Trust-me dives- A Personal Opinion

[Michael Schlink]

Trust is an interesting word, and Johnny has brought a up a good point. I often make dives that I am the "follower". That is I'm diving with a more experienced diver or more knowledgable about the area we're going to. I haven't lost any of my skills, especially my brain. I will rely on my buddy's experience though. There have been dives where I'm leading, in which case the other divers are relying on me, in a sense, but I don't think these were "trust me" dives.
If you start a cave dive with the idea that the other diver(s) is there to hold your hand through the dive you shouldn't be there, at all, why are you cave diving at all.
The term "trust me" dive seems to show up more in an OW dive scenario where the group of divers is blindly following a guide to parts unknown, my all time favorite is when a Cozumel DM runs a group through "Devil's throat", now there's a "trust me" dive. It gets even better when a couple of the divers have less than 10 dives under their belt.
A far as trust me dives in a cave go the best way to differentiate between a "trust me" or "blind trust me" or "dbl. blind trust me 1/2 way" is what's in your head. Using your brain is hard thing to teach and the lessons sometimes come with a price, nonetheless, regardless how we lable them, dives made with trepidation or extreme doubt, lack of understanding about the dive plan, or just plain nervousness probably should be thumbed before getting wet.

 

[jjoeldm]

IMHO . . .

A "trust me" dive is a dive during which you are engaged in a dive activity that you would not normally be trained for or it might fall beyond your experience or outside of what you'd normally consider to be safe.

What makes it a "trust me" dive is that such dives are usually engaged in because another diver literally says "trust me." You might consider him to be more experienced (or he says he is) or he says he knows the system/site well or he just convinces you that the system/site you're approaching is a "piece of cake" . . . "trust me."

Instructional dives are "trust me" dives by definition and are the only instance I can think of where such an approach would be appropriate. Instructors are trained to take people on these dives. But even during training there are prerequisites before you engage in the training. In a class you are literally trusting your chosen instructor to show you how to do something you currently can't do or to take you somewhere you're currently not trained to go.

Aside from that I can't think of any instance in normal sport diving activities of any sort (OW, Cave, Wreck, etc) where "trust me" dives are make sense.

If you're cave diving and you've never worn a drysuit and you're invited on a dive where you'll need the suit because it's a long dive and they have a drysuit that fits you, that's a "trust me" dive.

If you're OW diving a site and you have a few dives but you've never been deeper than 100' and a local instructor says that the "really cool stuff" is at 160', "c'mon, trust me!", that's a trust me dive.

If you're in the Bahamas and a local instructor says, "Let's cave dive this Blue Hole" and you've never been cave trained, that's a "trust me" dive. If he says let's do it on Tri-Mix, that's beyond a "trust me" dive . . . into an experience in Darwinism.

Diving with more experienced divers, expanding your reach bit-by-bit in a safe and incremental manner is not "trust me" diving so long as you're diving within your training and observing your buddy rules, air rules and depth guidelines. Having an experienced bud show you the upstream section of Cow Spring when you're ready for it isn't a "trust me" dive because you have the training and the experience to get yourself out if it comes to that.

Many of us work at expanding our diving horizons, stepping a bit farther into the abyss, farther in, farther down, one more jump, less viz, more current, bigger critters, etc. At some point we all push beyond what we've done into new territory. So long as we do so incrementally and we're not trusting our buddy beyond what's normally expected then we're being safe. We're not trusting the bud, we're trusting our training and our own good judgement. We're not asking them to take care of us if we get in over our heads because at no point should we ever be in over our heads. You should never hear from a buddy, "don't worry I'll take care of you."

Always dive as if you're solo, but take along a trusted friend.

JoeL

 

[Johnny Richards]

All:

Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my original posting. This was my first thread starter and I wasn't sure of the reaction I would receive given the behavior on other internet forums. While we don't all agree, there have been good points made by all and a great discussion of the trust-me concept.

Good diving to each of you,

Johnny

 

[ams511]

I would trust you Johnny.

 

[jjoeldm]

I would trust you Johnny.

That's the interesting thing about this discussion. I know you probably said this as a compliment to Johnny and probably mean nothing beyond that, but there isn't anyone I'd trust with my life in a cave and that's for one very important reason: My buddy may be busy saving himself and not be able to help me.

Even with good divers things can go so cockeyed in a cave for all kinds of reason that there is really only one person whom you can completely trust with your life: you.

