Should I feel as safe as I do?

[Doc]

I think you've gotten some brilliant advice so far.

Add this to the mix:

Limits, all well and good, but in such considerations, do not become bogged down in raw absolute numbers. Depths, times, mph of current, whatever.

Each step in diving, beginning with the pool work in 3 feet of fresh chlorinated heated water, to the sports extreme- If you need an example- diving in 3 m.p.h. current through lava tubes... each step that you challenge your abilities with must be a considered task.

Today, a moored boat dive. Then maybe drift diving. Shore dive? They're all different!

A diver with 400 dives at a resort in the Caribbean an expert? Yes, at that location!

Listen to dive briefings as if your life depended upon it.

It does.

 

[Calvinandhobbs]

To anyone interested, the book I mentioned is "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. Here's the link to find it on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/03...f=pd_bbs_1/002-5872420-8520820?_encoding=UTF8

 

[ItsBruce]

Life is full of risk. To live life one must manage that risk. Identify the risk, then decide if the risk is worth the reward. Consider the turtle: To get ahead it must stick out its neck. The number of dive injuries is small compared to the number of dives made. But each person must decide the risk/reward of diving. I'll keep diving.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Most of us "experienced" divers are experienced at doing dives where little or nothing goes wrong. It's great if nothing goes wrong because your good habits and techniques prevented it but sometimes that isn't the case and it's just because nothing went wrong.

As we dive more we tend to extend our limits as our comfort increases but is that increased comfort really justified? Has our skill increased along with our comfort or are we getting more comfortable because nothing has gone wrong? Based on my own observations, I think there are many cases where the increased comfort isn't justified. As an example, I've seen many divers diving pretty deep displaying the same sloppy, unskilled diving that they did shallow. Their skill level had obviously not increased yet they apparently gained comfort by having survived the shallow dives. They'll survive the deep dives too as long as nothing goes wrong. However, if something goes wrong on any dive, even a shallow dive, their chances might not be as good as they think regardless of how comfortable they are.

I can think of many examples of accidents that just seem like they shouldn't have happened where and how they did given the divers "apparent" skill and experience level.

Of course you should skip a dive if you don't "feel" good about it but "comfort" and "feeling good" are emotions and our risk management should be based on more than emotion.

I see a huge difference between taking advantage of the low probability that a problem will occur and having a high probability of being able to actively avoid or manage a problem should it occur. I think the former is more common than the later and is exploited both by individual divers and the dive industry as a whole. The "deep" diver that I mentioned above could get wacked almost as easily at 20 ft as they could at 100 ft. They just don't know it. I have no doubt that they are comfortable but that doesn't mean that we won't be reading about them.