The Octopus Conundrum

[Nemrod]

I was hoping that nobody would get any articles of clothing wrinkled as a result of this thread, please.

I think there is some good training today and some really horrid training. I think divers today are much more equipment dependent and I do not think that can be argued against.

I am pretty sure that I could buddy breath with a diver if I needed to, especially if I was the one donating air and I occasionally practice it. It really is not some superhuman feat of underwater godliness. The only OOA situation, me being the one OOA, was circa 1982, my wife and I out of Fort Lauderdale. About 80 feet. It is a long story but I was stone cold out of air. And being drug by the current, I had the buoy, away from my wife and the group. I released, and began an ascent when my wife saw me and hurried my way, I met her already rising and we buddy breathed until about 60 feet and then I released her and made a gentle free ascent. No, we did not have octopus rigs. it was not a big deal to anybody but the captain who raised a fuss because I went OOA. See, the problem with being relatively fit, I can also use a whole lot of air without realizing it and I did trying to pull that buoy to keep up with an errant diver in our group.

I am not sure anything with DIR has anything to do with solo. I think they are mutually exclusive. That is not a put down on the DIR system, just my take on it, one is a team diving strategy, the other is clearly not.

An octopus/second and it's fittings do, in my opinion, right or wrong, represent a decrease in reliability. It is a needed and acceptable small increase for the buddy diver because your buddy represents your redundancy and you his. But as a solo diver, there is no buddy and a free flow can empty a lot of air quickly. Nonetheless, this is something a solo diver should be able to handle or he/she should probably not be solo so I do not see it as a huge deal. For me, as a minimalist, I prefer to eliminate and streamline wherever possible and equipment that serves no purpose, no matter how small the additional risk or failure possibility, does not need to be there.

I think I got my questions answered for the time being, please feel free to continue, but boys, no hose cutting .

N

 

[DaleC]

You could take it one step further, get rid of the SPG and just run a single second, That would really freak them out.

 

[Nemrod]

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Lol, I have lost my psychic ability to fathom the contents of my tanks without my B&G spg as my Super Nemrod powers continue to diminish. I will leave that for Lloyd and you .

N

 

[DaleC]

I put a small pebble in the tank and rattle it occasionally. When it is near empty it sounds a little tinnier.

I also know what my air consumption is at certain depths and don't overly rely on the J valve. I can do 45minutes at about 50' and still have a healthy reserve and about an hour at 30. By then I am usually cold anyway. Any deeper and I slap on the SPG/pony.

 

[scubadada]

In general, divers were trained to be much more self-sufficient than buddy dependent then. Scuba 101 was on the order of 6 classroom sessions about 2 hours each, 6 pool sessions, and 6 days of diving usually including snorkeling/freediving and two tanks per day. Self-sufficiency training included real swim tests without gear, freediving (snorkeling), free ascents, mild harassment dives, buddy breathing, and sometimes bare-valve breathing. That instilled a lot of self-confidence that made panic a pretty rare event.

Physics and physiology training was also much more rigorous. It included decompression diving with repeds, “estimating” air supplies before SPGs were common, learning and applying all the gas laws by name, and pretty blunt language on the personal cost of making an error. Oxygen toxicity (pre-O2 clock), practical effects of partial pressure (pre-Nitrox but touching on HeO2), pretty complete coverage of all phases of Nitrogen Narcosis, recompression treatment, and a fair dabbling of history for perspective.

Many of us also learned about pure O2 rebreathers. Buoyancy and Archimedes principal were covered for really basic salvage as well as dealing with not having a BC. Trim was something that divers worked out on their own if they weren’t comfortable and “leaving only bubbles” was a concept that was 30-40 years in the future. Everyone saw the inside of regulators and understood how they work, practiced basic rescue skills, and learned a lot about coastal currents since very few divers had the luxury of a boat.

All this resulted in a much greater tendency to become a same-ocean buddy or solo diver, especially on the West Coast of the US where kelp and lower vis is a factor compared to Florida. Diving on the Northeast Coast of the US was relatively retarded in these early days due to thermal protection limits and less predictable seas. You had to be relatively hard-core, had far fewer diveable days, and often needed a boat for the BIG diving asset… wrecks.

So, were divers better trained when classes were much longer and equipment was not nearly as helpful? Sure in many ways, especially panic resistance. Do they have the same sensibilities of diver today? Not unless they developed them along the way. Were they fundamentally better? Hell no, given similar training time and rigor — with the possible exception of the average age entering the sport.

There is much more opportunity for additional dive training now. In fact, the only options then were join the Navy and hope you get accepted into a diving program or sign up for a commercial diving school. The problem now is the great majority of divers don’t get any additional training past OW. It is common for them to have horrible buoyancy skills because far too many instructors grossly overweight them and don’t teach the basic principal. On average, new OW divers don’t swim very well and have very little confidence in their skills.

So what is a reasonable comparison today? I think it is fair to say ATBE, more academic and practical training is “better” than less. Put those same people in an integrated course that combined OW, AOL, Nitrox, Decompression Procedures, Rescue, and enforced a no-gear swimming test and you produce better divers than the ones turned out 35+ years ago… on average.

