Sucking down a tank quickly

[fisheater]

Good for them. Do they know the skills of this diver? How does she know the OP is less skilled than the diver's they turn loose with a camera?

Like I said it, it looks like she's just trying to hold back someone else's enjoyment of the sport because she assumes new diver= bad diver.

She can tell from the OP's admission that "^ This exactly. It will take more water time. I think, how can I relax when I have to keep track of all this stuff going on, not crash into the reef and wipe out the coral, watch my air, my navigational route, worry about watching/keeping track of my dive buddy (my biggest pain in the ass pet peeve thus far), and after all that relax and watch the wildlife."

TCandM has a well-deserved reputation for ENCOURAGING divers, especially newbies. She's certainly NOT trying to "hold back someone else's enjoyment."


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[RJP]

Well, that's what you said; that you leave them to figure it out. "It" was the skills they were supposed to learn; Sit. Awareness and Bouyancy Control with a camera.

What about the hypocrisy of blasting a diver for taking a camera when his dive numbers don't match your arbitrary number when you send out your students to dive with a camera?


Right, these diver’s poor skills MUST be caused by a camera.

It can’t POSSIBLY be anything but that.

It can’t POSSIBLY be poor skills, bad instruction, lack of caring about the environment, peer pressure, or anything else!

IT MUST BE THOSE DAMN CAMERAS THEY HAVE!!! :eyeroll:

What you have is called confirmation bias. You don’t like divers with cameras, so when you see bad divers with a camera, you see it as the fault of the camera. You ignore all the good divers with cameras to focus on the bad. The truth is, with or without a camera, these divers would be just as bad.

The camera did NOT cause or contribute to their poor skills. This is a problem far larger than one piece of equipment. Take those cameras away, and they would dive exactly the same way.





Right. Because we all know that divers can be ranked ONLY by their dive numbers. A diver with 199 dives is a much, much worse diver than a diver with 200, right? Are we now going to start judging people by the number of posts they have on Scubaboard? I don’t have as many posts as you, so my advice is no good and should be discarded?

You’re just looking for ways to feel good about yourself. Congratulations. You have a lot of dives. That doesn’t make you a good diver. As I said, some divers don’t have the skills at 500-999 dives as others do at 0-24. It’s a simple fact of life.

You’re not the world’s best diver- stop trying to act like it.
You’re not the Scuba Police- stop trying to act like it. You don’t get to determine how others enjoy their hobby; so accept it.



To the OP, if you want to dive with a camera, don’t let the Scuba Police wannabes dissuade you; go for it.

[video=youtube;C6cxNR9ML8k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cxNR9ML8k[/video]

 

[T.C.]

Ahh... the favorite video of internet jerks. Here's one; right back at 'ya:

Maybe you can make it your new avatar.

She can tell from the OP's admission that "^ This exactly. It will take more water time. I think, how can I relax when I have to keep track of all this stuff going on, not crash into the reef and wipe out the coral, watch my air, my navigational route, worry about watching/keeping track of my dive buddy (my biggest pain in the ass pet peeve thus far), and after all that relax and watch the wildlife."

And? I keep track of all this stuff. So do you. So does every other diver. Tracking all this does not make someone a bad diver, or say anything about their skills. Notice how the OP didn't say that he was doing these things; just that he was "keeping track" of them.

You assumed that he said these were causing him problems that he can't deal with.

You're assuming that because he's "keeping track" of not hitting the coral-that means he's hitting it. Not true. He did not say that.
You're assuming that because he's "keeping track" of his air-that means he's not monitoring regularly. Not true. He did not say that.
You're assuming that because he's "keeping track" of his dive buddy-that means he gets separated. Not true. He did not say that.

What he said, is that he was wondering how to relax with these concerns. Nowhere did he say these were a problem for him. Nothing he said indicates bad skills, or the inability to handle something as simple as a camera.

Yet, everyone of these Scuba Cop wannabees say that he can't handle a camera because....why? Because he hasn't met some random, arbitrary number of dives? Because he's new? Because some jerk saw some bad divers once with cameras and assumes that everyone with a camera sucks?

TCandM has a well-deserved reputation for ENCOURAGING divers, especially newbies. She's certainly NOT trying to "hold back someone else's enjoyment."

