what is a "SAFE" dive

[caymaniac]

Are you "safe" on the road? Are you "safe" in a plane? Are you "safe" on a boat?
If you can answer yes, then you can have a "safe" dive. There's a degree of risk to everyday life. The risk in diving is definitely greater than walking on the beach, unless there is a thunderstorm, a water spout, or massive tidal waves - rip tides coming. I believe one can have a "safe" dive. I didn't fill out the poll because none of the answers fit the question - for me. The degree of "safeness" equals your abilities and training plus experience. Yesterday I had a call to recover a hatch off from a sailboat at a marina. The dive was in zero visibility, with a boat overhead, in 15 ft. of fresh water and I sank almost 5 feet into a silt bed.......scary! (Yes it was a successful recovery). I've done this before, I was solo, you have to be be prepared for problems and ready to abort. A few years ago I was on the Brac doing multple dives when my computer died at 110 feet, I aborted the dive and retired a day from diving. Since this situation I always use a redundant computer. Experience is a great teacher.

Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

If you would add a category for "There is no such thing as a safe dive," I would vote for that. Nothing in life is safe.

In diving, the objective is to minimize risk in balance with achieving the dive objective. There is no way to eliminate risk completely. Therefore, diving is not safe.

 

[Scuba]

Good topic not conducive to a simple answer.

Safe, as in mitigating danger to a degree in which we are able to perform an activity in a reliable manner without incurring injury. After all - safe, as in free from harm, is not applicable to living.

The following general, broad principals, serve to make diving relatively safe for me.

Education: Gaining knowledge. Learning about a task. Risks involved. Approaches and procedures necessary to minimize these risks. Practice. Incremental progression.

Redundancy: If something does not turn out as expected there should be another practical way to resolve the issue.

Awareness, of self and others, environment. Possibilities and probabilities. What are our/the strengths and weaknesses. Changing circumstances. Complacency, rushing, order.

Continual re-evaluation and learning.

There’s the issue of the meaning of safety, which can vary by degree and interpretation from individual to individual.

Someone suggested that if you surface from a dive unharmed, you had a safe dive. I disagree with this interpretation. If you cross a busy street without looking and make it “safely” to the other side, where you safe in doing so? No doubt this was a safe crossing. However, it fails the test for reliability, a basic tenet of safety when the activity is to be reproduced over and over again.

Another example, where statistics show that divers not trained in overhead environments are safe diving these conditions under proper supervision is irrefutable. This brings up a few important issues. All in all, the odds are nothing negative is going to happen during the activity. This is a key determinant used in the perception of safety. If something does go wrong, it is likely to be minor and readily correctable. Another major determinant in evaluating safety. If something does happen, I can readily overcome it. The concern is: if something major does happen or a chain reaction, such as losing the guide or various participants encountering serious trouble simultaneously, can everyone cope for themselves?Or have they placed themselves in a situation without suitable
backup to deal with eventualities such as these. Are they aware of the risks? Is the risk still acceptable?

There is the issue of degree of acceptable risk. Take a good swimmer for example. It could be said he feels confident and comfortable accepting the risks of swimming in deep water and without any supervision. While other good swimmers will not take these risks. A whole set of combinations can be derived from this example and there is no guarantee that the one taking the most cautious approach will be the one who suffers no harm. But, he will have the best chance of overcoming adversity unharmed..

Risk assessment and mitigation is an extremely difficult task due to all the variables involved, the inherent conflicts which develop, (a risk reduction here causes an increse there) and that which we simply do not know. But it is a manageable! This results in the possible perception of safety through informed judgement as opposed to ignorance or misjudgement. Where we do not understand or correctly evaluate the risks undertaken, hence possibly deriving a false sense of security.