TSandM:
Lynne, there is no underlying question. There is only an underlying opinion in what he writes. He's be hammering at this point for almost 10 years and there is no progression in his thinking. Once you peal away all the fluff you will find that what underlies his writing is the *total* and *utter* conviction that if you aren't DIR you can't dive.
There's nothing more to him than that. The rest is just a big smoke and mirrors show with the intent of convincing people of his opinion without actually just coming out and saying it. He's a sneaky writer and just articulate enough to get away with it. In my previous post I showed you how he uses discontinuous logic to make a logical "sounding" argument out of nothing.
Yes, that's often the case but the root of the problem is altogether misplaced in a pro-DIR/anti-DIR context, which is what Dan is doing.
The issues involved have largely to do with buddy awareness under task-loading. Taking a picture is a task. Looking for a subject to photograph is a task. Maintaining buddy-contact and awareness is a task ..... Combining these tasks isn't impossible or even difficult if you have a good buddy team with two buddies who are committed to to mission goal (taking pictures). The point is you have to be on the same page with respect to Mission goals, approach (who does what), procedures and so on. If you want to put it in a context then use that one. Getting aligned on these points is not the exclusive right of DIR divers. Everyone is free to do it.
What I see more often than not is that photographers and their buddies are not on the same page with respect to the mission. If you don't have the same goals for dive then you're going to have problems, DIR or no DIR. The whole premise of team diving rests on a couple of foundation pillars. Goals, skills, procedures, techniques, and philosophy. You need alignment on all of them to have a well oiled buddy team. You can dive safely with alignment on goals, procedures and techniques as long as the team dives at the level of the least experienced buddy. But you can't take goals out of the equation without undermining the buddy system.
This is the broken down principle that you and deepseafalcon are seeing.
Which begs the question...what's the solution?
In my mind it begins with awareness. If you are not conscious of doing something wrong then you can't fix it. If you are aware that diving with a photographer means that you (as non-photographer) will have to commit to sharing the goals of the dive then you can have the right discussion with your buddy before you're under water. Same goes for the rest of the items. Can DIR training solve the problem. Yes, partially because DIR divers are trained to pay attention to the things I mentioned. Is it the ONLY solution (as Dan would have you believe)? No.
This isn't really related to the thing about photographers but I'll go into it a bit for interest sake.
DIR is mutated Hogarthian. They share some of the same gear and principles but DIR goes much further.
Hogarthian diving rests on a small set of principles and configuration decisions:
Principles:
- Minimalism - only take what you need and nothing more
- Redundancy - if you need one take two if you don't need one don't take it. (Reduce, reduce)
- Solving one problem (in terms of gear but also procedures and techniques) should not create a new problem.
- Don't solve problems that will not occur
- divers skill and fitness is paramount to safety
- gear must be top quality and well maintained
- A similarly equipped and prepared buddy is required or it's not Hogarthian
Gear:
- Wrap the long host
- breathe the long hose
- Bungie the octopus
- one piece harness
- gear should form a cohesive unit
- no danglies
And that's pretty much it. You should recognise some of these as DIR but DIR goes much further and is much more prescriptive in terms of gear requirements, gas requirements, procedures and so forth.
R..
, and my own air supply. The latter so far never became a real problem. In earlier days I used (the now uncommon) reserve valves. For a few years I now use an air integrated computer. Really is a help in that I see air supply at the same time than dive time or depth.