She is one of the ones trying to discourage him from carrying a camera because they (who have never met the guy) assume he can't do it. It is indeed trying to hold back his enjoyment. As I said, if he wants to dive with a camera, then I feel he should go for it. It will make him a better diver.

And he shouldn't listen to all the Scuba Police wannabees telling him how to enjoy his hobby.

 

[John_B]

She is one of the ones trying to discourage him from carrying a camera because they (who have never met the guy) assume he can't do it. It is indeed trying to hold back his enjoyment. As I said, if he wants to dive with a camera, then I feel he should go for it. It will make him a better diver.

And he shouldn't listen to all the Scuba Police wannabees telling him how to enjoy his hobby.

The OP asked for opinions. So why are you the one having a meltdown?

I'm still trying to figure out your agenda, since it really doesn't have a lot to do with the OP or this thread. Was someone critical of your diving as a newish diver with a camera and that's made you hypersensitive so you feel the need to project?

 

[T.C.]

The OP asked for opinions. So why are you the one having a meltdown?

I'm still trying to figure out your agenda, since it really doesn't have a lot to do with the OP or this thread. Was someone critical of your diving as a newish diver with a camera and that's made you hypersensitive so you feel the need to project?

How is telling them to stop dictating their version of how to dive a "meltdown"?

Nice little attempt at psycho-analysis, but it's irrelevent. I don't have an agenda, other than helping the OP be a better diver? What's your "agenda" for sticking up for the Scuba Police wannabees?

But there are too many people out there trying to be the Scuba Police; those who've been diving for a while and think that gives them all the answers, and who think that their "experience" gives them the unquestionable right to tell new divers that they're not good enough. We've seen two of them.

Take TCandM. She's an "instructor", right? So who paid for her opinion on this guy's skills? When did she see him dive? Where does she get off judging his skills as inadequate for carrying something as simple as a camera, when she, herself, encourages her students to carry a camera? We have another guy with the attitude that if you don't have his number of dives, you're beneath him. He says that you need some random, made-up number of dives before you should carry a camera. That makes no sense, and both are just an attempt to put down the OP and prevent him from enjoying his hobby.

As I've always said, my message to the OP is simple. Don't listen to the Scuba Police wannabees who are trying to limit your enjoyment. If you'd like to dive with a camera, do so. It will help make you a better diver.

 

[XS-NRG]

I have just finished uploading all my dives to a new computer program and app on my iPhone which has some nice features and stats and I have been looking at my SAC rate which dictates your dive time and air usage and I thought I'd share a comparative for you to look at. I do realize all conditions and people are different so this is by no means finite but I do see the people stating the relationship between your total number of dives to your air consumption so this may be interesting for you to see.

My first dives were essentially terrible as they were training and my rate was 0.9 to 1+ (sqr FT/min) This lasted for my first 20 dives give or take. There was the odd dive that was way better and even worse but it took a good 20 dives to start to be able to do something about this. I found that buoyancy was paramount to gaining bottom time. It took another 11 dives to bring my rate down to 0.7-0.9. Another 10 more dives to bring it down to 0.5-0.6 and 7 more to get it under 0.5 with my best being 0.37. In essence it took me 46 dives to bring my rate down to a fairly good level (2000 psi used after an hour on one dive and a total dive time of 75 mins on another dive with both using AL80 tanks). This is a combination of perfect weighting, trim, buoyancy, slow breathing, no fin kicking, no sculling and using lung capacity to navigate up and down over the coral reef without touching it once. Practice practice practice. Buoyancy and consumption are the hardest skills ever in SCUBA. You have to work at it and keep it up. Don't stress after 9 dives. I was the same way and then I did something about it and I'm always working on it. Happy diving!

 

[TSandM]

I'm not an instructor. I'm a DM.

We encourage our AOW students to take the photography dive, so that they can go out on a dive with us supervising them -- which includes making sure they don't get lost, and making sure they don't lose track of how much gas they have -- so they can experience how much carrying a camera affects their nascent buoyancy skills and situational awareness. The ones who do that dive get it. They always come up saying something like, "Wow, I completely lose it when I'm trying to manage the camera, too!"

