Mr Chattertons Self Reliance Article...

[TSandM]

Dan, I think it's just cultural.

 

[Tessunderwater]

Hi all,

My names Pete and I am a new diver (Certified in August 2012). 6 open water with 22 deep tank. (I will get into the deep tank number a little later on) Reason 6, is down to the fact that I live in Alberta and don't get to the mountains very often because of a ridiculous work schedule. (Poor excuse I know)

I have read the "Who is responsible for what" Article by Jim Lapenta and I find myself in total agreeance with Jim as to the responsibilities of each individual.

Having just read John Chatterton's excellent article on Tech Diving and Self Reliance, I find myself very much in agreeance with John also.


Back to Diving:
On the Open Water course I was instructed time and time again to "practice, practice, practice because no one is coming to get you". Familiarize your self with equipment until operation and placement become's part of the muscle memory pattern.You have to be able to get yourself out of the situation that has arisen, either as a result of your actions or through those that are outside your sphere of immediate control. Maintain a good buoyancy control.




Now, when I dive I take planning exceptionally seriously.
I dive my plan and do not deviate from it.
My contingency plans are strictly adhered to and reviewed thoroughly with my buddy pre dive.
Even though I am in the company of another Human Being, in my head I plan the dive to include them, to help them if necessary , but I am always cognisant that I am the one who will get me out of trouble.

The reason for this post is, I think, that new divers believe a DM / DCS / Instructor is there , exclusively to save your ass and they are NOT. I read this quite a lot on ScubaBoard.

Is it a failing on the part of the training agencies ?
No I wouldn't say so. Purely because I am a new diver.

I think that people in general are "Coddled" in to a position of comfort and require that position of comfort in every part of life, so they place far too much reliance on another Human Being to assist when they should not, necessarily, have been in that position in the first place, either because they don't have the Mental drive for it or the Skill set or both.

I do not yet know which path I wish to travel down within the sphere of Diving, Technical Wrecks have always appealed for the physical size, historical aspect, Human essence and the commitment required. We will see. I am in control of my own Ego enough to say I am NO WHERE NEAR where I need to be to make those kinds of dives.

Once I am confident in my progressed abilities, possibly another 100 to 150 dives as an OW Diver, I will seek the critique of other Instructors so they can tell me exactly how I need to improve to get to where I wish to be within Diving.

Take from the above ramblings recreational divers (if there is anything to take at all):

Technical divers plan everything, they have to, life utterly depends on it.

Don't RELY on another human being to save your life.
Do it yourself: If the answer to that statement is "How"? then why are you in the water?

Stay safe all and hopefully some of this made sense.

Pete.

Pete I think you have a great attitude getting into this sport and I agree, we need to be responsible for ourselves. I found Chatterton's article very refreshing, not everyone will agree but thats ok, afterall this is a forum for opinions and discussion . What I took form Chatterton's article is that every diver should be self sufficent and be able to get themselves out of a hairy situation in the event that no one else was around to help them. Now I have helped my buddies out of minor situations before because I was there and it is nice to have someone help you out. I also agree that to a point when most divers first get certified (including myself), we have a tendency to maybe use our buddy as a security blanket. However, as we get the "training wheels" removed and we dive more and get more confident in our own skills, that sense changes.
On the other side of the coin, all our training that we go through from open water to deep tech\wreck prepares us to 1. Prevent situations from happening. and 2. Be able to handle situations that come up that you may come across: regulator free flow etc...
Thank you for your post Pete and I hope you continue to do well and find enjoyment in diving that everyone on this forum shares.

 

[danvolker]

Just a diving cultural difference. Wreck diving was solo diving, buddies were the exception rather than the rule.

We have awesome deep wrecks in Palm Beach, and off of fort Pierce, and off of Fort Lauderdale. We have always dived these in buddy teams.
I imagine back around 1990, when diving a silty wreck, and when most wreck divers were constantly kicking into the bottom and stirring up silt, that having a buddy with you would mean much worse silting and poorer vis, than you would have solo. This would have been worse in the NE than in Florida, as you have a siltier environment in the NE....( we do have silt in our wrecks....but probably not as bad as in some NE wrecks).... Today is a different scenario than the early 90's though, because whether a North Eastern diver, or a Florida diver, all of us are supposed to be able to dive over a muddy and silty bottom, without leaving a silt trail. All of us should have undergone a major evolution in dive skills since 1997 or so--when the ideas of neutral bouyancy and trim began to make the mainstream....
So maybe this is a cultural event caused by the historical issue of silting, even though it is really no longer an issue????

