Incidents compounded ... you ever have one of these dives?

[DiverBuoy]

I didn't switch anything. I originally responded to your suggestion that instructors need to carry extra weight. I disagreed.

Doing a weighting check with the equipment that you'll be diving has nothing to do with utopia. It's just safe diving 101 and it works well in the real world.

glass flat quarries...you are a gas. You don't need glass flat to check your weighting and you don't need stairs piers or descent lines either.

Rented equipment can complicate things some as can any drastic change to equipment configuration. That's one reason why gear unfamiliarity and buoyancy control problems figure so prominantly in accident statistics. Taking the time to get familiar with the equipment and get properly weighted would cut down on some of that. It's hard to do everything wrong and expect the reults to be good.

ok, You think suggesting that divers take the time to get correctly weighted especially with unfamiliar equipment is mindless drivel, yet you're the one who started this thread with a story of a hosed up dive with everything from communication problems to weighting problems?

I get a kick out of your continued reference to local fishing holes and glass flat quarries. Is that all you think we dive in this part of the world? Even so, and, as I said before, don't under estimate those sites either. A nice glass flat quarry can be 350 ft deep and range in temp from 80 at the surface to 38 or so at the bottom. Surface temps will varry from 80 at the surface in the summer to freezing during the course of the year requiring changes in exposure protection to match.

The Great Lakes has that same drastic change in temp and divers commonly dive wrecks that are 30 miles out of port, in current and rough seas where doing a weighting check from scratch can be inconvenient to say the least. That's about the last place you want to be when you're having weighting problems.

We have caves where the entry is crawling under a rock ledge in 2 ft of water which is a really inconvenient place to do a weighting check at the surface. We still do the dive correctly weighted.

I'd think that the fairly constant water temps out there on the west coast would be a big help in staying correctly weighted since you can pretty much dive the exact same exposure protection all year. No? Do you mean to tell me that you have no dive conditions that allow for weighting checks in that whole big ocean out there? No inland dive sites? No pools? I think you're pulling my leg. I thin you're just looking for excuses to skip important steps in dive preperation. If you and your dive buds stop doing that, you won't have any more dives like the one you started this thread about.

I was making a jab, glad you found it a gas. However, again you are insinuating that I said weight checks shouldn't be done. If you have drawn this erroneous conclusion, I'd suggest you re-read the thread. What I said since this tangent started was that a weight check (defined as adding and subtracting weight as required to float properly while in-water) is not always possible. To believe there is never a circumstance where a weight check can not be done, is ignorant. Had you not agreed with this in a previous post this discussion would be at an impasse, because that would be a utopian view and unrealistically impractical.

Weight checks should be planned for, arranged, and executed. Unfortunately since it is not always possible, hopefullly some of the tips and tricks mentioned here in this thread and the help of seasoned professional will be a good starting point, for divers who find themselves in this circumstance.

Students of course have no choice, required weight checks are done early and often, in the pool (using an edge), on our beach dives (using a float), on our boat dives (using the swim step). But additionally with just inexperienced certified divers around here most professionals will encourage them to try new gear in a confined or controlled shallow water environment where if something goes wrong the edge is just an arms reach away. Unfortunately, too many divers just don't follow this advice. Instead citing no available pool or time constraints on their schedule. But that shouldn't just be that as they say, they can be armed with useful tips and tricks which certainly make their situation better than no weight check and no guess. And we add in if you can't do a weight check err on the side of being more negative (though not overly so), in a worst case scenario you can ditch, on the other hand adding weight where none is available is an impossible task.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I don't have an STA, and that is probably (sigh) going to be the next move. I was carrying 28 pounds total (with the 6 lbs on the backplate) with the steel 95's -- and as Rick saw, the GUE instructor was really surprised that he could not take any weight off me at all. It would help if I had bone density, I suspect.

