What would your reaction be?

[zamburinha]

Me and my buddy were setting up our gear in a local dive spot. We get approached by a pair of divers who have some questions about the BCD we are using with our doubles. All is good and we explain that it is a BP/W combination, blah blah. It turns out that one of the pair has dived a lot (3k+) and the other is just certified open water, but is intrigued by doubles and the configuration. It is all very friendly and fun and the older more experienced diver starts telling about some of his previous dives ... For example the time when he went to 150 ft on a single tank and stayed so long beyond NDL that had to do 45 min deco, or this other time when his buddy's tank o-ring burst and they continued the dive at 65 ft sharing air until it was time to go up, or, my personal favorite, when the guy brought up a couple of anchors from depth using his BCD for flotation because he did not have a lift bag.

I have to admit I did not really know how to react to those stories. It bothered me that they were presented to a new diver as if they were reasonable, but I also did not really know what to say. Both me and my body smiled politely and tried to lightheartedly point to things that could go wrong (you better not let go of that anchor then!), but still it felt somewhat wrong.

So, what would you do?

 

[Crush]

Have you read this post DEEP DIVE about Guerrilla Divers?

I find the following quotation particularly amusing:

Guerrilla divers didn't need "Buoyancy Compensator Vests". In fact, "Anyone who needs a BC deserves to drown" was a popular adage. Exploration and the Hunt came first, excitement and fun followed. Safety was the stepchild of fitness, good reflexes and a cool head.
​

 

[FireInMyBones]

I would have asked about what safety protocols the guy had on these dives, for the benefit of the new diver. It is not uncommon to run into a guy from time to time with stories like these. I have dove with a few and I understand that I am basically diving solo when I dive with them.

 

[Bonairetrip]

I would probably throw in my own story or two and then say something like:

"Those were crazy days. I shudder now at some of the things I did then. If just one little thing had gone wrong..."

Or, "Those were crazy days. Diving is so much safer today."

Or, "Those were some wild days. The one offer I always declined was when someone wanted to be their salvage diver -- if the load shifted, the risk of turning into a polaris missle was always too big for my taste."

Or, "Ah yes, the ignorance of youth..."

 

[Bonairetrip]

Or blend my post with the earlier one. You could talk about how crazy safety planning was then and some of what you do different now. Then you could ask him about how his safety planning has changed over time....

 

[vladimir]

How do you do 45 minutes of deco with what's left of a single tank after a 150' dive that was long enough to incur 45' of deco? Must have been a really big tank.

 

[Mark Michaud SELAUSAR]

What you have here is a man who likes to hear himself talk.

 

[zamburinha]

I just reread my post and it reads a bit stiff. Don't get me wrong, I am not into preaching to anyone, and to each their own. This experienced guy was nice and friendly and very keen to introduce his friend to his passion of diving, which is great. However, these stories did not sound like they were from the distant past, it was all very recent and the reason he was showing his friend the doubles that we were diving is that it was a "way to make longer dives" such as the one with the single tank that he described. He was also insisting that his friend liked to "go deep" although he had qualified OW a week ago ... again, it just made me a bit uncomfortable, but I did not want to go into a preachy mode.

I guess what I am asking is for a strategy in which you convey some measure of worry about such dives, while not "spoiling the fun" for the person who is just starting and is being introduced by a trusted friend. Anybody had success with such a scenario?

 

[boulderjohn]

For example the time when he went to 150 ft on a single tank and stayed so long beyond NDL that had to do 45 min deco, ...

OK, you met someone totally full of BS trying to impress you.

The last time I went to 150, I stayed for 30 minutes bottom time and did not require 45 minutes of deco (only about 40-with EANx 50, counting all the deep stops, ascent times, etc.) I am by no means godlike in my usage of air, but I am not a babe in the woods, either. I breathed through an entire AL 80 stage bottle first, then went through some of my back gas. I switched to an AL 40 deco bottle at 70 feet, and I drained it by the time I was done with the dive. I am doing this all from memory, but I would guess that I killed off about 150 cubic feet of gas. If he did anything comparable on a single tank, he must have had a pretty good sized tank.

My guess the report he gave you on the total number of dives he had done was about as accurate as his description of that dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

I guess what I am asking is for a strategy in which you convey some measure of worry about such dives, while not "spoiling the fun" for the person who is just starting and is being introduced by a trusted friend. Anybody had success with such a scenario?

I think I would say something along the lines that decompression sickness is very serious, and no one should attempt decompression diving without a clear understanding of what we know about it and without having a clear plan of how to prevent it.