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Buoyancy and trim are still critical aspects. But when you are trying to grab an artifact out of the silt it's better to not have to worry about someone else. Have to remember that the idea on many of these dives is to come back with more stuff than you went down with. I don't see many examples of cave divers diving with hammers, chisels, and crowbars in addition to cameras. Perfect neutral buoyancy is not always desirable when trying to pry a porthole loose or break the bolts holding a telegraph in place so you can raise it. It is often not about just looking at things. It's about bringing those things back up. So yeah, there is a cultural aspect to this as well. Caves last thousands of years. Wrecks in the great lakes hundreds. In the North Atlantic maybe decades and salvage is still an acceptable goal. It's the main reason I want to dive them. To have stuff to hang on the wall and put on my shelves.

 

[billgraham]

We have awesome deep wrecks in Palm Beach, and off of fort Pierce, and off of Fort Lauderdale. We have always dived these in buddy teams.
I imagine back around 1990, when diving a silty wreck, and when most wreck divers were constantly kicking into the bottom and stirring up silt, that having a buddy with you would mean much worse silting and poorer vis, than you would have solo. This would have been worse in the NE than in Florida, as you have a siltier environment in the NE....( we do have silt in our wrecks....but probably not as bad as in some NE wrecks).... Today is a different scenario than the early 90's though, because whether a North Eastern diver, or a Florida diver, all of us are supposed to be able to dive over a muddy and silty bottom, without leaving a silt trail. All of us should have undergone a major evolution in dive skills since 1997 or so--when the ideas of neutral bouyancy and trim began to make the mainstream....
So maybe this is a cultural event caused by the historical issue of silting, even though it is really no longer an issue????

Hey Dan, I started wreck diving by myself and continued progressing that way for a number of years until I started cave diving. At that point, I was forced into team diving and I actually like it now. If I had it to do all over again, I probably would have done that training earlier on. If I can find someone to dive with who's on my plan on a wreck dive, I think it's great to have a friend along. If not, I'm still perfectly happy by myself. Cave diving, I like to have a good friend with me. I think that having an absolute dependance on anything in diving (incuding buddies) is a mistake. Redundant brains are good, but yours still has to work all by itself.

 

[danvolker]

Hey Dan, I started wreck diving by myself and continued progressing that way for a number of years until I started cave diving. At that point, I was forced into team diving and I actually like it now. If I had it to do all over again, I probably would have done that training earlier on. If I can find someone to dive with who's on my plan on a wreck dive, I think it's great to have a friend along. If not, I'm still perfectly happy by myself. Cave diving, I like to have a good friend with me. I think that having an absolute dependance on anything in diving (incuding buddies) is a mistake. Redundant brains are good, but yours still has to work all by itself.

Bill,
This thread did not get crazy over buddy versus solo.
If that was all this was about, I would have made my one or two posts about the Team version of the issue, and the annoyance factor of my posting, would have been finished for the thread.

What made this thread confrontational and upsetting was "an interpretation" I and several others had of the Chatterton Article, focusing on "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF".

What most on Scubaboard DON'T KNOW, is that there WAS a movement where many in the Dive Industry DID PUSH the "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF" concept back in the early and mid 90's......the your air is your air, etc. This was not just Chatterton, and not just Rennaker...there were plenty saying this... and Chatterton did not accidentally just touch on this verbiage now.....and he should clearly have figured out what the potential feedback would be from this agenda now, given how it played in the past.

NOW all of a sudden, several want to suggest that Chatterton did not really mean this, and on and on, with how mean and nasty Dan Volker was for not letting Chatterton say his piece about whatever he wanted to...they would have wanted me to be political, and to say that he has a right to say what he wants.
Now some are saying I am an Internet Bully. This is ridiculous.
With the exception of Chatterton who is new here, ppretty much everyone in this thread knows I get my chain pulled by someone, almost any time I open my mouth.... I don't get away with anything, and I am certainly not leading any wolfpacks.....

Scubaboard is unique in Discussion groups, in the very large body of frequent posters that will constantly weigh in on what they think, and disagree the moment they see it is called for. In the case of Chatterton, I think that because some see him as a "famous author", and a famous diver, that he should be allowed to push his agenda, and be treated more kindly and gently than each of us treats each other. We should try and be PC with him.....


