Irresponsible?

[xyrandomyx]

Ah, yes. I think a proper discussion of how to define 'responsibility' is best left to a forum on philosophy or law, though.

Anyway. Thank you all for your replies.

For now, I'm just going to try to learn as much as possible: I'm doing my AOW course and reading as much as I can (on this board and elsewhere). I guess that until I'm more experienced, I will have to trust others' jugdement and experience to some extent. But, of course, that doesn't mean not questioning it or not walking away if I feel what they're proposing is too risky.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Question ... was your liveaboard in a tropical location?

Second question ... was your initial instructor training in a cold water location?

Different environments breed different definitions of "responsible".

Given the available information, I don't think you were irresponsible.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Ah, yes. I think a proper discussion of how to define 'responsibility' is best left to a forum on philosophy or law, though.

Anyway. Thank you all for your replies.

For now, I'm just going to try to learn as much as possible: I'm doing my AOW course and reading as much as I can (on this board and elsewhere). I guess that until I'm more experienced, I will have to trust others' jugdement and experience to some extent. But, of course, that doesn't mean not questioning it or not walking away if I feel what they're proposing is too risky.

You are doing just fine, and no, I don't think it was a problem for an instructor to take you down to those depths if it was one-on-one supervision. Neither of you did anything "wrong" as long as he kept a close eye on you, and the dive was planned and executed according to the plan.

If your instructor at home really had a serious problem with the dives you describe.... well, at the risk of being rude I have to say he must not have any faith in the students he produces, and therefore needs to re-think his own abilities as an instructor.

Keep learning, read everything you can get your hands on, ask lots of questions.... but mainly just keep diving!

Best wishes.

 

[Charlie99]

The instructor that takes you to 80' / 24 meters in warm, clear tropical waters shortly after you OW cert is no more irresponsible than the instructor that takes you to 50' / 15 meters into a cold (and therefore thick wetsuit or a drysuit), low visibility quarry after you certified in warm clear water.

I think a proper discussion of how to define 'responsibility' is best left to a forum on philosophy or law, though.

Actually, you have shown that you understand the most important thing about responsibility ...... that in the end it is your life and YOU are responsible for your dive.

 

[JB]

This is a storm in a tea cup. I'm sure you loved the dives. The "advanced" course, includes one dive to 30 meters and some exercises to demonstrate decreased cognitive ability. You have essentially done that sans the exercises. In fact you are now more qualified to go to 30 meters than someone with an AOW ticket, as you have had several, not just 1, under direct supervision of an instructor. The most dangerous part of the dive is the 1st 10 meters anyway (greatest gas volume changes). Out of gas a 10 meters and a bolt to the surface with a closed glottis will kill you as quickly as the same event from 30 meters. Had I been on the boat and the DM had forbidden me to go below 18 meters I would have been deeply dissappointed. He obviously accompanied you on the dives to assess your ability and safety, and must have thought you were OK. This board is over represented with Technical divers, and as a result are out of touch with recreational diving. At no time during the dive will you go into real or virtual overhead environemt ie into deco. It's not hard to surface with 50 bar, and if that is your goal it is easily achieved without extensive gas management planning. The standard is to signal the DM when you are at 100 bar and then start ending the dive. Personally, I feel that these arbitrary numbers like 18 meters, are just that, arbitrary. 30 meters in 50 meter viz is much better than 18 meters in pea soup.
Kudos to your liveaboard instructor for allowing you to enjoy the trip to the full, and for not being a slave to arbitrary rules and regulations. We need more DM's like that. Unfortunately we are are own worst enemies, and it is the threat of loosing a rediculous legal battle that makes most people throw commonsense out the window and become slaves to the written regulations. As for the guy back home... find another instructor! Most definitely not irresponsible.

 

[xyrandomyx]

Question ... was your liveaboard in a tropical location?

Second question ... was your initial instructor training in a cold water location?

Different environments breed different definitions of "responsible".

Given the available information, I don't think you were irresponsible.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yes, the live-aboard trip was in a tropical location. The instructor I spoke to when I got back home was a different instructor to the one I did my OW course with (same dive shop, though). But, yes, the water here's colder. Not cold, temperate: typically 13--16 degrees Celsius (55--61 degrees Fahrenheit) on the surface; the best visibility I've seen so far at home is about 5 metres (16 feet), though I've been told it gets a bit better than that (I hope to see it someday).

So, yes, pretty different environments.

 

[g1138]

This is a storm in a tea cup. I'm sure you loved the dives. The "advanced" course, includes one dive to 30 meters and some exercises to demonstrate decreased cognitive ability. You have essentially done that sans the exercises. In fact you are now more qualified to go to 30 meters than someone with an AOW ticket, as you have had several, not just 1, under direct supervision of an instructor. The most dangerous part of the dive is the 1st 10 meters anyway (greatest gas volume changes). Out of gas a 10 meters and a bolt to the surface with a closed glottis will kill you as quickly as the same event from 30 meters. Had I been on the boat and the DM had forbidden me to go below 18 meters I would have been deeply dissappointed. He obviously accompanied you on the dives to assess your ability and safety, and must have thought you were OK. This board is over represented with Technical divers, and as a result are out of touch with recreational diving. At no time during the dive will you go into real or virtual overhead environemt ie into deco. It's not hard to surface with 50 bar, and if that is your goal it is easily achieved without extensive gas management planning.

I'll have disagree, below 50ft it very easy for a new diver to forget buoyancy control. They may be so used to diving at 40 ft and think "all I need is 3 taps into the inflator and I'm good" Well now they're below 60ft flailing around because they're too negative and don't know what's up. I've seen it happen from personal experience, and I've personally had to inflate my buddy's BC to get her neutral and only then did she realize what had gone wrong.

