when to 100'?

[Matt S.]

I was under the impression tha 60 feet was written on that paper because some people who know more about diving than I decided it was the right limit for my level of skill. I'm not going to second-guess them.

 

[Tigerman]

...
What do you do when current keeps you from getting back to the upline?

What do you do when somebody gets entangled, and getting them out puts you into deco?

What do you do when your instabuddy goes through all his gas, and turns to you in panic at 100 ft on the wreck?

What do you do when you go to use your pull dump, and the corrugated hose just comes off?
...

Current: Swim across it if possible, if not I guess going up and blowing the whistle to call the boat over is what to do. What you SHOULDNT do is to swim against a stong current.

If i get deco obligations.. Now thats a problem, cause Im not trained for deco diving. There is of course the emergency deco procedures I could hope is sufficient.. Also, according to the class material, I could let the computer tell me what to do as well.

Buddy OOA.. Dump his weights and kick him away from me
Now that wouldnt be the best thing..
Depends on how paniced he is I guess. Sharing air SHOULD be an option, if hes a total freak and is a danger to me as well as himself, pulling him up untill hes positive and let go of him because its better to have one accident than 2? As Ive mentioned before.. Ive seen a few people go feet first from 100 feet and do just fine, so it COULD be an option, altho far from ideal..

corrugated hose? I lost something in the translation there for some reason..

 

[Tigerman]

I was under the impression tha 60 feet was written on that paper because some people who know more about diving than I decided it was the right limit for my level of skill. I'm not going to second-guess them.

Its the recommended lower limit, according to the book I have (and always carry with me when I dive) from the OW class.. It doesnt say "dont go deeper, moron"
Personally, I try to avoid going below the depths thats recommended..

 

[dsteding]

How is that stupid? I clearly said to do what matters... pay attention to NDL, condition of gear, buddy, air supply, nark level, etc. I also clearly said not to F it up because the consequences get exponentially worse with depth.

Because what you list there isn't all that matters. At 60 feet, the surface is an option, at 100 feet, you have to solve the problem there. At 150 feet, your breathing rate jacks up, you blow through that AL80, and you have no options.

The point being that if he follows the very basic rules he was taught in OW class, he will be fine. There's no point in getting all worked up over 100 feet because it really isn't that damn complicated.

Most OW classes don't even touch the skills necessary to sort problems out at 100+ foot depths. 60 feet is a limit for a reason, a CESA is possible from that depth.

On the other hand, if you think that this person should limit himself to 60 feet just because it's written on paper, or pay a DM some silly amount of money just to hold his hand to 70 feet, then I think that's incredibly stupid. It's not like he's deco diving to 200 feet or something.

Dude, you are missing the point. Whomever did your OW training should be slapped, imho.

:shakehead

 

[Thalassamania]

Have a plan and make sure that the plan draws on skills and procedures that you are comfortable executing, e.g.:

What do you do when current keeps you from getting back to the upline?

First of all you should have been diving into the current and riding back to the upline. At that point your alternatives are to drop to the bottom and use handholds or two knives in the sediment to crawl back or hand holds on a vertical wall. Otherwise its surface and get the boat’s attention (I have a whistle, mirror, red stars, smoke, dye, etc. in my little emergency pack).

What do you do when somebody gets entangled, and getting them out puts you into deco?

I’d do as much decompression as I could on my rig and then grab a hang bottle (called planning ahead, always hang a bottle with at least two second stages at 20’). Otherwise I’d decompress as best I could, surface, grab another bottle and follow the U.S. Navy Omitted Decompression procedures.

What do you do when your instabuddy goes through all his gas, and turns to you in panic at 100 ft on the wreck?

Shove my primary in his mouth, go to my auxiliary and surface.

What do you do when you go to use your pull dump, and the corrugated hose just comes off?

Inflate my drysuit or put my second stage under my wetsuit jacket and catch a bubble over the shoulders.

 

[TheHobster]

What a bunch of to-do here. Safety is non-negotiable, period. 100 ft or deeper without considerable experience is not being safe - too many variables to consider without the experience to plan; in fact in this case it looks like they knew depth on the boat ride out, as opposed to being able to plan beforehand - so no consideration for air consumption and how much is available; no consideration for time at depth w/in no deco limits; no consideration for emergency air; no one has mentioned wet suit compression and possibility of weight belt slipping off; no consideration for awareness of narcosis in each other; and also, how to find upline and what to do if you can't?

