was right. Before we left the Caymans, I was lasting 40-50 minutes but still hitting the deck with 500 PSI, sucking air much faster than the others. At no point did any of my buddies try to make me feel guilty about this. I'd say just about everyone starts out as a Hoover. We develop better breathing/consumption habits and as we get experience. Recently, I was diving with a friend (that had just certified a couple of weeks before) at a florida spring. Guess what? We came up after 35 minutes....he had 550 PSI....I had 1150 PSI. Know what I told him? "Great dive...Was that fun or what?" A new diver shouldn't expect to dive with the same partner on a paid trip, he should NEVER dive solo either. The experienced divers should take their turns being the newbie's buddy. Experienced divers with bottom times of 1 hr + shouldn't give the newbie any grief either on his turn to be buddy. Instead think back to your first dives and remember your "Hoover Days"...(we all had them) and give him/her support and give the answer I got on my first dives!! "Don't worry about it. EVERYONE has to learn how to breathe underwater. You'll get better as you get experience."

 

[Randall]

my dad 58yrs, and 250lbs and my 13yr old are new ow buddies she is 115 wet! he is out of air, my wife and i still had 1400 psi and my daughter had 1900psi. she ended her dive with him, wife and i dove till 500psi. All fine for local diving, but we are taking a trip this summer and want to get my dad a larger tank.The question i have is time under water counts agaist you, but does volume of air breathed under water affect you in anyway?

Mako1....I don't feel a larger tank is always the answer. If a person breathes more gas in a given time at depth , the more nitrogen that persons tissues will absorb. Nitrogen ingassing can be a big issue that drives bottom time also, not just running out of air. I'm not sure, but if I dove with a larger tank, it would be with a good computer, and I'd be on the deck of the boat when my computer said to be there.....no matter how much gas I had left!!

 

[Damselfish]

If a person breathes more gas in a given time at depth , the more nitrogen that persons tissues will absorb. Nitrogen ingassing can be a big issue that drives bottom time also, not just running out of air.

Just because you're inhaling more volume of air, doesn't mean your body is absorbing significantly more nitrogen out of it than if you breathed less volume. People vary in air consumption by a factor of 2 or more, and there's no adjustment on a dive table or computer for "breathing more volume."

I'm not sure, but if I dove with a larger tank, it would be with a good computer, and I'd be on the deck of the boat when my computer said to be there.....no matter how much gas I had left!!

Of course you'd be back on the boat when your table or computer tells you to - but the thing we're talking about here is when the amount of gas controls the length of the dive, rather than NDLs.

 

[gasgirl]

Mako1....I don't feel a larger tank is always the answer. If a person breathes more gas in a given time at depth , the more nitrogen that persons tissues will absorb. Nitrogen ingassing can be a big issue that drives bottom time also, not just running out of air. I'm not sure, but if I dove with a larger tank, it would be with a good computer, and I'd be on the deck of the boat when my computer said to be there.....no matter how much gas I had left!!

I don't think you are correct in saying that if a person breathes more gas (ie. hoovers) there is a higher rate of nitrogen loading. Nitrogen loading is related to the partial pressure gradient of the tissue compartments which is ultimately determined by the concentration of nitrogen in the mix you are breathing, the absolute atmospheric pressure (your depth), and the time to achieve equilibrium. Can anyone else comment on this.... (I'm not sure how but can this question be referred to Dr. Deco?)