LA County Underwater Unit, 1970, that was the basis for my statement that NWGratefulDiver took some exception to. My training was rigorous, I spent my 1st 10 years mostly beach diving in Southern California. I don't doubt that there are many old fogey divers with poor skills, including those of a buddy

 

[ozzydamo]

I use an "air buddy" only, but not while doing anything involving PADI INC, as it attracts authoritarian types almost like a swastika does!

I find it easy and simple to use (I practice using it regularly, found no issues with volume in my normal dive depths to 20m) and useful for lift bags and smbs, as I don't have to remove my second stage to fill them.

Check it out- Dive scuba Gear Shop

Ps- Mike.D here is that review you requested

 

[danvolker]

First, I am a DIR diver, and I had a lot to do with bringing the DIR ideas to the recreational diver world….as such, I often dive on charter boats with many non-skilled divers, and I do utilize all of my DIR gear and ideas, though do not preach or sip cool-aid on the boat  I also do plenty of very advanced dives, using DIR, on boats catering to advanced divers, and where our choice in boat has eliminated pretty much anyone from being in the water WITH us, that we would see as inherently dangerous, from a distinct lack of skill.


Within the context of this SOLO thread, I believe that if it is your intention to do a solo dive, it IS appropriate for you to gear optimally for your solo excursion….If this means using vintage style gear, with a single reg, I think this is fine, as your solo plans are not a secret on the dive boat…

The only area of contention I see, is what happens if you come across a poorly skilled diver, that was not in any plan to be anywhere near you—but now here they are, and they are OOA. To me, this is like a pedestrian coming across a stranger on the street that just this second, had a heart attack. If you know CPR, and if you are what I think is a moral person, you will feel compelled to attempt CPR on this person ( provided they don’t look like they are infected with ebola or other life threatening and clearly manifesting illness, and providing they don’t look like a terrorist or a mortal enemy).

As a solo diver, you should be advanced, hence the solo designation. It should be easy for you to render air share via buddy breathing---the real issue is will you get the reg back from the OOA diver, after you offer it. Now you get to your determination of what you can handle, as a good Samaritan, without putting your life in danger.
If you are at 60 feet, and a decent freediver, you take a huge breath, pass the reg, and wait for the eyes to go back in to focus, and for the diver to pass you back the reg…if there is little chance it is going to come back to you, you’ll have to be ready to ditch your bc, and do a free ascent, leaving the diver with your bc and air. If you don’t think you can make it to the surface, if this diver freaks, then you have a real issue as to whether you dare attempt buddy breathing with them.

This scenario is one reason for the octopus to be valid, if you don’t want to either risk your life, or the life of an OOA stranger. If you limit yourself to advanced dive boats that shun poor divers ( the good boats), then perhaps you can forget the octo, as any OOA diver must have suffered a reg explosion, and should have basic buddy breathing skills. Or, you can brush up on your free ascents, and plan the possibility of donating your whole tank and bc…..or, plan on watching a diver drown, and then having to live with that the rest of your life—but you stayed safe and solo.

If I decide to dive with a vintage scuba setup and be solo, it would only be on an advanced boat….and I really don’t mind giving up my tank and reg and free ascending—if the diver will not give the reg back. I’d not expect this to happen on an advanced boat, but that is the risk taken, and the solution to me.
Normally, it is way easier to just dive my DIR gear….If I am diving with DIR buddies, but then I take a solo excursion 100 yards away from Sandra and Bill, if I run into an OOA diver, handling them with long hose and necklace reg will be simple, with no risks I can imagine.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

To use the term as it was originally intended it's a bit of ego strokery for some diver to blow his horn about how awesome he is because he can BB and how wimpy today's diver is by comparison. Your skills are what they are - and people just aren't trained to be competent in BB nowadays. That's called reality.

... it's also an indication of not being willing to change with the times ... sort of like somebody complaining about how everybody these days listens to music on their iPhone, and how a real music aficionado only uses a reel-to-reel tape player ... which was pretty much the standard back in the '70's ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DaleC]

Yep. I would never knock anyone for having a wide variety or well honed set of skills. But we also have to be aware that others might not. The thinking, socially conscious diver adjusts for that - which is another sort of skill.

As long as everyones on the same page and prepared for my shenanigans, I wouldn't even mind diving with a bucket on my head with an air hose bleeding into it.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

LA County Underwater Unit, 1970, that was the basis for my statement that NWGratefulDiver took some exception to. My training was rigorous, I spent my 1st 10 years mostly beach diving in Southern California. I don't doubt that there are many old fogey divers with poor skills, including those of a buddy

Actually the statement I took exception to was ... "but many of the divers are simply not of the quality they were in the old days".

I don't doubt that LA County trained divers were exceptionally well trained. But not all divers were trained by LA County standards in the old days ... in fact, many of them had no training at all other than going out with a buddy who taught them "everything you need to know". That's why we have agencies today ... because there were no uniform standards back then.

It's silly to assume that the "old days" meant that everyone got some high-quality training. Those who sought it out did ... just like they do today. The form of training today is different ... but those who want high-quality training still seek it out, and it's readily available. In fact, it's more available today than it was back then.

The most significant difference isn't the availability of quality training ... it's the fact that a lot more people are diving today than back then, and the reasons for them to take up diving are often way more casual than they were back in the old days.

FWIW - I'd put my skills up against someone who trained with LA County in the '70's ... and for the most part I'd bet that I'd prove to be the more skilled diver. And I've only been diving since 2001 ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)