The Great Blue Hole: Business as Usual

[lostcajun]

This DOES NOT sound like Sea Sports based in Belize City. They are highly responsible and safety oriented.

 

[Laurie S.]

This DOES NOT sound like Sea Sports based in Belize City. They are highly responsible and safety oriented.

i agree, I've dived with them on three trips to date.

 

[finnks]

"So there we were, hanging out at 40msw and I was really trying to appreciate a hole in the wall. We were about to start making our way back up when Group 4 arrived at our depth. The second group had already come and gone, having made a much faster initial descent than we did. (I was taking my time and looking for sharks on the way down. Why else would I dive here?)

One of the divers from group 4 was on the instructor's octo. Let me restate that for clarity. Two divers had begun sharing air at some point on their descent to 130fsw, and one of them was ostensibly a professional."




THIS is the reason why the instructor is being flamed! The air sharing began on the descent. The instructor (and essentially, the safety diver for this dive) should have had the common sense to thumb the dive once it became necessary to share air at those depths. Period. It is never acceptable to put multiple people's life at risk just so that someone can get their "money's worth". Perhaps if 'Tim's' dive experience had been prematurely shortened, he would have learned that the next time, he better speak up and make arrangements in advance to get a larger tank or his own personal DM, otherwise he and everyone else in his dive group is going to have a crappy experience. But he didn't learn anything, except he doesn't have to be responsible for ensuring he has enough air for his dive...someone else will swoop in and save the day. How can you possibly defend the instructor's behavior?

Was it possible that the instructor was acting proactively? Just thinking that if 'AirHog' finished one tank descending, there is no way the second tank will last for two divers completing descent, bottom time, ascent and safety stop(s). Hard (though sadly not impossible) to believe anyone would subject themselves to such certainty of going OOA on a 130' dive. Have done this with my son - well before he reaches minimum gas for both of us to make a leisurely ascent he goes on my octo until it is time to ascend (based upon minimum of remaining gas, deco time, planned time or other).

 

[DiverGirl1972]

Was it possible that the instructor was acting proactively? Just thinking that if 'AirHog' finished one tank descending, there is no way the second tank will last for two divers completing descent, bottom time, ascent and safety stop(s). Hard (though sadly not impossible) to believe anyone would subject themselves to such certainty of going OOA on a 130' dive. Have done this with my son - well before he reaches minimum gas for both of us to make a leisurely ascent he goes on my octo until it is time to ascend (based upon minimum of remaining gas, deco time, planned time or other).

The fact that 'Tim' was already breathing off of everyone's octo on the way up and ended up on the hanging tank for his safety stop tells me that the "proactive" donation by the instructor was not so proactive. The instructor was likely responding to a situation that was obvious...'Tim' was well on his way to emptying his tank on the descent.

Sure, I've heard of situations where a DM/buddy might donate their octo to "level the playing field" to some degree, but I would imagine that it isn't happening at such extreme depths. In addition, I've NEVER heard of multiple divers having to donate their octos just to get one guy to the surface. I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, but if I witnessed that, I'd be finding myself another dive op moving forward.

What you do with you son is your own business, but I'm quite sure you don't start factoring in other people's air in your calculations. When others are roped in to donating their air in a preventable situation, I think it's downright negligent. If that instructor had looked to me to donate what air I had in my aluminum 80 after hitting those depths and in turn, taking away any safety cushion I had, I would have put a little distance between myself and that circus. I'm not going to become a statistic due to the stupidity of others.

 

[Griffo]

I can't believe such a tremendous air hogger exists- must have probably taken an half empty cylinder to begin with?

I teemed up with an insta-buddy once who it was explained to me was a bit of an air hog. I had an Ali 80, he had a 100CU cylinder they'd given him. I could literally hear him breath from 10m away underwater. Within 20 minutes on a dive that went no deeper than 33ft he was thumbing the dive, and this guy had 50 dives in his logbook. I doubt that guy could even do a bounce to 130ft without going OOA so I believe it.

I doubt blue-hole is the only place this goes on. I've seen dives planned for the guest to breath off the DM's octo once they reach a certain pressure.

 

[supergaijin]

You see it happen every so often that one diver will hitchhike gas from another diver to extend bottom time. There was a thread about it on SB.

Most of the time the practise is surprisingly not well thought out.

 

[Mike]

I doubt blue-hole is the only place this goes on. I've seen dives planned for the guest to breath off the DM's octo once they reach a certain pressure.

This practice is quite different when it's done with divers qualified to be on the dive they are on.

It's quite different when the dive instructor is putting together a horrible dive plan where he knowingly is taking a totally unqualified diver on a dive that is breaking a half-dozen safety standards of the certification agency they are affiliated with.

A plan that is so bad it revolves around having to start extending a divers air supply at the very start of the dive and all the way through it, and involves taking air from other buddy pairs putting the entire set of divers all at a disadvantage of safety due to a reduction in their air supplies.

The simple fact of the matter is Tim should never have been allowed on this dive, but its Belize and its the blue hole, the dive shop was not going to turn down the money, even with a diver that would be a total liability to everyone else on the dive as well as himself. The two young divers who moved away from the group were smart to do so, I'd have probably done the same, wanting nothing to do with the dive instructors planned dive of russian roulette and commandeering mine and my buddies gas supply for the sake of them making a buck.

 

[diverrex]

I don't think I'd refuse to donate air if asked by the DM but I'd be bugged that my air wasn't going towards an emergency situation, that occurred way back on the initial descent but was ignored, but rather was being used as "community" air as a regular part of the dive. What if my plan had been to do an 8 minute stop or whatever?

 

[tracydr]

I don't think I'd refuse to donate air if asked by the DM but I'd be bugged that my air wasn't going towards an emergency situation, that occurred way back on the initial descent but was ignored, but rather was being used as "community" air as a regular part of the dive. What if my plan had been to do an 8 minute stop or whatever?

I would have refused. A Cuban DM in Cozumel taught my ex-husband this very bad habit and my ex-husband very nearly bent or killed us more than once on later dives. He was such a Hoover that if we were sharing air at depth it was nearly impossible to even make a safe ascent to the surface and I'm not talking 130, I'm talking 60-100 foot dives. Plus, once he was latched onto my air supply he was in control and I wasn't. Since he had terrible judgment concerning air he'd keep us down until we were nearly out, than bolt.

 

[Peter69_56]

I would have refused. A Cuban DM in Cozumel taught my ex-husband this very bad habit and my ex-husband very nearly bent or killed us more than once on later dives. He was such a Hoover that if we were sharing air at depth it was nearly impossible to even make a safe ascent to the surface and I'm not talking 130, I'm talking 60-100 foot dives. Plus, once he was latched onto my air supply he was in control and I wasn't. Since he had terrible judgment concerning air he'd keep us down until we were nearly out, than bolt.

Clearly you were smart enough to offload him as a buddy and as a husband. If I had a partner or a buddy like that I would only dive once with them and never again. I have dived with inconsiderate air pigs before and my response once I find they are very low on air is to abort the dive and come up. I give them no choice, if they want my air they come with me or stay down without any. Then once on the deck, I refuse to dive with them again. Its one thing to run low on air and share air and come up, but another thing to run low and then expect to share air and continue the dive. My life is worth more to me than that.