What would you do: Molested at 100' by an OOA Diver

[DaleC]

I understand what you are saying BDSC but, as DD suggested, you really do have a sense of what you can do at what depth for how long. Even if you are diving "on the fly" it is you making the decisions based on your own self knowledge. You are your own leader.

What I think I hear BJ saying is she takes a group out and doesn't tell what depth they are diving at until they are in the water. 50' - 100' - 130'... for how long?

I know that for each of those depths I would have a certain gas volume and roughly calculate how long that would last. I would know what my rock bottom pressures would be and depending on the type of dive, what my turn pressure would be. Asking people to do that sort of thinking between splash and descent is unrealistic in terms of generating positive outcomes.

Who does it serve to remove every tool from the tool box but one - monitoring the SPG. This is akin to leading someone to the edge of a cliff and telling them they will be safe as long as they hold onto the rope. Why not let them determine where the cliff is and how close they want to get as well as providing them with a rope.

This is fostering the most dangerous form of diving: a follow the leader mentality. Which serves those who want to stroke their egos by assuming the "awesome leader" role.

 

[TSandM]

There is no way I would get off a boat to do a guided dive with no profile discussed in the briefing. Nor have I, in the eight years I've been diving and all the traveling I have done, EVER had a dive op NOT give a dive briefing that included the expected depth profile. I honestly can't imagine a place where it is routine not to tell divers how deep the proposed dive is going to be.

 

[beanojones]

I do that a lot when I'm in the Caribbean. When I'm in Little Cayman and diving Bloody Bay Wall for example, I don't know if I will see something interesting at 100 ft. and spend several minutes there or if I end up staying at 40 to 50 ft. the entire dive. I really have no idea until I get in. Now I may have decided a max depth for that dive and not go below but I also may not even come close to that as well.

I also have no idea what my SAC rate is. I think I had to calculate that when I was certified but haven't since or at least I don't remember doing it again. For the type of diving I do, I don't see a need to know it really.

You are not alone. Most divers don't dive their local puddle, they dive when travelling, and the fact is conditions and depths are just simply not known before hand by the divers, nor are they really needed to be known. Tank sizes are not really there for the choosing. Max limits may be there on whatever dive either by a hard bottom, or a recreational limit, or etc. But the actual dive is what the actual dive is. That is, in fact, why people use dive computers. I simply have never seen anyone outside of a class ever once use tables to plan dives, and that is tens of thousands of divers. And it is just as well because the few people who try to say they are using tables claim to be able to use tables after doing a 100 foot max depth dive for 50 minutes, (Or they say they have the NDLs memorized), and then dive multilevel profiles that blow the NDLs for the square profiles they have memorized, and do repetitive dives that make that claim even more specious.

Since no one uses tables to plan dives, then no one knows their NDLs. And that's fine, since again, that's why people use dive computers.

And then again since no one really knows their depth, or the conditions, then gas planning is beside the point since SAC rate calculations really need both.

There are two ways to approach how people actually do things. One is to say they are doing it wrong, and bemoan what is becoming of the world today. The other is to make what people actually do work.

 

[DCBC]

...Since no one uses tables to plan dives, then no one knows their NDLs. ...no one really knows their depth, or the conditions....

It doesn't sound like you know much does it?

There are two ways to approach how people actually do things. One is to say they are doing it wrong, and bemoan what is becoming of the world today.

You're right, there are two ways of doing things; the right way and the wrong way.

The other is to make what people actually do work.

You have multiple Divers grabbing you because they're OOA? How's that really working for you? I'm sure the Clients are impressed...

You are right about one thing. You have it highlighted under your name "lacks common sense." At least we can agree on that...