I don't like being Politically Correct.
Christmas is always going to be Christmas, and those who don't like it should leave the US.
If I think a certain behavior is going to kill people, then I am going to let everyone involved know this is what I think---and the offending party will not be given any special rights by me-that's not my job....My job is to do what I think is right.... That will not change, not ever. Some people will decide they can't stand me or my posting from this. Fine, I don't need to post in a vain attempt for popularity.
I am not trying to sell instruction or a book either.

While I have annoyed some people on Scubaboard in the past, within thousands of posts, this is the only time I can recall where a confrontation of this level has occurred. And what I am saying, is that I had no choice but to refuse the PC route. Once more, this WAS NOT BUDDY VERSUS SOLO.

This was a big confrontation ONLY because of the "Every Man for himself stuff"....

 

[CT-Rich]

Humph.... part of the problem is that people have been throwing out impossible hypotheticals to support there arguements. Chatterton was talking about a solo dive on the Andrea Doria and his practice of self reliance in his gear. 100 ft inside the Doria, John was not going to get mugged for his regulator. Won't happen. However, on that dive if another diver with a problem had jumped him for his air. John does have a right to protect his air supply. A diver diving a different profile has different needs and Deco obligations. John's problem is that he has to worry about his own deco obligations and knows what they are and how much gas he left to complete his dive safely. If you are his buddy, and there is an "event" I am sure that John is not going to simply let you die, from what I have read about him he is not that kind of guy (highly respected Viet-nam medic). More than likely there is a solution that does not require a Mike Nelson style of knife fight...

I say event, because in deep dive like being discussed, no one allowed in the water in 200+ fsw is going to just burn through their air. Bad things happen but it is seldom a single problem, almost always a combination of problem that lead to a fatality. Saying he is operating exlusively on 'every man for himself' mentality is a unfair. He was writing about self reliance and his personal phylosophy of diving. I would be careful before interpreting 'the this is my air not yours' as being the only message he was espousing.

The big message I read out of the article was to PLAN the dive and NOT DIVE BEYOND YOUR PERSONAL LIMITATIONS. The fact that some one as well known as he is does not dive like he is Superman, and worries that a buddy might inadvertently pressure him into diving a situation he is uncomfortable with says a lot about why he has been as successful as he is. Aside from the particulars of the advanced dives he does, these are core messages that I figure most instructors should support.

I also noted that there is a lot to be said about buddies and team diving. A group of divers that train for tech and caves together is different than a couple of people that like to go out and dive together. I consider myself a good diver, but when I am tooling around in the water with a friend we are buddies, not a team. I am 100% willing to help them as needed. I completely expect that I will need to be self reliant in the event of a problem. I expect they will look at diving the same way. If we had been practicing cave or wreck penetrations to accomplish a common goal, then I would consider us a team. I would still be planning on being self reliant. In any event the expectations about air sharing are clear at the outset.

As I said in an earlier post I understand his rational for diving the Andrea Doria the way he did and admit that I would not make that particular dive. I would like some day to have the proficiency to dive the Doria, but am not there so I am in no position to be critical about his INFORMED choices.

---------- Post added February 17th, 2013 at 06:06 PM ----------

....If this was a solo diving scenario, and I was solo diving when I saw this guy, and had plenty of gas myself, because I am a freediver also, it would be a simple matter to give him my tank and to free ascend---he would hang on to my float line, and I would bring the boat back to him with more gas.


In fact, in over 40 years of diving, I have never witnessed anything remotely resembling this, so it is kind of a silly hypothetical...one really unlikely to occur.

Glad to hear that you acknowledge the absurdity of to the above scenario.

....The far greater liklihood, would be a recreational diver seeing a bad tech diver that was penetrating a 100 foot wreck, and who stayed in much too long trying for artifacts....now on exiting, they are terrified of the deco obligation they are no where near.

The recreational diver SHOULD be able to get them a line if they don't have one, then either solo or buddy team SHOULD be able to get to the boat, get a tank from the boat back to the diver in trouble. It would be hard to imagine a scenario where a diver would have to give up their own tank and to free ascend...that would be a one in a billion chance, of anything ever calling for it...in other words, even for scubaboard hypotheticals, it would be unlikely...However, the DUTY to help if you can, does exist. The DUTY is not to get yourself killed in the assisting, and in my response to the original hypothetical, this would have been a zero threat problem for me on a no deco dive....

And don't worry, while I have a DM cert, along with being a freediver and tech diver, I do not act as a DM on any boats.

