Don't do dives that you don't understand - and acknowledge there is plenty you won't understand. . . . Dive conservatively. If unsure, don't do it. . . . Plan your dives properly - NDL, gas and all applicable contingencies (doing so will eliminate most deep diving ideas)
NWGratefulDiver:
the basis upon which safe diving is founded is good decision-making. The genesis of many ... if not most ... diving accidents can be traced back to decisions that were made before the divers ever got in the water. . . . They need the ability to answer the following questions ...
- Am I fit to do this dive?
- Do I have the proper equipment?
- Do I have appropriate breathing gas?
"Do I have enough gas?"
"What would I do if I had a freeflow or other failure that caused me to lose gas?"
I have to wonder if these thoughful comments reflect the kind of 'adult' discussion that Halemano was trying to stimulate in another thread that was quickly closed (' there is no such way to make this diving safe, and no more point in discussing unsafe practices '). Maybe not, maybe there was some agenda in his OP that I didn't see, etc. But, I have been disappointed in several recent threads where a question about deep, deep / air, or deep / air / 'bounce' diving has generated an immediate, emotional / visceral reaction somewhat akin to 'The question is stupid, and you must be stupid for even asking it.' I appreciate Andy and Bob taking a somewhat different apprao0ch and basically saying, 'For any dive, good decision-making is critical, and here are some of the questions / issues that should be addresed as part of good decision making'. My experience with four children (the youngest of which nominally concluded her 'teenage' years with a birthday two weeks ago) is that the surest way to get a teenager to do something that you don't think they should do is to tell them, 'That is stupid.' or 'You would be stupid to do that'. And, I made that mistake more than a few times. What worked better was to take the approach, 'Interesting question. If I was thinking about doing that, here are the questions I would ask and answer first first', or something to that effect - not foolproof, but a better way to get them to ask more questions (before heading off to do something I considered to be really stupid.
).
So, I compliment Andy and Bob, irrespective of what may have been their initial subjective reaction to the OP, for approaching the issue from a more thoughtful perspective. Yes, this is an Internet forum, and people are free to respond to posts any way (within certain limits) they want, and saying that something is 'stupid' is part of that freedom. But, that response shuts off discussion, and closing threads does the same thing (and, yes, I do understand - and don't disagree with - all the rationale about not promoting unsafe practices, blah, blah, blah). I would rather see us say, 'Personally, I think [
whatever behavior is under discussion] is potentially unwise / unsafe / ill-advised, because it violates fundamental practices of good decision-making, such as . . .' than to simply dismiss it as stupid, no matter how tempting that might be, or to simply say 'get more training', without saying what or why.