Low on air in deco

[SHARKBAIT94]

After getting very good advices from TDS, you are now asking the same question and getting the same advices here, we have no choice but to get you to fill this form.

Pre-Recovery Candidate Diver Form:

Identification: this area is reserved for the soon to be deceased diver to enter their personal information

Name_____________________________________________
Next of Kin's name__________________________________
Next of Kin's address________________________________

Fill the following blank before continuing.

I ____________________________ have been identified as a candidate for a recovery
dive. I am about to begin (circle one) Deep/cave/wreck/deco dive for which I am unqualified, untrained or just too stupid to survive. to assist the recovery team, I've have agreed to fill out this form. In the event I am unable to read and write, it is being read to me and my thumb print will be on the form, provided I have opposable thumbs.

When my lifeless body is retrieved, the disposition of my gear is left up to the recovery team. I will leave my car keys and wallet with this form in the attached plastic bag. Any money found in my belongings goes to the recovery team as compensation for their efforts.

I further acknowledge my impending demise is solely due to my lack of functional frontal lobes and in no way hold the diving community responsible. further I choose to ignore practical words of caution from competent divers.

Please initial all applicable choices.

_____ I have no deep/deco diving training and never heard of Darwin.
_____ I have been fully trained in trimix, but I'm too cheap to buy the gas.
_____ I have no idea what trimix is, but I got a lot of air in my tanks so I can go deep.
_____ My gear is maintained using the best zip ties and duct tape that money can buy
_____ My regulators were serviced before I bought them six years ago.
_____ It's all rented so it has to be good
_____ I have seen people exercise and would like to try it some day.
_____ I avoid the use of illegal drugs by drinking heavily.
_____ I have cut my smoking in half and only do 2 packs a day.
_____ I never smoke (while underwater)
_____ I know I am qualified for this dive based on the advanced technical diver training I received on the Internet.
_____ I have some deco training but want to dive beyond my limits
_____ I am fully cave certified but disregard my training where possible
_____ I have been fully trained in trimix, but man I love that narcosis buzz.
_____ Prozac doesn't interfere with my diving.

Soon to be deceased Signature or thumb Print........................today's Date

________________________________________________________________

Witness.............................................................................today's Date

Ok I have to chime in on this. The above quote is great congrats on coming up with that. I'm completely new to scuba and have my fears and doubts about my gear (all new and from lds no internet) but still have trust issues none the less. Being a veteran firefighter and now scuba its safe to say that my "choices" of hobbies are a little on the high risk side of the page and I have to admit as rough as some of the sb members can be THEY ARE ALL RIGHT IN THIS INSTANCE. Your going out of your scope of practice and cert, You should not be even tempting fait the way you are. Not only are you being inept you are being greedy, yeah that’s right I said greedy. Why.... not only are you putting your life on the line for a thrill but ever other diver who gets the misfortune of being your buddy. Your not only jeopardizing your life but who ever has to go and recover your lifeless body because you dive the theory of "it won't happen to me" or I have learned enough from the internet so I’m proficient to go out of my scope of practice and cert. If my buddies are planning a dive deeper then 60 ft then me and my fiancé stay between 50 and 60 on or about 52-55' for that margin of error. Not once have I/we gone out of that scope, two of our buddies are dive masters but we have not been cert or trained to drop below 60' its that simple. When you dive you dive with your brain not your ego. The reason I felt compelled to join in this rant is you have let it be known that you are willing to jeopardize who ever life that’s with you and that is being inept, greedy and egotistical and would get you kicked off the nozzle on my line.

 

[FreeFloat]

SHARKBAIT94, you really should read through the other thread that Rick quoted - there's far more detail about spearfisherman55's situation.

He's 15, has 17 logged dives, and his uncle takes him regularly to 100' - 130' spearfishing. He uses air faster than his uncle, and has indicated that he (spearfisherman55) starts his ascent with 300 to 500 psi left in his tanks - and as a result he was looking for guidance as to a pony bottle to afford him more air!!

Spearfisherman55, it looks to me very very seriously as though you are being (willingly) dragged into unsafe situations far beyond your training and experience limits by your uncle..... you need to take steps to protect yourself NOW!! Your scuba instructor should have impressed on you never to dive beyond your comfort, training, and experience levels, and that any diver can call any dive at any time for any reason. What that last part means is that regardless of how "easy" a dive appears to your uncle, it is BEYOND your certification and experience levels (and no, "experience level" does NOT just mean "but I've been that deep before and nothing happened") and if he insists on taking you to dive that deep, you have the RIGHT, and some would add the RESPONSIBILITY, to refuse to dive or modify the dive plan.

