Skin diving around divers on a safety stop

[jaymal]

My girlfriend is going to school in Grenada and went diving a couple weekends back with a group from the school. She and her dive buddy were in the middle of their 3 minute safety stop at ~15 feet. A diver who went up earlier and had already gotten out of his BC dove down and swam around them much like I suppose a sea lion would here off California's coast. While swimming around the fellow (I hesitate to call him a diver) actually borrowed a couple breaths of air from an octo.

This all seems a bit fool hardy and the young fellow would have gotten a tongue lashing from me but I am curious as to how dangerous this sort of playing around is.

Thoughts?

 

[Riger]

Seems to defeat the idea of a safety stop ..... (for the skinner I mean)

 

[stefo2]

Two things to consider here which may pose a danger:
Depending on the dive profile, the guy may have had sufficient nitrogen loading to make skin diving to some depth not recommendable. The nitrogen in his body gets compressed when diving down and may form bubbles on a quick ascened typical for skin divers.
And secondly, taking a breath at depth, even just a few metres, and then holding your breath, which I suppose he did, is never a good idea, for obvious reasons.

 

[24940]

This all seems a bit fool hardy and the young fellow would have gotten a tongue lashing from me but I am curious as to how dangerous this sort of playing around is.
Thoughts?

Under proper conditions, it can result in DCS or a barotrauma injury, but I think the greatest danger is someone ignorant seeing it done and thinking it is a cool idea.

It serves no purpose, other than to warn me: "look at me, I think I'm showing you how cool I am, but I'm actually an idiot."

 

[waynel]

Yes, your girlfriend should have scolded him for all of the reasons stated above. However, what is she (or her buddy) doing giving up her octo to this clown. Divers are taught to never let someone grab a regulator. No one should ever touch your reg or octo unless you offer it. You might want to scold your girlfriend for that if it was offered. Letting a clown get that close to you while offgassing is dangerous (as well as encouraging his foolishness). You don't know if he is suddenly going to drag you up to the surface in a rapid ascent.

 

[MacYankee86]

As a diver who likes to skin dive whenever too N2 loaded or before flying, I understand wanting to hop back in the water (and wanting to borrow an octo).

Breathing from an octo at a shallow depth is not a problem if you know what you are doing, i.e. don't hold your breath on the way to the surface and plan enough breath to get back to the surface.

In addition, the water is shallow enough that the little extra N2 loading would be insignificant compared to the dive the guy just finished.

Now, as for the seal/sealion analogy, if some skin diver dove down and requested to borrow my octo, I don't think I would let him simply because he might not know what he is doing.

Also, if he was really doing the whole sea lion thing, it does come across as rather immature. I dive to see fish, coral, and the underwater environment (pictures too!) but not to see some dude playing sea lion during my safety stop.

 

[AbyssalPlains]

I'm sorry, but I don't see why this is anybody else's business except the skin diver's. No reason to be so uptight about it.

 

[SteveAD]

Look ma! No Brains!

 

[jaymal]

I'm sorry, but I don't see why this is anybody else's business except the skin diver's. No reason to be so uptight about it.

You are right. It's nobody's business until he interacts with the divers or has some kind of complication which requires the assistance of other divers.

 

[Guba]

Hey, we weren't asked if we thought it was our business (after all, we weren't there)...we were asked what we thought about the practice, and some expressed opinions. That's not uptight...it's just participating in a forum. All is well.