Your number one job is to save your own life, buddies come in second, no matter what. There are those rare occasions where a dive instructor or a buddy saves the life of a student or buddy at the cost of his own etc. but excuse me if I don't rely on that impulse.

I'm responsible for my life and if I'm not 100% sure that I can do a given dive without help then I have no business being on that dive. The buddy system is built around the assumption that both divers are competent and able to do the dive before them. If one diver gets into trouble then having that extra set of lights, gas supply or other equipment can make the difference. Sometimes it's an extra set of eyes and a clearer head when things go bad that makes the difference. More than once I've watched a bud swim over a small jump and into the wrong passage. The same has happened to me. A quick light signal and a moment of embarrassment later and we're still having an uneventful, fun dive. Diving solo I might have gone too far into that wrong passage before realizing it, even if I was fastidiously observing conservative air rules. At that point it either becomes VERY eventful or terminal . . . .

My buddy is a partner in keeping us both safe and on the right track. Think of Steve Berman. Certainly he's someone dozens (possibly hundreds) of divers trusted with their lives during instruction. And yet, diving solo, he died in Devil's Ear in 2001. Should you really trust _anyone_ with YOUR life?

Very experienced, even legendary divers diving solo die doing dives they've done dozens of times. It happens. Sometimes diving solo is unavoidable in silty, sump-style systems, other times the presence of a buddy might have made the difference.

But I know every time I go into a cave that my responsibility is primarily to myself. If I am capable of being in that system safely doing the dive I'm preparing for, then I'm being the best buddy I can be and the safest companion I can be.

If I'm there at the suggestion of another diver and relying on his/her expertise and I don't care who that is, name your Dive God, then I'm a fool and I imperil myself and those I'm diving with.

I've been in caves with many good, experienced cave divers over the years and with each I was, in a sense, placing my life in their hands because I relied on them to take care of themselves and be capable of keeping it all wired together if something did go wrong. A bad buddy certainly _can_ be worse than none.

Maybe that's what you meant when you said, "I would trust you Johnny." And if so, that is high praise indeed.

JoeL

 

[Dive-aholic]

I would trust Johnny, too. In fact, I have on several dives with him since he's my cave and technical instructor. So the trust is a little more than just trusting him to take care of himself, but also to make sure he doesn't endanger me during the training dives. As part of the training dives, he's taking me into an area and environment I'm not familiar with. By choosing him as an instructor I'm placing trust in him. One of the more stressful decisions in my life was choosing a cave/technical instructor for these reasons. I got lucky the first time.

 

[jjoeldm]

If you'll read my first post on the subject you'll see that training is the lone exception:

"Instructional dives are "trust me" dives by definition and are the only instance I can think of where such an approach would be appropriate. Instructors are trained to take people on these dives. But even during training there are prerequisites before you engage in the training. In a class you are literally trusting your chosen instructor to show you how to do something you currently can't do or to take you somewhere you're currently not trained to go."

You trust Johnny, Johnny was your instructor. Makes sense. If you don't trust your cave instructor then you REALLY have a problem!

I don't know if it's still the case, but the last time I thought about it cave instructors were also allowed to take non-cave-divers on guided UW cave "tours" within specific limits.

JoeL

 

[Dive-aholic]

I wasn't disputing you, just reaffirming.

And instructors are allowed to take divers on tours one level above their current level of certification. So an OW diver can do a cavern dive. A cavern diver can go on an basic cave dive. A basic cave diver can go on a full cave dive.

 

[jjoeldm]

I wasn't disputing you, just reaffirming.

Got it!

And instructors are allowed to take divers on tours one level above their current level of certification. So an OW diver can do a cavern dive. A cavern diver can go on an basic cave dive. A basic cave diver can go on a full cave dive.

I wondered if that still was the case.

BTW, does anyone have any figures on how many certified cave divers there are in this country these days? Without dropouts etc it'd be hard to figure out how many active divers there are, but I wonder if the agencies share their numbers overall?

Thanks for the note,
JoeL

 

[Dive-aholic]

BTW, does anyone have any figures on how many certified cave divers there are in this country these days? Without dropouts etc it'd be hard to figure out how many active divers there are, but I wonder if the agencies share their numbers overall?

Thanks for the note,
JoeL

Too many! My recent trips to N. Florida almost seem like trips to central Florida (Disney)! Last month there were about a dozen vans and trucks at Jackson Blue one Saturday! And people did carpool!!