Flail too much and you could burn all your air fairly quickly when you're that deep. You consume air a lot faster the deeper you go, it presents a new danger. If you're not used to diving that depth you really have no clue how fast your air can go, especially when stressed. During the last advanced class I TA-ed, many of our divers came up away from the anchor line because they failed to plan gas management. It was their first boat dive beyond 50 ft/15m (max depth was 75ft/23m that day)
A few came up with less than 500psi (34bar). One person surface with 0psi right as her safety stop was complete (she had a leak on the tank Oring)
So I dare say it IS very easy to come up below 50bar diving below 60ft/18m.

Going into deco is also easier than one would think. My neighbor once went into a 10 min deco on a tropical recreation dive because he had passed his max depth (90ft/27m) while taking a single picture. He had to signal to his buddy to bring him another tank so he could actually complete the deco stop.

Bottom line, even if it is a recreational deep dive, I still wouldn't brush it as easy as you portrayed it.

Agreed that you don't need extensive gas management, but you should at least have a bit more knowledge than what's taught in NAUI Basic OW (can't speak for PADI). This goes the same for other sorts of knowledge they don't teach you in NAUI Basic.

I also disagree that the board is mainly represented by tech divers. I think it's pretty evenly distributed here.
DIR influenced divers, now that may be a different story.

 

[JB]

During the last advanced class I TA-ed, many of our divers came up away from the anchor line because they failed to plan gas management. It was their first boat dive beyond 50 ft/15m (max depth was 75ft/23m that day)
A few came up with less than 500psi (34bar). One person surface with 0psi right as her safety stop was complete (she had a leak on the tank Oring)
So I dare say it IS very easy to come up below 50bar diving below 60ft/18m.

Wow, what a class!! Seems to me that the village idiot knows that his life depends on having air underwater. Common sense dictates that you watch your pressure gauge regularly during the dive, seems like they weren't taught to do so??. Did they really need to be taught this? There are essentially only 2 things to worry about depth and bar, not too hard? If you are going down more air in bc, if up less air. There is no deco obligation, and if the dive is shortened by a leaking o-ring then all that is required is an ascent at 12 meters a minute, so 2 minutes from 23 meters, a safety stop is a luxury, if the bottom time is that short. What concerns me the most is, since this was an advanced course, one would expect the DM/Instructor to supervise the class, in particular keep track of the students remaining bar. Was someone checking on the remaining bar of the students on the course? I'm fairly gobsmacked at the closeness of the call on a training dive to a mear 23 meters, couldn't even experience narcs at that depth.:shocked2:

 

[g1138]

Wow, what a class!! Seems to me that the village idiot knows that his life depends on having air underwater. Common sense dictates that you watch your pressure gauge regularly during the dive, seems like they weren't taught to do so??. Did they really need to be taught this? There are essentially only 2 things to worry about depth and bar, not too hard? If you are going down more air in bc, if up less air. There is no deco obligation, and if the dive is shortened by a leaking o-ring then all that is required is an ascent at 12 meters a minute, so 2 minutes from 23 meters, a safety stop is a luxury, if the bottom time is that short. What concerns me the most is, since this was an advanced course, one would expect the DM/Instructor to supervise the class, in particular keep track of the students remaining bar. Was someone checking on the remaining bar of the students on the course? I'm fairly gobsmacked at the closeness of the call on a training dive to a mear 23 meters, couldn't even experience narcs at that depth.:shocked2:

Don't jump to conclusions.
We had a class of 16 students who went through our basic program the previous quarter.
8 weeks of lectures and pool sessions, 2 skin dives and 4 checkout dives.
We had 2 DM's and 2 instructors on site doing the dive in addition to a charted boat crew.

Of the buddies who surfaced away or with problems, those buddy pairs weren't with DM's or instructors.
All our students were briefed twice, once by our DM before boarding the boat, and again by the captain prior to diving.
The girl who had the leaking Oring didn't know it was leaking until after she had surfaced, she was aware of her low air status during her safety stop.

Of those who surface below 500psi, they did so because they failed to calculate how much air they needed during their safety stop. They began their ascent well before getting to 500psi. (which is the minimum recommended imperial value to have when you surface)
And in fact they chose to surface away from the anchor line because they made the call that they didn't have the air to find it.

I will dare say our basic program and those divers certified through it are better experienced than any other student out of a basic class, yet even these students with only 8 dives under their belt (4 checkout dives and 4 adv dives prior) failed in their gas management when they were without an experienced diver.

It's also not as simple as "I'm going down add air into the BC". Not everyone can grasp that concept surprisingly. Most would rather swim to maintain trim and buoyancy rather than toy w/ an inflator and risk a ascent they can't control because
a) they don't have a grasp on how much to fill their BC
b) they can't get to their dump ports consistently (excluding the inflator)
At that depth swimming fully deflated does not work. And its something they've never experienced before, it's completely new to them and the don't know what to do.
It's easy for experience divers like you and me to simply say "inflate till neutral" but not for a diver who just got certified.

That was the point I was trying to cross, it is easy to to get into trouble at that depth when your fresh out of basic. You need more knowledge and experience on gas management before taking on a deep dive with a buddy of the same experience.
It's not simply "Oh I'm low on air let me surface". I don't think that's the right attitude for a deep dive.

Maybe for a tropical high visibility dive it's easy, but one thing I forgot to mention was we were doing a dive in 5-15ft visibility (bottom-surface). A midwater ascent without the anchor line scares the crap out of you in that situation.

 

[JB]

no worries