At least in an AOW class we discuss and try to simulate these if not actually experience them; in a Deep class we go below 100' and experience the cold, dark etc; cinch up the belt; take SAC calcs; set emergency air or bring emergency air;

In the more free form days of the 70's I did 108' early, I thought after 15-20 dives. Was amazed at how short the dive was; my air gauge was like watching a gas gauge in a 1970 Road Runner hemi engine But, no thought given to emergency plans. Scary; however a week later at 85' off Catalina Island Mr Murphy showed up. First, the purge fell out of my mask, so now I had a silver dollar sized hole in my mask that wouldn't clear; then when I got vertical to start my ascent, my weight belt dropped to my knees. At the end of that dive I had that come to Jesus meeting with myself, that while I was accomplished in water, I needed to make sure I took care of what I could control (like the weight belt) so that when things hapenned that I couldn't foresee, I only had that to deal with, and not a snowball effect.

My old water polo coach used to say when people told us how lucky we were to be the winning team we were, "Luck is preparation; Preparation is attention to detail; Attention to detail is practiced every day"

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Have a plan and make sure that the plan draws on skills and procedures that you are comfortable executing, e.g.:

First of all you should have been diving into the current and riding back to the upline. At that point your alternatives are to drop to the bottom and use handholds or two knives in the sediment to crawl back or hand holds on a vertical wall. Otherwise its surface and get the boat’s attention (I have a whistle, mirror, red stars, smoke, dye, etc. in my little emergency pack).

I’d do as much decompression as I could on my rig and then grab a hang bottle (called planning ahead, always hang a bottle with at least two second stages at 20’). Otherwise I’d decompress as best I could, surface, grab another bottle and follow the U.S. Navy Omitted Decompression procedures.

Shove my primary in his mouth, go to my auxiliary and surface.

Inflate my drysuit or put my second stage under my wetsuit jacket and catch a bubble over the shoulders.

I would expect someone with your experience to be able to answer her questions.

Did you have these same answers coming out of your Basic Open Water class? Do you think most divers coming out of OW today do?

Did you believe you had adequate skills at 11 dives to safely be in an overhead environment at 100 feet? Do you think most divers at that experience level do today?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Thalassamania]

Did you have these same answers coming out of your Basic Open Water class?

I did, but I'd been diving for over ten years when I took a basic class and that was only because a woman I was attracted to had signed up for it as a PE class.<G>

Do you think most divers coming out of OW today do?

No, not Open Water, no, not Advanced Open Water, no, not most of the DMs, AIs or Instructors I've met. Unfortunately I’d only expect those solutions to come from a diver who had been effectively mentored outside of the recreational diving industry.

Did you believe you had adequate skills at 11 dives to safely be in an overhead environment at 100 feet?

No, my first hundred dives or so were all shallower than 30 feet (my Dad was rather insistent).

Do you think most divers at that experience level do today?

No, research divers make 12 post-class training dives to 30 feet, then 12 training dives to 60 feet, then 12 to 100, 130, 150 and finally 6 to 190. Each dive is made with a diver certified to that depth or greater; all dives below 130 have written plans approved by the Diving Safety Officer and have a clear need. And we’re not even talking about overhead environments or decompression diving yet!

 

[Crazy Fingers]

What a bunch of to-do here. Safety is non-negotiable, period.

This statement is totally untrue. Safety is a relative term because it depends on risk. Everything you do has risk. What that risk is and how much you are willing to accept are what the diver needs to figure out. As I have said before, driving to your dive site on the interstate is a hell of a lot more dangerous than diving to 100 feet.

Maybe I just come from a different world... the SCUBA community seems ridiculously paranoid and over-safe to me. The only exception to this seems to be spearfishermen (strangely I fit in a lot better with them.) My other adventure hobby was/is rock climbing. Now you want to talk about dangerous, get out there on some run out trad climb... that's dangerous! Too scary so I don't even do it. I'd rather dive solo in a cavern full of fishing line and booby traps.

 

[Thalassamania]

My other adventure hobby was/is rock climbing. Now you want to talk about dangerous, get out there on some run out trad climb... that's dangerous! Too scary so I don't even do it. I'd rather dive solo in a cavern full of fishing line and booby traps.

Skydiving, technical climbing and diving all share the same problem, running out of air. But when you're diving you can always make a free ascent.<G>