Take this from me - I was certified in November 2004 and yes, I did dives far beyond my certification level. I also racked up 150 dives in just barely over a year. I can certainly relate to that feeling of confidence and complacency. From one who's been there let me say that sure, I felt quite experienced when I had 20 dives....... and again when I looked back and realized I had 50 dives, ... and when I reached teh 100 mark I was feeling pretty "solid" in the water too. But now at just over 160 dives I'm really just beginning to realize just how much I really can't do or need to work on....... despite the fact that I'm sure my diving is as different as night and day from when I had 17 dives.

Spearfisherman55, nobody here wants to see/hear of you getting hurt or dead........ but we can see you've charted your course directly for that end result unless you change some things NOW.

 

[spearfisherman55]

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[lamont]

I don't start my ascent with 300 to 500 psi left, I start my ascent with 500 psi to 700 psi left.

Which is not enough gas in an AL80 to be ascending from 100-130 fsw.

You need to do a search for "rock bottom"

If your uncle had an issue (e.g. free flow) at that depth towards the end of the dive, you would not have enough gas to get both of you back to the surface.

 

[MVacc]

I don't start my ascent with 300 to 500 psi left, I start my ascent with 500 psi to 700 psi left.

Regardless, you shouldn't be even CONSIDERING acenting with less than 1000 psi ESPECIALLY if you are deco diving..

Listen, i can totally understand why you want to dive so deep, but you have to change the way you see diving. I myself am 15, infact we have the same brithday, and I aswell go diving with a close relative (my father). The minute i got my OW i was rearing to go, 150', NP lets just do it. Then, realization hit me. My father and i began diving at Dutch Springs, the first time i went, i sucked down a bottle of air like it was ice cream. And by our second dive that day, me and my father both had rocketed up from 25 feet because our buoyancy control was minimal. Imagine if we were going way past our limits at 100feet, let alone 140-130? I then began to realize you gotta take it STEP BY STEP. We've been there a few times now and i'm beggining to become more confident in my skill each time we go. And everytime we leave from our dives that day, i'm saying lets go next time and see the car at 80 ft (Or whatever it is, i don't remember). But, then i have to say to myself, Step By Step..

Why risk it? Scuba Diving is fun, when i'm in school and sitting through math, i'm thinking about next saturday when we get to go diving. Its not worth it, stay at 50 ft, learn to REALLY dive, learn your gear, learn your buddy underwater, learn everything about EVERYTHING, then, learn some more. Go to as many classes you can, subscribe to every dive magazine you can, do everything you can possibly do, Then, take some more diving classes. As somone said before, in 10 years, we'll be 25, and our credentials will be amazing (assuming we take the necessary steps, which i plan on doing) Take your time, you can still enjoy diving at lower and safer depths..

 

[triton94949]

My dear friend, Spearfisherman55, your uncle is taking a huge gamble with you and himself. You two are staying down way too long. When you reach about 1000 psi on a 100 ft dive, you need to signal to your uncle: /MY GAUGE/ /1000 PSI/ /TURN AROUND/ /GO BACK NOW/. If he does not, then I strongly suggest you wave goodbye and begin your ascent, and let him finish his UNSAFE dive on his own.

Also, you should be diving with nitrox at these depths, not air.

That's how I see it.

 

[derwoodwithasherwood]

First, do not dive with air deeper than 50 ft. GUE already tells you not to dive with air at all, rather with nitrox.

Unfortunately, that would not be diving within the limits of my training. I am trained and certified to dive to 100 feet on air, not nitrox. Many agencies teach diving to 100' on air, so I think the scenario is valid.

Second, dont spend forever cutting your buddy out of an entanglement. There are other alternatives, none of them terribly safe, but all of them better than running out of air during a deco obligation.

Depending on what exactly was entangled, it might be possible to ditch the gear. Is this what you are suggesting? I guess that leads to a whole new set of questions about what is and is not safer. That will depend a lot on what sort of environmental protection he is wearing and how closely I calculated my weighting, won't it? If we are in 7mil suits and my buddy is wearing a weight integrated BC, life could become interesting in a real hurry. Which is worse, blowing a few minutes of deco, or doing a polaris in the last 30 feet?

