Wreck penetration and queuing

[beanojones]

What rule? Where is it officially stated? By whom?

A rule that is broken by many thousands of people every year is not much of a rule, and it provides no guidance for future decisions.

PADI Instructor Manual says in General Standards: Do not conduct open water dives and Discover Scuba Diving experience dives in caves, caverns, under ice or in any situation where direct vertical access to the surface is not possible.

Millions of people drive drunk every year with no bad outcomes, even though they are breaking the law against drunk driving, so the logic espoused above says that no drunk driving laws are much of a rule, and they provide no guidance for future decisions.

Or if a dive analogy is preferred: most divers dive without computers or tables, and for all but the exceptional cases, nothing bad happens to them. Even worse some people using tabels and computer get bent. Above logic would mean that because many get away with it, rules about it are not needed. Depending on how far one wants to take the reasoning, we could even warp it to say no one should be allowed to use tables or computers because some people using them get bent.

Again arguing by appeal to popularity, against restrictions to overhead envirnments is appealling to an common, but flawed fallacy to 'make' the argument. People do lots of stupid things mostly without consequence. The lack of direct cause and effect is no argument at all against any rule.

---------- Post added July 7th, 2014 at 01:11 AM ----------

This thread should probably should be moved to the Tec forum.

Tech Divers already know the rules, have the training, and gear readiness. Nothing applies to them in terms of "don't go there"*. The tangent on the last few pages comes from the fact that the entire thread was started by someone without tech training asking about etiquette on doing tech dives.

 

[Hawkwood]

PADI Instructor Manual says in General Standards: Do not conduct open water dives and Discover Scuba Diving experience dives in caves, caverns, under ice or in any situation where direct vertical access to the surface is not possible.

....

You left out this part:

Exceptions: Ice, Cavern or Wreck Diver Specialty courses, and special orientation dives for certified divers, and some TecRec dives, as specified.

 

[boulderjohn]

The standard cited is for instructional dives, not for dives undertaken by certified divers outside of an instructional setting.

 

[BDSC]

PADI has now accepted a Distinctive Specialty called Understanding Overhead Environments. It is almost entirely an academic session only, with only one optional pool session to introduce non-silting kicks, and no OW dive. The course explains different kinds of overhead environments and details the hidden dangers of the more challenging ones to show why untrained divers should avoid them without appropriate training.

On the other hand, in a very significant change in policy, it also accepts that some overhead environments can be dived safely without such training. It shows why some simple swim throughs and small, prepared wrecks are fine to explore without that training (as is done thousands of times a day throughout the world), and then goes into the characteristics of more complex swim throughs, wrecks, and other environments that require increasingly greater skill and training. The idea of that is to allow the divers to understand that just because they can penetrate most of the swim throughs in Cozumel or the simple wrecks in south Florida without a problem, that does not mean they will be safe in more complex environments.

many thousands of OW divers go into overhead environments every year. It is a rare first dive in Cozumel that does not include swim throughs. Want to dive in South Florida? Just about every first dive of a boat trip goes to a wreck, and everyone penetrates. What percentage of them have taken a cavern diving course? I am sure it rounds off to zero..... As is noted above, many thousands of divers enter overheads without any training now. They have no guidance to help them make the decision on whether it is safe to do it. The entire purpose of the class is to give them that guidance, which they are not getting anywhere else

I like the move PADI is making here. I have said for years that to dive or penetrate certain types of wrecks, no real wreck cert is needed. Common sense and good basic scuba skills can safely allow you to dive these wrecks. A lot of the wrecks you find in Caribbean that were sunk for diving have had access to areas that may get you lost closed off so you can't even get into those areas. Some you don't even need a light to see because there is so much lights coming in from all the large openings. I think the course you mentioned could give a diver a good basic understanding of different types of wrecks and when it may be appropriate to seek more training before entering such wrecks and why.

Some folks would have you believe that penetrating ANY wreck is dangerous and a death trap waiting to happen without having taken a wreck course but that's not realistic.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Some folks would have you believe that penetrating ANY wreck is dangerous and a death trap waiting to happen without having taken a wreck course but that's not realistic.

On the one hand, I see your point. On the other ... how would a diver know which is which? And I think that's why a general rule to stay out of wrecks unless you know what you're doing applies. Things look very simple and straightforward ... until they're not. And often by then it's too late to do anything about it except search for a way out until you either get lucky or run out of air ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[BDSC]

On the one hand, I see your point. On the other ... how would a diver know which is which? ... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Take the PADI course!!!!!!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Take the PADI course!!!!!!

I was trying to be more generic ... PADI isn't the only agency out there.

But would you care to address my question? How would a diver identify which wreck is "OK" for him or her to penetrate without training?