 

[DiverBuoy]

Come on! Doing a weight check is by no means a "utopia". If conditions are bad enough a new diver can't make a weight check, I really think he shouldn't go on. If he can't even pull of a basic safety precaution, he sure as hell shouldn't be diving under those conditions.

Of course, some people adhere to the Trial-And-Error School of SCUBA Diving...
I tend to believe that living in the "real world" doesn't mean encouraging people who don't know what they are doing to go on and do it anyway.

That was clearly a jab, just like the point of MikeFerrara having only dive experience in glass top quarries. We commonly refer to this as sarcasm, sorry that undercurrent was misunderstood. The idea I suggested that a weight check is idealistic is way off base. If you reread my posts you can't draw that conclusion. If weight checks were enforced some dives would never happen, as it would not be possible to perform one. On the other hand, this may be a good reason for an inexperienced diver to abort a dive, as you said perhaps "he shouldn't go on". But for others that doesn't have to be the case as divers can get very "close" in calculating their weight and go a bit more negative for contingency.

 

[DiverBuoy]

Well, I had a compounded non-dive today. Diving my new Al80's, estimated adding four pounds, wasn't enough, took 3 more from my buddy, wasn't enough . . . unfortunately, we had swum out to the descent point before I did this (dumb!) so we had to swim a long way back to shore to get more weight. That required, of course, getting out of all the gear and the drysuit in order to get to the car keys . . . added weight, went out into chest-deep water to check . . . STILL couldn't descend; at that point, recognized that one of the 5lb weights from one of my pockets was gone, so I was five pounds lighter than I thought I was. Back to shore to fix that. My husband shows up at that point, so we wait for him to get dressed and gear up, and I (complete with now THIRTY FOUR POUNDS of weight) head back into the water and get about thirty feet from shore when the O-ring on my brand new 7 foot hose blows. End of non-dive. The other two went out and had a nice time while I took my hose apart and replaced the O-ring.

Still haven't figured out where I'm going to put THIRTY FOUR POUNDS of weight on a regular basis. I want my husband's LP 95's back.

Thanks for this, it proves several points of this thread.

 

[tiburon72157]

settle down boys...db you are rotten!

 

[MikeFerrara]

That was clearly a jab, just like the point of MikeFerrara The idea I suggested that a weight check is idealistic is way off base. If you reread my posts you can't draw that conclusion.

Thats the impression I got.

If weight checks were enforced some dives would never happen, as it would not be possible to perform one. On the other hand, this may be a good reason for an inexperienced diver to abort a dive, as you said perhaps "he shouldn't go on". But for others that doesn't have to be the case as divers can get very "close" in calculating their weight and go a bit more negative for contingency.

I more or less agree and some dives shouldn't happen. There are certainly cases where minor changes are made in equipment configuration and balast adjustments can be calculated. For instance, you can easily calculate the required change when switching tank types as long as you know the buoyancy characteristics of each, or when adding backplate of known buoyancy. I have a pretty good idea what to change if I add a layer under my dry suit.

On the other hand, I don't dive the tropics and have never dived a 3 mil or shorty in my life. Even our pools are too cold for me to do that. So, if I was in the tropics and rented everything, light wet suit, unfamiliar bc ect, I would not even think of diving if I wasn't going to have a chance to check my weighting. I doubt that most would consider me an inexperienced diver and being either a little light or a little heavy isn't likely to get me killed on such a dive. However, I do know how miserable a dive can be in a rig that you don't have dialed in the way you want it and there's nothing down there I want to see bad enough to put up with that, especially considering what the dive is liable to cost.

At home, when I make significant changes to equipment (which I rarely do these days) I make a best guess at a starting point and then go the the local glass flat quarry or fishing hole and spend some time getting things dialed in the way I want. I just know that going someplace to do a real dive without doing that can be very NOT fun or worse.

