In water support

[rjack321]

<Yawn> this place needs some sass! So in that spirit...

For ocean deco dives when are support divers:
unnecessary?
nice but not required?
required?

What are the attributes of these 3 different types of dives? What overlaps and what's exclusive to a category?

 

[Rainer]

One of the discussion we had with Sherwood near the end of our T1 class centered around how much deco we'd be willing to blow off if a buddy had an issue at depth. All three of us in the class had varying amounts in mind, from 10 minutes of deco to all of it after a typical T1 dive (150-170' range for 15-30 minutes BT). When pressed as to where we came up with the numbers, we had to admit they were decently arbitrary. For Bob, the line of where you aren't willing to blow off deco is the same line at which you should consider in water support. Seemed as good a starting point as any other I had heard.

 

[JeffG]

One factor that made the choice of if "in water support" was if tank manipulation had to take place.

(ie 2 deco tanks on a leash, stage and 1 deco on the shoulder.)

The likelihood of a loss of gas situation is much greater when you have to unhook it from yourself.

 

[rjack321]

One factor that made the choice of if "in water support" was if tank manipulation had to take place.

(ie 2 deco tanks on a leash, stage and 1 deco on the shoulder.)

The likelihood of a loss of gas situation is much greater when you have to unhook it from yourself.

So far, this is my barometer.

Being willing to blow off X or Y or even zero mins deco is awfully arbitrary and emotional. Seems very un-GUE.

 

[pengwe]

If you know there is something that will compromise your functionality as a buddy, then you might need to consider bringing a back-up buddy.

How much deco you blow off is an arbitrary, emotional and highly variable decision, how could GUE make a rule for it?

I'm just theorising, but it makes a certain kind of sense to me.

 

[rjack321]

If you know there is something that will compromise your functionality as a buddy, then you might need to consider bringing a back-up buddy.

Anyone could be incapacitated on any dive. Heart attack and strokes still kill more divers than anything else. Sometimes you're in the water, sometimes not.

How much deco you blow off is an arbitrary, emotional and highly variable decision, how could GUE make a rule for it?

I'm just theorising, but it makes a certain kind of sense to me.

In which case I should bring a PADI buddy along on my rec dives, they don't even have a min deco "obligation".

 

[SparticleBrane]

So far, this is my barometer.

Being willing to blow off X or Y or even zero mins deco is awfully arbitrary and emotional. Seems very un-GUE.

It is arbitrary and emotional -- and a personal decision. I don't think this really qualifies as a 'team decision' to me.

 

[rjack321]

It is arbitrary and emotional -- and a personal decision. I don't think this really qualifies as a 'team decision' to me.

I guess that's why its so problematic since what one person requires a support diver for might be casual for another. There doesn't seem to be any common considerations. Well maybe there are but the folks here who actually do dives in the support range aren't sharing.

For me, I'm way less worried about DCS than about being lost. On the surface, in fog, drifting to Japan effing lost. And I haven't even seen Open Water.

 

[pengwe]

Anyone could be incapacitated on any dive. Heart attack and strokes still kill more divers than anything else. Sometimes you're in the water, sometimes not.

If my buddy had a heart attack on a rec dive, I could bring them straight to the surface. Personally, I would skip min deco under those circumstances. If I have too much deco (how much is too much? I have no idea), then I wouldn't, and they would drown.

It's true that we could both have heart attacks. That would be pretty unlucky, and we would both drown.

In which case I should bring a PADI buddy along on my rec dives, they don't even have a min deco "obligation".

No idea what you mean by this, but it made me wonder: What kind of training and experience would you look for in a support diver? For example, would they have to be trained to the level of the dive being done?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

<Yawn> this place needs some sass! So in that spirit...

For ocean deco dives when are support divers:
unnecessary?
nice but not required?
required?

What are the attributes of these 3 different types of dives? What overlaps and what's exclusive to a category?

For our team, we use support divers on every tech dive if one is available.

For single deco bottle dives, we consider it nice, but not required.

For multiple deco bottle dives, it's required.

In which case I should bring a PADI buddy along on my rec dives, they don't even have a min deco "obligation".

Not quite sure what this means ... the physiology of deco doesn't depend on who trained you. For recreational dives, there is no deco "obligation", even for GUE trained divers. There is a protocol for ascending that is referred to as "minimum deco", but it's no more an obligation for GUE-trained divers than it is for anyone else. It's simply a different approach to making an ascent when no deco obligation has been incurred.

It is arbitrary and emotional -- and a personal decision. I don't think this really qualifies as a 'team decision' to me.

I don't see it that way at all. Arbitrary, perhaps ... but certainly it's a team decision. This is something you should be discussing during the planning stage of the dive. All team members should know what contingency protocols to follow.

I don't see team diving as having a hard and fast "rule" for everything that can go wrong ... I see it as having a set of behavioral guidelines that can be followed, depending on the situation. Granted, I don't have the GUE training that some of you do ... but my exposure to GUE courses, instructors, and divers has led me to the conclusion that team diving is more about making decisions within a defined set of guidelines, based on knowledge ... as opposed to saying "at this depth, we do this and at that depth, we do that".

Given all that, how much deco you might be willing to blow off in a given situation will depend entirely on the nature of the emergency that forces you into that decision. "Being DIR" means you've considered what that emergency might be, agreed on a strategy for dealing with it if it should occur, and prepared your team accordingly.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)