Question Practicing Out Of Air ascent: good idea, or bad idea ?

[Doc Jai]

The reason I practice it is that I almost always dive solo and rarely below 30 feet these days. I don't look at it as a means of escaping an OOA situation, but as a means of getting up should an unlikely "catastrophic" equipment failure occur (ie. hose ruptures, reg doesn't free flow that one rare time, etc.).
I see no disadvantage having it in my tool box. Of course you never hold your breath, but that's a given.
I've never had an ear problem surfacing several times (CESA or not) from 20-30 feet to check location (and I usually do this on most dives). But, everyone's ears differ.

I often dive solo but for redundancy I either dive side mount or if that's impractical I dive back mount single tank but have a pony bottle as well. That way you have true redundancy in event of a failure of a single tank or any component that's part of it. I've performed CESA'a with students but do not make it a regular habit. I'd suggest you think about complete redundancy if you solo dive- better option IMO.

 

[Divedoggie]

I don't believe that practicing skills correctly is a bad thing. However, after doing well over a thousand CESAs in my teaching career, I'd prefer NOT to do them.
If you want to practice without risk, try doing it positively buoyant on the surface and swim horizontally. Mimic releasing air from the BCD and control your speed and exhale continuously. You may find that you can go well over 100'
Proper gas management and gas redundancy are proactive, but not guarantees that an emergency accent will never be needed. Equipment failure or another unforeseen circumstance is unlikely, but I've seen it happen.

 

[TMHeimer]

I often dive solo but for redundancy I either dive side mount or if that's impractical I dive back mount single tank but have a pony bottle as well. That way you have true redundancy in event of a failure of a single tank or any component that's part of it. I've performed CESA'a with students but do not make it a regular habit. I'd suggest you think about complete redundancy if you solo dive- better option IMO.

Of course. I practice CESA from 30 feet because that's the usual deepest I dive these days. When deeper, I have my pony. Practice still can't hurt. I asked my AOW instructor what do you do if you're out of air at 90 feet with no redundant air? He said you do a CESA anyway.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

Couple thoughts for the OP:
1. Neutral buoyancy is probably more important than practice on this one. If you're always bouncing along the bottom and suddenly are OOA, you're going to have to swim that rig up. That may not be doable.

2. Always remember to stop, think and then act. When you're first OOA, evaluate options quickly and then do what you're trained to do. In my neck of the woods we had an experienced diver who died from lung overexpansion when they ascended from 60' in a rush because they had a (rare) first stage failure. I don't know the whole story, but I think there was a buddy at least within 60'. And they held their breath. It wasn't being OAA that killed them, but panicking in response and breath-holding. And this was not a newby.....

 

[johndiver999]

Couple thoughts for the OP:
1. Neutral buoyancy is probably more important than practice on this one. If you're always bouncing along the bottom and suddenly are OOA, you're going to have to swim that rig up. That may not be doable.

2. Always remember to stop, think and then act. When you're first OOA, evaluate options quickly and then do what you're trained to do. In my neck of the woods we had an experienced diver who died from lung overexpansion when they ascended from 60' in a rush because they had a (rare) first stage failure. I don't know the whole story, but I think there was a buddy at least within 60'. And they held their breath. It wasn't being OAA that killed them, but panicking in response and breath-holding. And this was not a newby.....

No; if you are bouncing along the bottom, you might just need to drop lead. Probably a lot smarter than swimming super hard to get the ascent started. This really should be obvious.

Having to flare at the end of the ascent is less troubling to me than overexerting while on the bottom with nothing to breathe.

 

[happy-diver]

This cesa business is a very bad idea

Hi I'm diver boy, do do do diving diving diving da da da ooh what if something scary bad happens to me
It's okay diver boy I'm CESA MAN I can leap multiple metres of water on a single exhalation and save you
Thanks CESA MAN but I do all dives with an imaginary ceiling, and I would not want you to hit your head

cesa the wrong headspace for diving

 

[GiraffeMarineSalvage]

This cesa business is a very bad idea

Hi I'm diver boy, do do do diving diving diving da da da ooh what if something scary bad happens to me
It's okay diver boy I'm CESA MAN I can leap multiple metres of water on a single exhalation and save you
Thanks CESA MAN but I do all dives with an imaginary ceiling, and I would not want you to hit your head

cesa the wrong headspace for diving

Were you lucky or were you good?

Just because you had a successful outcome, it doesn't mean you were good, you could have been lucky. Analysing how you got there, and how many others also succeeded, can help us as a community make improvements.

www.thehumandiver.com

No one "good" has an out of air emergency. Period. End stop. Sh ite happens, therefore redundancies because an ounce of prevention is with 10 pounds of cure and then some...

 

[johndiver999]

Were you lucky or were you good?

Just because you had a successful outcome, it doesn't mean you were good, you could have been lucky. Analysing how you got there, and how many others also succeeded, can help us as a community make improvements.

www.thehumandiver.com

No one "good" has an out of air emergency. Period. End stop. Sh ite happens, therefore redundancies because an ounce of prevention is with 10 pounds of cure and then some...

In recreational diving we are ostensibly supposed to RELY on a buddy; so in order to be "good", apparently not only am I supposed to be perfect, but so is my buddy? Seems like a pretty narrow stance.

Is a corollary to this concept the fact that "No good divers get bent" ?

The whole idea of denouncing others as "not good" has very little utility anyway, we are all sinners and everyone has a bad day, now and then.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

No; if you are bouncing along the bottom, you might just need to drop lead. Probably a lot smarter than swimming super hard to get the ascent started. This really should be obvious.

Having to flare at the end of the ascent is less troubling to me than overexerting while on the bottom with nothing to breathe.

Absolutely, that is the correct action in that situation. But it is less preferable to a CESA (if you can manage it). You're in an out of control ascent if you drop lead and at greater risk of DCS.Bouncing along the bottom makes the situation riskier than it needs to be.

But 100% agreement that dropping lead is a better alternative to drowning. We can fix bent on the surface more easily than dead underwater.

Related to that, I tell students that if they ever have to do a real-life CESA, don't mess around with oral inflation at the surface. Just drop lead. It's far less stressful than trying to orally inflate, and presumably you're already out of breath and likely panicked.

 

[GiraffeMarineSalvage]

In recreational diving we are ostensibly supposed to RELY on a buddy; so in order to be "good", apparently not only am I supposed to be perfect, but so is my buddy? Seems like a pretty narrow stance.

Is a corollary to this concept the fact that "No good divers get bent" ?

The whole idea of denouncing others as "not good" has very little utility anyway, we are all sinners and everyone has a bad day, now and then.

Nobody's perfect, but "good" buoyancy control, gas planning, redundancies, and not panicking deserve much more focus than CESA (or honestly 'always relying on your buddy' dogma, which should really be more of a "trust but verify," it's absolutely important to be a good dive buddy but relying on a small pony bottle trump's a dive buddy that may be unable to help for countless reasons...).
In theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice, practice and theory can diverge dramatically... In terms of practicing CESA, I personally believe simply practicing controlled ascents without an imaginary emergency is preferable.
(Just my two cents, and as a side note, I fully recognize a great diver can get bent...)