On the road, if I'm going to pay some oporator big bucks for the use of equipment and a boat ride, that oporator had better be able to provide an oportunity for me to get things dialed in. If not I'll just pass on the whole thing, keep my money and skip the lousy dive without any hesitation. Besides, I know from experience that on such a trip I'll see enough divers struggling with the same type of problems and messing up the dive site that it just gives me a nervous stomack anyway. No fun.

Diving is like anything else. You can put forth the time and effort to do it correctly to the best of your knowledge and ability or you can make a hack job of it. The former can be a real work of art but the later isn't even fun to witness let alone do.

 

[Willie]

FWIW, I learned a lot from this thread. I do wish that sarcasm & digs were kept to private messages, so it wouldnt take so long to read the good stuff. Not talking about this thread only. I've spent quite a bit of time reading since joining scubaboard. It is unfortunate when a good topic degenerates or gets diluted. Of course the same thing happens sometimes in real live conversations or in classrooms.

Just my opinion. Thanks to all who took the time to participate.

Willie

 

[tiburon72157]

is there any way to tell who wins a peeing contest underwater?

does more shrinkage occur in cold fresh water or cold salt water?

how does altitude affect the inflation/expansion characteristics of ego?

fyi - sarcasm folks! lighten up...

 

[DiverBuoy]

Thats the impression I got.

I more or less agree and some dives shouldn't happen. There are certainly cases where minor changes are made in equipment configuration and balast adjustments can be calculated. For instance, you can easily calculate the required change when switching tank types as long as you know the buoyancy characteristics of each, or when adding backplate of known buoyancy. I have a pretty good idea what to change if I add a layer under my dry suit.

On the other hand, I don't dive the tropics and have never dived a 3 mil or shorty in my life. Even our pools are too cold for me to do that. So, if I was in the tropics and rented everything, light wet suit, unfamiliar bc ect, I would not even think of diving if I wasn't going to have a chance to check my weighting. I doubt that most would consider me an inexperienced diver and being either a little light or a little heavy isn't likely to get me killed on such a dive. However, I do know how miserable a dive can be in a rig that you don't have dialed in the way you want it and there's nothing down there I want to see bad enough to put up with that, especially considering what the dive is liable to cost.

At home, when I make significant changes to equipment (which I rarely do these days) I make a best guess at a starting point and then go the the local glass flat quarry or fishing hole and spend some time getting things dialed in the way I want. I just know that going someplace to do a real dive without doing that can be very NOT fun or worse.

On the road, if I'm going to pay some oporator big bucks for the use of equipment and a boat ride, that oporator had better be able to provide an oportunity for me to get things dialed in. If not I'll just pass on the whole thing, keep my money and skip the lousy dive without any hesitation. Besides, I know from experience that on such a trip I'll see enough divers struggling with the same type of problems and messing up the dive site that it just gives me a nervous stomack anyway. No fun.

Diving is like anything else. You can put forth the time and effort to do it correctly to the best of your knowledge and ability or you can make a hack job of it. The former can be a real work of art but the later isn't even fun to witness let alone do.

Now this is the most realistic and sensible post you've made in this thread (Along with some personal experience recaps.) Thanks for this, you've utterly summed up the arguments, for both the original point of this thread as well as it's tangents.

I'm also please wet-willie that you were able to glean the meat from the fat. There are some valuable tips for inexperienced divers as well as reassurance you are not alone, in that a weight check may not be possible, when it isn't you should look to an expert to help you calculate it (or remember some of the points made here).

 

[TSandM]

Thanks for this, it proves several points of this thread.

I'm still trying to work this out and see if it comes to an insult.

At least I did DO the weight checks, even if I waited too long to do the first one. BTW, the weight I added is what a pure mathematical analysis says I should have needed, and it was not enough (even after fixing the missing weight problem). So I had done my homework.

And 34 pounds may actually not be enough with these dratted aluminum tanks . . . I had some trouble staying down yesterday when I got down to 800 psi. And I have to figure out how to cope with the shift from balanced to butt high as the tank gets empty.