What is the deepest you can do an OOA?

[Soggy]

Read post 148. When someone comes on here and states that he who had to do a CESA was at fault because he didn't do what he should've done to prevent it, well that person believes sh_t don't happen unless you ask for it.

The challenge is still out there. Come up with a scenario where a CESA was required that didn't result from someone doing something stupid. You can't (at least, not without having a bazillion different failures all occur simultaneously...nearly a statistical impossibility).

Hell I could act like him and say," you don't need a backup light because you should learn how to keep the primary from failing or getting lost. You don't need a sausage because you should simply learn how to come up 3 ft from the boat. You don't need an octo because your primary should never break and your buddy should never need it"
That's his attitude and God help him when the sh_t hits the fan in his world.

No, it's not like that at all. All the things you listed are out of your control and only require a single and likely failure (light bulbs burn out without warning or flood, conditions can change so that you are unable to surface near the boat, etc). What you don't understand is that the events that would lead up to a CESA are within your control.

Dive with a like-minded team.
Bring redundant gear.
Don't lose track of your buddy.

The number of things that have to go wrong to make a CESA a possibility is ridiculous.

Maybe you make dive planning mistakes (or don't adequately plan your dives) all the time, and you've admitted to not trusting the people you dive with, so I guess, for you, it's much more real. For me, I call the dive when conditions are not favorable for me (I don't solo dive, I don't dive with unknown buddies, and I bring redundant gear when conditions are such that I might be separated from my redundant gas source).

It is also possible, that, having been certified less than a year, your skills and confidence are not what they should be for the dives you are undertaking. 100' solo dives in the North East is no place for someone with less than a year of experience.

 

[all4scuba05]

I promise, if I ever do find myself completely out of gas with no one around to help me (having lost all my gas in my doubles combined with buddy separation/abandonment), I will know where to find more and how to get it.

Yeah, and I'll read about it in the accident forum. Plenty of reading there on people who had all the right ideas.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

On a recreational dive to 80 feet you've determined your rock bottom turn point to be 750 psi. On your next breath you feel an unussually high resistance to inhalation. On the one after that there's not much. Your buddy is ahead and slightly below you working into a current, absolutely insistant on catching that lobster and so maybe not quite as attentive as normal. The only mistake you've made, is not knowing that your gauge is broken.

I submit that is not the only mistake you've made ... nor even the one that got you into trouble.

However, if that's the way you choose to dive, then perhaps a CESA is a more viable option for you than it would be for soggy, myself, or others who choose to order our skills priorities differently ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Soggy]

Come on Soggy! The necessity of gas sharing implies that you've run out of gas, you have none available. For what reason other than skills practice would you be doing so on a recreational dive? At this point, you should have a buddy available for sharing, if you don't........

I think you lost me here. In a recreational dive, any number of single failures, all out of your control, could cause an out of gas situation and require gas sharing with your teammate. I don't understand what point you are trying to make.

Anything that could result in the need to gas share could require a CESA if you can't reach that buddy. The only thing you've now thrown in, is"and your redundant gas supply is gone". Many recreational dives are being performed without a SpareAir or Pony/Stage bottle.

I don't dive unless I have a reasonable teammate (or have gas redundancy, or am in extremely shallow water). Maybe other people are not as conservative as I am.

Many would subscribe to developing comfort and skill in the water rather than making up for a lack of it with additional equipment.

That is what I subscribe to as well, by knowing the people I dive with and carrying redundant gas (in doubles) when conditions warrant it. I probably start diving doubles a lot shallower than many of the people in this thread.

Your buddy is ahead and slightly below you working into a current, absolutely insistant on catching that lobster and so maybe not quite as attentive as normal.

My buddies would not be trying to catch a lobster at 80 feet after we had already reached rock bottom.

It all comes down to choosing the right people and gear for the dive.

 

[Gary D.]

I promise, if I ever do find myself completely out of gas with no one around to help me (having lost all my gas in my doubles combined with buddy separation/abandonment), I will know where to find more and how to get it.

Does this fall under job security?

Gary D.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Yeah, and I'll read about it in the accident forum. Plenty of reading there on people who had all the right ideas.

Such as ???

Do you think having better CESA skills might have saved Zak? Rob? Might have kept Kimber from getting hurt?

Give us some examples of these people you refer to ...

Have you ever actually had to deal with an in-water emergency? If so, would you describe what happened and how you dealt with it?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Soggy]

Yeah, and I'll read about it in the accident forum. Plenty of reading there on people who had all the right ideas.

...this coming from the guy who solo dives and same-ocean-buddy dives with less than a year of experience.

 

[fweber]

I submit that is not the only mistake you've made ... nor even the one that got you into trouble.

However, if that's the way you choose to dive, then perhaps a CESA is a more viable option for you than it would be for soggy, myself, or others who choose to order our skills priorities differently ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Please elaborate,

 

[all4scuba05]

Why would you need to be redundant about ANYTHING if you and you buddys are so good that neither would be OOA and neither would get seperated? You spend so much time and energy learning how to dive with them that you're forgetting that you also need to learn how to dive solo. You WILL be solo some day. Sh_t happens and you are not exempt.

 

[JeffG]

Why would you need to be redundant about ANYTHING if you and you buddys are so good that neither would be OOA and neither would get seperated? You spend so much time and energy learning how to dive with them that you're forgetting that you also need to learn how to dive solo. You WILL be solo some day. Sh_t happens and you are not exempt.

Dive more, you might find out.