 

[boulderjohn]

You are not alone. Most divers don't dive their local puddle, they dive when travelling, and the fact is conditions and depths are just simply not known before hand by the divers,

I have dived in many locations around the world (check my profiles), and I don't believe I ever did a dive in which I didn't have a pretty good idea of my maximum depth. Even in shore diving locations like Bonaire or Curacao where I was diving a wall with no DM or dive guide, my buddy and I agreed on a maximum depth before each dive. Now, we could always adjust our plan based upon circumstances, but that is the strength of gas management. For example, near the end of the bottom portion of a dive, when we were beginning to ascend, we saw a shark with its head jammed into a hole in the reef, evidently trying to get something to eat. I checked my gas, did some quick calculations, decided I had time (and NDL) to watch a while, and descended to get close.

Tank sizes are not really there for the choosing.

That is correct in most (not all) resort locations, you are going to get what they have, and the AL 80 is common. If people only dive AL 80s, it makes it easy for them to do basic gas management. On the other hand, there are lots of places where other tanks sizes are available. I spent all of February in Florida, and I only saw AL 80s in use on recreational dives a couple of times. When I dive in Cozumel, I never use AL 80s. I just did a number of dive on the California coast, and I never used or saw anyone with an AL 80. Not every diver in the world does all the diving at a tropical resort.

Since no one uses tables to plan dives, then no one knows their NDLs. And that's fine, since again, that's why people use dive computers.

It will apparently surprise you to know end that it is possible to learn your NDL for a given depth by taking a glance at the planning mode of a computer before descending. In the new computer version of the PADI OW class, they are taught to do this. You might want to learn how to do this yourself. It's pretty easy, and you may someday have to teach the computer version of the course--or do you do that already?

 

[beanojones]

Obviously if Divers you are Guiding are running OOA numerous times, you have to ask yourself what precautions are reasonable for you to take? ?

None of my divers run out of air. If you think it is worth reacting to what I am saying, then it is worth reacting to what I am saying. Of course you can read what other people say I said and attack that if you like, because that spawns interesting thoughts to, but then it's hardly a comment directed at me.

I stand in a very different place with regards to training than old school divers do. And that makes what they have to say interesting to me, because I am always ready to hear new or old ideas and think about them. Of course, what I have to say may just frustrate the old school divers, but it's probably worth making sure they actually are hearing what I am saying, and not a strawman of what I am saying. There is plenty enough in what I am actually saying to frustrate old school divers, I am sure, because I am in the middle of the diving industry as it actually is, and I don't find much wrong with it. What I do think needs fixing is actually getting rid of more of the old school stuff to make things safer.

What makes most mainland based divers/instructors boggle at what I say is that they talk a lot about diving, and do some diving. Almost all of what the divers think about diving seems to come from interactions with people (rather than interactions with the water), on ScubaBoard and other places.

I do a lot of diving (guiding certified divers, doing intros, teaching Open Water, and other stuff) , and also pass on a lot about diving that I see in posts to ScubaBoard*. The number of people who work daily diving is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of those who are instructors. Even in the active diving industry, most people in the industry move away from daily diving and become gear reps, or shop managers, or course directors, or agency functionaries, even here in the tropics. Those of us who were doing it full-time ten years ago, and will still doing it ten years from now are very, very, very few in number. And frankly, intelligent conversation about diving is not very common, because we don't even need to be high school graduates to become instructors. So I am more than willing to be attacked for actually reporting what actually happens in diving, because people find talking about diving on the internet interesting, and there's not much I can do about the fact that some people find what I say worth being angry about. The actual job/work is with the people in front of me, and talking about it here is just something I do to have some level of intelligent conversation about it.

*The thread I posted telling people about what the Japanese intro market was all about in the "Instructors Arguing with Other Intructors" Forum was probably the first and only time most people who read it heard anything about what the largest market in actual diving actually consisted of.

---------- Post added June 18th, 2013 at 10:39 AM ----------

I have dived in many locations around the world (check my profiles), and I don't believe I ever did a dive in which I didn't have a pretty good idea of my maximum depth. Even in shore diving locations like Bonaire or Curacao where I was diving a wall with no DM or dive guide, my buddy and I agreed on a maximum depth before each dive. Now, we could always adjust our plan based upon circumstances, but that is the strength of gas management. For example, near the end of the bottom portion of a dive, when we were beginning to ascend, we saw a shark with its head jammed into a hole in the reef, evidently trying to get something to eat. I checked my gas, did some quick calculations, decided I had time (and NDL) to watch a while, and descended to get close.