Third, use the rule of thirds for deep dives. For you, deep dives would be anything in the range of 100 ft. Deep is relative. If you are an NDL diver, then 100 ft is definitely deep. That means you turn around after 1/3 of your breathing gas is gone, not when you have only 1/3 left.

Ignoring for a moment that "rule of thirds" is not taught by the training agency, there is nothing in the scenario that precludes that possibility. It depends on how much pressure was in the cylinder to start with and how far along in the dive we were. Remember, I am at a theoretical 1400 psi as we are about to ascend, not when we turn around. Let us say for the sake of argument that the water was cold and the fill was hot, so we departed with 2800 psi, dropped to the bottom, swam out some distance, turned around at 2000 psi and used 600 psi on the return swim.

When a C-F happens to you, it will depend on how badly you violated rules of conservatism as to whether you live to dive another day.

I suppose the ultimate rule of conservatism is to just stay on shore. But that wouldn't be any fun, now would it? ;-)

 

[triton94949]

Unfortunately, that would not be diving within the limits of my training. I am trained and certified to dive to 100 feet on air, not nitrox. Many agencies teach diving to 100' on air, so I think the scenario is valid.

Depending on what exactly was entangled, it might be possible to ditch the gear. Is this what you are suggesting? I guess that leads to a whole new set of questions about what is and is not safer. That will depend a lot on what sort of environmental protection he is wearing and how closely I calculated my weighting, won't it? If we are in 7mil suits and my buddy is wearing a weight integrated BC, life could become interesting in a real hurry. Which is worse, blowing a few minutes of deco, or doing a polaris in the last 30 feet?

Ignoring for a moment that "rule of thirds" is not taught by the training agency, there is nothing in the scenario that precludes that possibility. It depends on how much pressure was in the cylinder to start with and how far along in the dive we were. Remember, I am at a theoretical 1400 psi as we are about to ascend, not when we turn around. Let us say for the sake of argument that the water was cold and the fill was hot, so we departed with 2800 psi, dropped to the bottom, swam out some distance, turned around at 2000 psi and used 600 psi on the return swim.

I suppose the ultimate rule of conservatism is to just stay on shore. But that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?

If I myself believed in the ultimate rule of conservatism, I would never leave my house. I would definitely not drive my car. And I would not go scuba diving. Ergo I do not believe in being ultimately conservative. I do believe in diving smart however.

Air diving to 100 ft may be taught by Santa Claus or the Tooth Faerie. That does not make it smart, in this day and age of nitrox availability.

Running OOA with a deco obligation is the most unsafe scenario that I can think of in any intanglement situation. Any alternative seems more safe to me than that, comparatively speaking.

Rule of Thirds is not a bad rule for extreme NDL diving. A good Open Water Instructor will mention this in a Basic Open Water course to students. It comes in the lecture on setting reserves and turn around points. My definition of extreme NDL diving is anytime you are pushing the NDLs or going as deep as 100 ft.

100 ft is as deep as I go, unless I have my twin tanks on and a deco plan on my wrist slate. And deeper than 50 ft I am sure to be using nitrox. Deeper than 100 ft and I am sure to be using trimix.

 

[spearfisherman55]

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[pt40fathoms]

My OW instructor told us that cave divers use the rule of 3rds.

When we plan a dive with decompression involved, we use the rule of thirds. It's not a cave thing; it's a safety thing.

You learn that after you have been certified as a Deep diver, Nitrox diver, have over 25 dives below 100 feet after certification, have reached at least 18 years of age, have a minimum of 100 logged dives, and have taken a technical diving course like PADI's TecDeep course. Taking the course does not guarantee certification though, it is one of the few courses that the instructor will fail you and tell you to come back for such things as not having sufficient buoyancy control skills.

You are a long way from this point! First off you need to be present on this planet for a few more revolutions around our little star we call the Sun. So far you can only count 15 trips around the Sun, you need to count at least 3 more. It sucks, but it’s reality. Secondly, you need to ensure that when that date comes, you have not damaged your body. That means eating right, exercising regularly, keep away from synthetic and organic substances that cause damage (drugs) and keeping Nitrogen absorption to your bones at a greatly reduced rate than what you have been recently.

Your enthusiastic, that’s great, but enthusiasm without knowledge will hurt you. You now have been informed by many people, about what can happen to you, and how it is hurting you in ways you cannot feel. That is the knowledge part. Put it to good use and dive smart.