Same topic...New Thread.....Deep Air, Strokes, ect....

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Originally posted by livestodive
Well I am a stroke and that really bothers me as being classified as anything other than a new diver trying to learn a sport.

Then quit classifying yourself :D

BTW you don't qualify for the title *stroke*....
You are both *new* and *still learning*...
By your own admission!
 
I will have to concur with the Pugster on this. If using this term upsets the DIR crowd, than I won't use it. (Even if I am a stroke :tease: )

As for flames... you probably don't know what they are, 'cause they are not tolerated here. Period! Heated and passionate debate is OK (especially since I am almost always right :tease: )But, there is never any excuse for flaming (insulting, cursing, wishing ill upon) someone else. You can't even use words like **** or **** or **** or even *************** on this board without us mods getting out our erasers and leaving little birdy poops on the letters.

Thank goodness that we very rarely ever have to exercize our little birdy poopers or delete a bunch of epithets. Us Mods are a lazy bunch... it's why we are such good divers!
 
Well put, Jim. It's nice to see someone else recognizes that my shirt is green, after all. :(

livestodive, you're not a stroke. A stroke is one who knows better, but does worse. If you're still learning, you can't be a stroke, by definition. We all have to start somewhere.

I will also add that I am the "serious technical diver" that said recreational diving isn't dangerous. Please let me clarify that: it's a matter of degree. If you're breathing compressed gas underwater, you're certainly in more danger than you are sitting in your armchair watching the boob tube. On the other hand, the risks in rec diving are as minimal as diving risks come. The risks become exponentially greater when you add, for example, a decompression obligation or overhead. Those with experience diving in these extremely risky situations get a little fast and loose with the term 'risk' after a while.

It's tough to quantify risks in this game, but here's my "gut feeling:"

Risk: Activity
1: Sitting in the armchair. A reference risk.
4: Diving recreationally, with some modest experience.
10: Driving a car.
500: Deco diving, with modest experience.
5,000: Diving in an overhead.

If you wonder why overhead diving is, IMO, ten times more risky than deco diving, remember that you can survive the bends -- but you can't survive drowning.

I don't have any hard statistics at hand to accurately quantify the risks, but I feel you're at least 5,000 times more likely to die cave diving than sitting in your armchair. If you get accustomed to dealing with that kind of risk, it becomes automatic to start considering armchair-sitting and rec-diving to be, by comparison, basically equivalent risks -- hence my statement that rec diving is "not dangerous."

I'll put quotes around it next time. :wink:

- Warren
 
Hope that I didn't offend you, I probably shouldn't have quoted somthing posted. What I meant to show was that with certifying agencies doing so as young as 10 yrs old. All of us should be careful how somthing is written. Having had 3 10 yr olds in my lifetime I can assure you that the quotes would not deter what they wanted to read from that. ROFL my 20 yr old son would read it the same way now as he did at 10 if He was caught doing somthing unacceptable. Lots of lurkers out there was what I meant. I can see now how hard it is to type somthing so that it is not offensive.

Again I hope that i didn't offend, none was meant. I tried to make light of it using my self analsys as I did.
 
Jim,

Where we have "disagreed" in the past on several boards it has always been more in terminology than philosophy.

I was occasionally diving in caves BEFORE the rules were developed. I didn't like it then, but we were all that was available to pull the bodies out. Nobody was happier for the development of the "public safety diver" than those of us who had been "picking up the litter" as volunteer labor via the local dive club! As a result of that experience I have absolutely _zero_ interest in going back into a significant overhead of any kind. I was aquatinted with some of the folks that died back in the 60s and 70s and helped "develop" the cave diver's rules. Those rules are hard won, largely paid for in dead divers. IMNSHO those rules, and the reasons for the rules, should be engraved in every diver's heart that moves beyond the range of natural light! 'Nuf said.

Beyond that I believe the "Rules" of diving should be based on experience and/or reproducible physics, not based upon a training agency's lawyer's opinion as a 'one size fits all" rule. Only by educating divers concerning the physics of hyperbarics and hyperbaric physiology will the sport remain both free and safe. EVERY dive, be it in an overhead environment or not, HAS to be evaluated on it's own as to risks/benefits with the complete understanding of the physics, conditions, and experience of the diver's involved. Regrettably many newer divers have no clue as to how the physics applies to them, because it was never presented to them during the instruction phase of their diving history. Many were simply taught a series of stand-alone "rules" that may or may not apply to dive being planned. This "short cut" training practice is what I do not agree with, and I fear it will eventually come back and bite us all in the butt.

FT
 
Jim I have a question for you?

I don't cave dive and know little about it. however I would like to try some caves in the Yukatan some time. and I have dove in a lot of lava tubes over the years

but back to my question.
1 - Why is there a limit to 130 depth in caves? it would seem that with the use of mixed gasses that the depth could be easily extended.

2 - the 130 ft depth is that on air, or do you put He in the bottom mix if you are going to 130ft.

3 - Is the 130ft an END or hard bottom depth

I read the post about the WKPP, but i agree they are explorers, just like wreck dives at 500ft, or deep dives at 1010ft.

this brings up another thought.
4 - if everything that WKPP is doing is taken as gospil then if they are diving deeper than 130 ft how come this is not aceptable.

5 - does GUE teach caveing deeper than 130

I know it's touchy subject to identify one group, and I don't want the answer to these questions focused on the one group. they were just pasing thoughts that are seperate than the first questions
 
Thought I'd butt in and see if I could take a stab at some of the questions you asked. I'm sure Jim (or anyone else) will correct me if I'm wrong on these:

1) The 130 figure (100 if you subscribe to the DIR philosphy and the GUE program requirements) is an Equivalent(sp) Narcotic Depth number (END). As to why is there a limit? Its a narcosis thing mainly. Being whacked out in a cave would not be an experience I would want to be part of.

2) Yes, caves get deeper than 130/100ffw and people are actively diving them recreationally and exploring the depth deeper than that. They do this with Trimix with an END 100' or shallower.

3) Almost all of the WKPP dives are deeper than 100'. If I'm not mistaken the entrance to the cave a Wakulla is around 190' or so (I may be off, but I remember that number from talking with one of the gas divers).

4) Yes, GUE teaches trimix. The Cave 2 (and Tech 1) courses employ normoxic trimix (21/35) for depths to 150'.

Hope this answers your questions. Feel free to ask for clarification etc.

--Patrick
 
So the 130 feet is the END limit not the depth limit correct
 
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