I don't know that the OP isn't God's gift to diving, and maybe he is. I have worked with enough scuba students, though, to know that that person is rare. You expressed a strong opinion that new divers should get cameras to help them lower their gas consumption. I expressed a strong opinion to the contrary, that new divers shouldn't have cameras for a variety of reasons (and I do not believe that carrying one will help one's SAC rate, as all the photographers I know agree that our gas consumption goes UP when we are photographing).

You have an absolute right to your opinion, and to voice it and defend it here, preferably with quiet, rational, cogent explanations. So do I. That's what forums are about. The readers can choose the opinions they find most compelling and best explained.

 

[freewillie]

Well, the OP stated in first post he is working on buoyancy control. Not really an assumption when the diver asking the question how to get better admits the need to work on buoyancy control.

As per DAN statistics the number one trigger for dive fatalities is either low on air emergencies and/or out of air accidents. Also, the highest group divers having fatal accidents are new divers with under 25 dives, which according to the OP is his stated number dives 0-24.

Cameras, especially point and shoot cameras are simple. That's not really the issue. The issue is that remembering to monitor your gas and your buoyancy control is a skill new divers are still trying to master. In fact, more experienced divers will often have issues gas management when cameras are involved. You sometimes get lost in waiting quietly for the right picture not wanting to move for fear of scaring the critter and then uh oh you are out of air.

Its simply advice from more experienced divers to a newbie work on buoyancy skills and gas management skills before add another variable to the dive. Go read Lessons for Life in scuba dive magazine. There is more than one archived article with an out of air fatality involving cameras. In fact a diver died about a month ago in Laguna Beach on a training dive while practicing with his new camera. Got separated from his buddy and his computer registered empty tank.

And, if the diver is already sculling with the hands to maintain buoyancy I doubt putting a camera on his wrist will automatically make it go away.

No one has been saying he should learn to use a camera, just not until gets more experience. Doesn't have to be a set number of dives, just when he gets comfortable with his skills.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Much simpler way to get a new diver to stop using their hands to swim: tell them to cross their arms and only uncross them to check computer and gauges. Works very well.

I agree, no diver should be using a camera till they have their buoyancy under control and also a very good idea of what their air consumption will be like before they even get in the water.

 

[Peter69_56]

How is telling them to stop dictating their version of how to dive a "meltdown"?

Nice little attempt at psycho-analysis, but it's irrelevent. I don't have an agenda, other than helping the OP be a better diver? What's your "agenda" for sticking up for the Scuba Police wannabees?

But there are too many people out there trying to be the Scuba Police; those who've been diving for a while and think that gives them all the answers, and who think that their "experience" gives them the unquestionable right to tell new divers that they're not good enough. We've seen two of them.

Take TCandM. She's an "instructor", right? So who paid for her opinion on this guy's skills? When did she see him dive? Where does she get off judging his skills as inadequate for carrying something as simple as a camera, when she, herself, encourages her students to carry a camera? We have another guy with the attitude that if you don't have his number of dives, you're beneath him. He says that you need some random, made-up number of dives before you should carry a camera. That makes no sense, and both are just an attempt to put down the OP and prevent him from enjoying his hobby.

As I've always said, my message to the OP is simple. Don't listen to the Scuba Police wannabees who are trying to limit your enjoyment. If you'd like to dive with a camera, do so. It will help make you a better diver.

Most divers here give advice with the best intent. I wont comment on other peoples advice, however I will comment on mine. In the main I would hope most of my comment is good and accurate, however I have said some things that in hindsight and with advice from others, is not the "best approach" and with additional advice from others, not only the OP learns but I do too. This is (I believe) the intent of this site and most of the people here.

We all want to help the OP and that is our intent. It would appear to me your approach is to attack people here and display them as "Scuba Police" and thus less than knowledgeable and so not worth listening to. I personally find this approach very offensive. I am simply here to help others with what I know and ALSO learn from others more experienced, nothing more and I believe 95% of the people here are the same. So my question to you is, are you one of the 95% or the 5% who have an axe to grind or some ego to boast about?

The OP wants advice. We all offer it and its then up to them to sift through it and take what they think is relevant. As long as we all follow the philosophy of giving advice with the best intent, the goals of this site (I believe) will be achieved.

Leave abuse and egos at the door, and talk from the heart. That's what we all want here.