That is correct in most (not all) resort locations, you are going to get what they have, and the AL 80 is common. If people only dive AL 80s, it makes it easy for them to do basic gas management. On the other hand, there are lots of places where other tanks sizes are available. I spent all of February in Florida, and I only saw AL 80s in use on recreational dives a couple of times. When I dive in Cozumel, I never use AL 80s. I just did a number of dive on the California coast, and I never used or saw anyone with an AL 80. Not every diver in the world does all the diving at a tropical resort.

It will apparently surprise you to know end that it is possible to learn your NDL for a given depth by taking a glance at the planning mode of a computer before descending. In the new computer version of the PADI OW class, they are taught to do this. You might want to learn how to do this yourself. It's pretty easy, and you may someday have to teach the computer version of the course--or do you do that already?

It's easy to fake one's way through NDLs and SAC rates, if we pretend that dives happen at only the maximum depth. But they don't.

When's the last time you did a square profile dive off a table? (recreational dive). Just because you read it off a computer scroll does not make it any less meaningless, because that too is a square profile NDL.

Imagine how much easier my job would be if I actually made people stick to those square profile NDLs.

With regards to on the fly gas 'planning'...

If you think it's cool to do math under the influence of Nitrogen Narcosis, then you do. Ask a chamber driver what the depth at which a doctor inside the chamber is no longer allowed to make medical decisions.

While I don't agree with his premise that there are no unearned hits, because I have ridden with some, the article is worth reading because it makes the point that decisions made underwater often are wrong, or should at least always be suspect:
http://www.johnchatterton.com/2013/04/12/the-unearned-hit-dcs/

 

[boulderjohn]

I stand in a very different place with regards to training than old school divers do. And that makes what they have to say interesting to me, because I am always ready to hear new or old ideas and think about them. Of course, what I have to say may just frustrate the old school divers, but it's probably worth making sure they actually are hearing what I am saying, and not a strawman of what I am saying.

What is very ironic about this is that the old school diver in this conversation is you.

When I first started arguing with PADI about the need for more gas management in the OW class, I got in reply pretty much what you have been saying. It is the way recreational diving evolved over the decades. Introducing gas management into OW diving is part of a new evolution in diving, one in which practices developed primarily in the tech realm are gradually being incorporated into recreational diving. PADI's replies to me (our conversation was extended) essentially said that gas management (and dive plans like the rule of thirds) were only needed in the tech world. Peter Guy on this board was also quite active in arguing with PADI on this point.

Guess what? PADI has announced that the new standards that will go into effect next year will include some level of gas management. How much? I don't know, but it is a start.

So, when those new standards come out, an old school diver like yourself may have to learn and teach something new.

 

[The Chairman]

None of my divers run out of air.

Then, how do you have so much experience with OOA divers?

I stand in a very different place with regards to training than old school divers do.

I'm hoping you stand in a different place of most divers and instructors, including, old, new, middle and high school.

because I am in the middle of the diving industry as it actually is

That is the scariest thing I have ever read on ScubaBoard. My goal is to increase safety, while your goal seems to be to decrease it.

[troll]So, I bet you teach your students on their knees in the pool... [/troll]

 

[BDSC]

First time using the quote feature?

 

[beanojones]

[troll]So, I bet you teach your students on their knees in the pool... [/troll]

Well, in that one case, I guess I am not representing the dive industry as it is, but...

I love the fact that several of my OW students from way back, who now own their own dive operations, even now teach neutrally buoyant without even knowing they are doing anything special by doing so, just something more effective.

Unlike the rest of the neutral buoyant crowd, I came at it first because surge rips up wetsuit's knees when they kneel in CW in the ocean, and no one can balance in surge on their knees. It was only after seeing results that I came to appreciate other aspects of it.