The concern about this scenario is that you might actually get close to this dangerously stupid person. How do you know what his deco obligation is? Is he approaching you? how is his demenor? is he panicking? If he is diving a wreck tech he should have a redundent back-up?

Multiple deaths in open water usually revolve around one panicked diver.

 

[DaleC]

I think the message was also: don't do deep technical dives like someone is going to come save you - that mindset is dangerous. Even if one is part of a well functioning team, each should conduct themselves in such a way that they don't put risk stress on the others by needing a rescue.

It's not every man for himself; it's every man responsible for himself. There is an important difference in that message.

 

[BlackPatch]

Bill,
This thread did not get crazy over buddy versus solo.
If that was all this was about, I would have made my one or two posts about the Team version of the issue, and the annoyance factor of my posting, would have been finished for the thread.

What made this thread confrontational and upsetting was "an interpretation" I and several others had of the Chatterton Article, focusing on "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF".

What most on Scubaboard DON'T KNOW, is that there WAS a movement where many in the Dive Industry DID PUSH the "EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF" concept back in the early and mid 90's......the your air is your air, etc. This was not just Chatterton, and not just Rennaker...there were plenty saying this... and Chatterton did not accidentally just touch on this verbiage now.....and he should clearly have figured out what the potential feedback would be from this agenda now, given how it played in the past.

NOW all of a sudden, several want to suggest that Chatterton did not really mean this, and on and on, with how mean and nasty Dan Volker was for not letting Chatterton say his piece about whatever he wanted to...they would have wanted me to be political, and to say that he has a right to say what he wants.
Now some are saying I am an Internet Bully. This is ridiculous.
With the exception of Chatterton who is new here, ppretty much everyone in this thread knows I get my chain pulled by someone, almost any time I open my mouth.... I don't get away with anything, and I am certainly not leading any wolfpacks.....

Scubaboard is unique in Discussion groups, in the very large body of frequent posters that will constantly weigh in on what they think, and disagree the moment they see it is called for. In the case of Chatterton, I think that because some see him as a "famous author", and a famous diver, that he should be allowed to push his agenda, and be treated more kindly and gently than each of us treats each other. We should try and be PC with him.....


I don't like being Politically Correct.
Christmas is always going to be Christmas, and those who don't like it should leave the US.
If I think a certain behavior is going to kill people, then I am going to let everyone involved know this is what I think---and the offending party will not be given any special rights by me-that's not my job....My job is to do what I think is right.... That will not change, not ever. Some people will decide they can't stand me or my posting from this. Fine, I don't need to post in a vain attempt for popularity.
I am not trying to sell instruction or a book either.

While I have annoyed some people on Scubaboard in the past, within thousands of posts, this is the only time I can recall where a confrontation of this level has occurred. And what I am saying, is that I had no choice but to refuse the PC route. Once more, this WAS NOT BUDDY VERSUS SOLO.

This was a big confrontation ONLY because of the "Every Man for himself stuff"....

Dan,

This thread, was about Mr Chattertons Article.

Have you read my opening post?

If you had, you would realize it is little to do with "Everyman for him self" from my aspect... My point was that Recreational divers could take a thing or two from Technical divers be they Solo or be they Team Oriented.....For one, being able to help themselves and not believe the DM / INSTRUCTOR is there exclusively to save your ass.

You are linking this post to Chattertons Article. of which I have Dr Rich to thank for that as it has derailed what I talked about.

I PM'd Guy Shockey about GUE as, due to my background, it makes some sense to me. Understand this though..You BELIEVE the Team Dynamic is the best way possible to dive. Fair and Good. Others do not. Live with it.

I Hope G Shockey and GUE can prove that to me. As we stand now Dan, I will focus on my skills independently yet I will train to look after another person if they require it.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

I'm still waiting for any objective evidence that the issue here is that an otherwise renowned wreck diver had terrible buoyancy and therefore defaulted to solo diving. Quite unlike all GUE divers, who are just per se better divers and would never silt so long as they had any clearance at all.

Volker's continuing attempts to smear the skills of a class of others by unsubstantiated generalizations are both contemptuous, and facially laughable. Seriously, nobody knew about buoyancy and trim and silting back then? They just couldn't figure it out, even though any diver with any innate feel for the water at all figures it out pretty quickly?

Nobody's gotten that much smarter since 1991. More standardized and refined, yes. But the basics of not silting up a wreck you're penetrating without a line? Yeah, no.