What criteria do you use?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

As I mentioned, penetration into wrecks, swim throughs, lava tubes, etc. is very common. The overhead sections of some wrecks is no more dangerous than the simple arch mentioned previously--you would be in and out in seconds. Many dive operations advertise these sites. Check out the published schedules for any of the dive operations in the south Florida area and see how many of them advertise trips to wrecks for OW divers. (Hint: all of them do it.) It is not just the swim throughs in Cozumel or the wrecks of South Florida. Think of pretty much the entire eastern U.S. seaboard. Think of Truk Lagoon. Think of Southern California, especially the San Diego area. How about the lava tubes so popular in places like Maui? These sites exist in abundance around the world, and OW divers make vacation plans to visit them specifically. To pretend that there is a hard and fast rule prohibiting this, a rule that is being generally obeyed by the diving community, is simply to deny reality.

But there may be a legal issue. What if a diver were to have an accident on a site that was part of a dive operation's regular schedule? What if the operation were sued as a result? In the lawsuit, the plaintiff would try to prove that the operation was violating existing safety standards, and the defense would try to prove that their practice was safe. If nothing else, the existence of an approved course that outlines the different kinds of overheads with the announced purpose of helping the diver decide whether his or her skill level and training was appropriate for that site would show that there is no clear prohibition and shift the burden of making that decision to penetrate to the diver.

---------- Post added July 7th, 2014 at 08:11 AM ----------

I was trying to be more generic ... PADI isn't the only agency out there.

But would you care to address my question? How would a diver identify which wreck is "OK" for him or her to penetrate without training?

What criteria do you use?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

He did answer your question, Bob. The course does not say "take a wild guess." It describes the criteria for different levels of difficulty. One issue to consider when making a decision is the degree to which you know what you will encounter. If you don't know what you are going to find, you can't assume it is going to be hunky dory.

Go to the web sites of the south Florida operators and you will find that many sites have detailed descriptions of the wrecks they visit, with indications of the level of diving difficulty of each. That's a good start for a site you don't know.

 

[BDSC]

I was trying to be more generic ... PADI isn't the only agency out there.

But would you care to address my question? How would a diver identify which wreck is "OK" for him or her to penetrate without training?

What criteria do you use?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

For me, I let common sense rule my decisions when I started to penetrate wrecks. If I was on the outside of a wreck and could easily see my way through I had no problem going in and swimming through. Also, most of the time you're going to be on a boat with a dive operation when you go. I know when we have visited the Tibbets wreck on Cayman Brac, the DM will give a briefing on the wreck and will identify certain areas of the wreck that have wide openings and would make a good place to enter and look around and they offer to lead you through such areas if you would like for them to.

I'd say use the same criteria, good judgement and the dive briefing, to decide if you want to do a swim through or not.

 

[mathauck0814]

As I mentioned, penetration into wrecks, swim throughs, lava tubes, etc. is very common. The overhead sections of some wrecks is no more dangerous than the simple arch mentioned previously--you would be in and out in seconds. Many dive operations advertise these sites. Check out the published schedules for any of the dive operations in the south Florida area and see how many of them advertise trips to wrecks for OW divers. (Hint: all of them do it.) It is not just the swim throughs in Cozumel or the wrecks of South Florida. Think of pretty much the entire eastern U.S. seaboard. Think of Truk Lagoon. Think of Southern California, especially the San Diego area. How about the lava tubes so popular in places like Maui? These sites exist in abundance around the world, and OW divers make vacation plans to visit them specifically. To pretend that there is a hard and fast rule prohibiting this, a rule that is being generally obeyed by the diving community, is simply to deny reality.

But there may be a legal issue. What if a diver were to have an accident on a site that was part of a dive operation's regular schedule? What if the operation were sued as a result? In the lawsuit, the plaintiff would try to prove that the operation was violating existing safety standards, and the defense would try to prove that their practice was safe. If nothing else, the existence of an approved course that outlines the different kinds of overheads with the announced purpose of helping the diver decide whether his or her skill level and training was appropriate for that site would show that there is no clear prohibition and shift the burden of making that decision to penetrate to the diver.

Most of our wreck sites are the "swim around" vs the "swim inside" types, but for the Yukon it's pretty explicit that divers not go into the wreck unless properly trained.

For legality - Waivers hold in California (which shocks me to this day). Put it in the waiver and put it in the dive briefing that you're in charge of you and to dive within the limits of your training. Crew doesn't get in the water unless explicitly hired to do so; so what happens on the bottom is largely out of the crews' control. Sure, you can get sued; but there's not a great chance for the plaintiff to win that suit. (Still sucks to have to defend yourself though)